Random Politics & Religion #00

Every educator I've spoken to about Common Core supports it. I'm curious what people's objections are.

People don't understand what number sense is, and that frightens them.

I'm sure there are a fair number of people who dislike it because they don't understand or because they don't like the government getting involved with the BS they want to teach their special little snowflakes, but there have to be legitimate concerns as well.

My coworker hates common core with a passion because its the way the teachers/school staff explain how they are teaching his kid.

That and the use of blocks in the class room. From what he's told me and some of the work his son brings when he comes to the office its like hrrrgghhh. The math isn't hard but it looks to be more complicated than what it is. I think its a combination of that and some teacher's telling students that the answer is wrong because the student didn't solve the problem like they were taught even though it was the right answer.

I highly doubt Jeb would be nominated.

I predict that the 2016 Republican nominee will be determined in 2015, well early in this election cycle, as to give the Republicans a chance to attack the democrat/liberal nominee and paint him/her as Obama 2.0.

One of the reasons why Romney lost was because he was fighting two actual campaigns, the Republican nomination and the actual Presidential campaign. Whatever the other Republicans attacked Romney with, pretty much gave Obama a free attack. I believe the RNC saw that and will try to limit the actual nominees down to just a very few this time around.

As a self-proclaimed Libertarian, shouldn't you take issue with the U.S. government trying to take control of the education system?

THHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSS.

I know parents who have taught their kids math ahead of the curve and it apparently is just the worst thing ever that a child can do regular old math.

Maybe it's because I grew up in a district that let teachers teach to their strengths to actually help kids learn, but the bottom line is that K-12 isn't just about learning a few standards. It's about learning how to learn and preparing kids for the next step, whether that's a job, college, trade school, whatever.

Setting standards means teaching kids to a benchmark so that the district "keeps up with the right numbers". Setting arbitrary goals is a bunch of crap. Not all children learn at the same rate or in the same way.

Some kids are just dumb.

Common core is just a fancier version of No Child Left Behind, and both are about setting standards and making both students and teachers conform to them. If you want everyone to be average, or if you're an average teacher that just wants to get through the day and not put in the extra effort for your kids, then sure. I guess Common Core is great.

But it severely hampers pedagogy in its purest form, and it's the kind of thing that chokes the life and creativity out of learning and makes kids resent the process. Instead of looking upon the learning process as a valuable tool to carry with them throughout life, they view it as just another goal. Another benchmark to be checked off and put behind them in the name of reaching the next goal.

And that's a very dull, uninspired way to go through life.

Legitimate concerns would be: the teachers don't understand HOW to teach number sense (this is an individual concern and has always been the case, with or without "common core") or the curriculum is flawed. Number sense in of itself is a strength. Number sense is essentially a rudimentary command of numbers that most people lack. Everyone knows the people that need to use their phone to calculate the tip, or that double the tax because it's approximately the correct amount. Number sense allows people to chunk more complex numbers into more manageable terms.

If that's what they were doing, I'd have a problem with it. That's not what they're doing, they're requiring a standard practice for an education system that is failing unilaterally. The last blanket education initiative "no child left behind" was more of a takeover than common core, and it didn't illicit any rabble from libertarians either.

aaaaand this is why my child won't go to public school, at least I'm working at avoiding it.

My inner one had an issue with it, but it was just the many things of Bush, I mean he was a C average student... Guess that's what happens when your daddy buys you everything, you get to then ruin.

And if they're smart they'll keep social issue throwbacks like Santorum as far from public sight and sound as possible.

Your issue is with the system more than this type of math, then. Granted, I'd also take issue if a teacher told my student they were wrong even though they achieved the correct answer. The acceptable way to go about it is to tell them that it's correct, but we're trying to solve the problem in a different way.

Oh, I readily admit that. I'm not overly familiar with the way they're teaching the math aspects in general, but I don't have kids and I can do basic arithmetic and more in my head already, I've not had reason to go chasing it down.

I just dislike the entire system of setting standards so the kids that were going to fall behind anyhow still do so and the teachers and school districts get punished for it, as do the brighter children who have their own creativity and desire for learning snuffed out because they've got to go at the pace the standards tell them to go.

I disagree with the direct connection between funding and test scores, for sure. I just don't think dropping standards or eliminating them because some kids won't meet them is a pretty detrimental practice for education in general.

Oh that's nothing new, hell the constant thing I remember from k-12 was being constantly told to not go ahead and stay with the rest of the class.

"lower the standard"

to be fair, gifted children aren't the norm, and some areas do try to make efforts to recognize them and help them excel, but from what I remember (if they still do this) they're labeled as trouble children because they act out because they're *** bored and then don't give a ***.

My friend B is one of the smartest people I know, didn't finish high school. (To be fair, he later went and got his GED but still).

I'm okay with some level of standards, but not so rigidly defined that teachers don't have the freedom to develop their own curriculum and lesson plans as it applies to their individual situations.

Kids in the inner city are going to be very different from affluent kids in the suburbs, who are in turn going to be a world apart from kids in rural areas.

Common Core supposedly has this flexibility, but that's a smokescreen from what I've heard. I remember listening to a very long discussion about it on NPR a few years back. It didn't seem like an effective way to teach, at least from my point of view.

I get the feeling that my public school education was very, very different from a lot of the rest of the country's.

This wasn't the way of it for me at all, and I attended a few different districts whilst growing up.

One of the key things that we need to fix, whether through common core or any other initiative, is the vast variance in curriculum and pacing between school districts. It's been a very large problem for decades, military kids will attest to that.

Probably, but then again I've attended 4~ school systems that I can remember, none of them great.

common core is illegal in texas iirc but this school i know is teaching something and when they cite the website... it says on the front page that the techniques are based on common core

It's like being "based on a true story".

true story man
this is what they're teaching the kid
mathlearningcenter

If you want to teach number sense, then you need to move away from grading processes(instead results), move away from exact answers (give some tolerance), and decrease the allocated time per problem.
Exactitude defeats the entire concept of numbers sense.

because of this "new" math system I have encountered people convinced that 2+2=5

I'd skip the '5' block, personally.

Isn't this more or less how most people do simple math in their head? Not exactly this, but close.

For instance, say something cost $3.45 and you hand them 5 dollars. Most people(who can numbers goodly) would realize that you need 55 cents to reach the next dollar, then 1 dollar to reach 5 dollars. It's more or less the same thing.

Actually, it's no it's not. This is just dumb now that I take a second look at it.

No, it's dumb. I'm all for opening people to multiple ways to solve problems, I mean who among us doesn't have their own personal customized method for doing basic math?

However some methods are easier than others, and in the end students should be judged on if they can solve the problem not necessarily on how many ways they could solve it.

My nephew is in 4th grade, I haven't seen any of that ***.

I've seen some other weird ***, but nothing too out there.

I've seen many friends on Facebook talking about their kids math classes being really *** up and reporting the "wrong because you got the right answer with the wrong technique" issue several times.

Oh that's been an issue for years though.

Depending on the teacher, of course.