Peaks and hills for elapsed time

[UglyCasanova]

I have a third grade daughter and they are studying how to calculate elapsed time using a method called peaks and hills. This is such a stupid way to do things!

Also they don't let them multiply by putting the numbers on top of each other, they have to break apart the numbers into smaller multiplication problems and add them.

I'm not some anti-common core zealot and I'm all for pushing the kids harder so sure raise standards, but I think they are just changing some shit for the sake of changing it.

 

[SKORPI0]

part 1 of 5.

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/sites/default/files/posts/u135/files/elapsedmountain.pdf

 

[Pulsar]

The point of this in common core is to teach the way that a lot of people do math in their head. If we're standing at a cash register and I buy 12 of something worth $2.50, then I do the math like this in my head:

10 of 2.50 is 25.
2 of 2.50 is 5.

Total is 30.

They are trying dozens of different ways to teach this. Boxes you need to fill out, peaks and hills, and others too. The problem is that WE don't know how to help the kids. So we think it's stupid. Some of it is stupid, because they haven't commonized. So we don't know how to do it using their method, and we can't find out how to do it.

Even worse is a lot of these assholes don't even have books anymore. And in some cases the books they do have are so shitty (like my kid's math book) that they don't have examples. Just remember one thing. It's rarely up to the teacher. Talk to the administrators.

 

[NesuD]

The point of this in common core is to teach the way that a lot of people do math in their head. If we're standing at a cash register and I buy 12 of something worth $2.50, then I do the math like this in my head:

10 of 2.50 is 25.
2 of 2.50 is 5.

Total is 30.

They are trying dozens of different ways to teach this. Boxes you need to fill out, peaks and hills, and others too. The problem is that WE don't know how to help the kids. So we think it's stupid. Some of it is stupid, because they haven't commonized. So we don't know how to do it using their method, and we can't find out how to do it.

Even worse is a lot of these assholes don't even have books anymore. And in some cases the books they do have are so shitty (like my kid's math book) that they don't have examples. Just remember one thing. It's rarely up to the teacher. Talk to the administrators.

I was never taught to calculate this way. I just do it naturally. It actually needs to be taught?

 

[dullard]

I was never taught to calculate this way. I just do it naturally. It actually needs to be taught?

The whole point of common core is to align the teaching with what most people do naturally. Instead of doing one thing naturally and then having to learn a whole different method in school there will be just one method. The teaching is thus reinforcing the natural methods and making it stronger/faster/fewer errors for the student. Having one good method in the mind is better than two methods (a mental way and a pen/paper way). Then the teacher can spend more time on new topics that couldn't be covered when we were young due to time limitations.

I'm not some anti-common core zealot and I'm all for pushing the kids harder so sure raise standards, but I think they are just changing some shit for the sake of changing it.

For the student, this isn't a change. For the parent, it is extremely frustrating since parents don't know what the students are doing or how to help. But, try multiplying 67 * 53 with your method. You will end up breaking it down into smaller multiplications and additions. Common core breaks it down into smaller multiplications and additions, just in a different order.

 

[Ruptga]

^^What dullard said.

My dad taught me a lot of what we now know as common core about 20 years ago, and it beat the shit out of what I was being taught in school. Of course I was already starting to figure it out for myself, but isn't the point of teachers to, uh, teach? Showing someone one way and expecting them to figure out the (completely different) right way on their own isn't teaching, it's hazing.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

The whole point of common core is to align the teaching with what most people do naturally. Instead of doing one thing naturally and then having to learn a whole different method in school there will be just one method. The teaching is thus reinforcing the natural methods and making it stronger/faster/fewer errors for the student. Having one good method in the mind is better than two methods (a mental way and a pen/paper way). Then the teacher can spend more time on new topics that couldn't be covered when we were young due to time limitations.

For the student, this isn't a change. For the parent, it is extremely frustrating since parents don't know what the students are doing or how to help. But, try multiplying 67 * 53 with your method. You will end up breaking it down into smaller multiplications and additions. Common core breaks it down into smaller multiplications and additions, just in a different order.

I'd be worried that they are presenting two ways of doing things though, this weird hills/valleys/rocks thing and then what actually gets worked out in their head may very well be two different things. It's just replacing one method with another. I would be just as exasperated learning this method in school as I was with all the myriad methods I was taught already. I eventually figured out how to work it out in my head easier, at which point i just got dinged for 'not showing my work'.

 

[Linflas]

Why is it I suspect that in places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea they teach math the way math traditionally has been taught. Those places are among the top 10 in math and science.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Why is it I suspect that in places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea they teach math the way math traditionally has been taught. Those places are among the top 10 in math and science.

Eh... America didn't become 'not so stellar' in the k-12 education realm overnight. We've been teaching ye olden waye since everyone here was kids as well and we've always sucked on the world stage, so I wouldn't attribute it to how we teach maths.

 

[Linflas]

Eh... America didn't become 'not so stellar' in the k-12 education realm overnight. We've been teaching ye olden waye since everyone here was kids as well and we've always sucked on the world stage, so I wouldn't attribute it to how we teach maths.

I only know what I have observed over my lifetime and I can tell you that my father received a better basic education in a rural Eastern Shore schools in the 1930's, my mother received a better basic education in rural West Virginia in the 1930's than I received in Alexandria City and Fairfax County Public schools in the 1960's and early 1970's and in turn I received a better education than what I observe today in the middle school I work in.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I only know what I have observed over my lifetime and I can tell you that my father received a better basic education in a rural Eastern Shore schools in the 1930's, my mother received a better basic education in rural West Virginia in the 1930's than I received in Alexandria City and Fairfax County Public schools in the 1960's and early 1970's and in turn I received a better education than what I observe today in the middle school I work in.

Fair enough, but new-age teaching might not be entirely to blame for that. My education in Tx in the 80's/90's was pretty shitty in retrospect, luckily I got the internet early so I could go back and learn all the important stuff (to me) that was glossed over in school.

Too many hands in the pot? Terrible policies? Poor funding/care from the top? Who knows.

 

[Linflas]

Fair enough, but new-age teaching might not be entirely to blame for that. My education in Tx in the 80's/90's was pretty shitty in retrospect, luckily I got the internet early so I could go back and learn all the important stuff (to me) that was glossed over in school.

Too many hands in the pot? Terrible policies? Poor funding/care from the top? Who knows.

Personally I think it all goes back to parents and societal expectations. One thing that was not much different between my parents day in school and my day in school is what was expected of the schools. They were not expected to act as daycare centers and default parents from the moment a kid left the house until the kid returns home. Further they were not expected to monitor what a kid did during non-school hours. They acted in loco parentis only while the student was on school property. For example if 2 kids got into a fight in a park next to the school that was a problem for the parents and police to deal with, not the school. If kids left the school and went the the mall next door and started trouble again it was an issue for the mall/parents/police to deal with. When I received a bad grade it was assumed by my parents that it was my fault, not the teachers fault. When I was disciplined in school there was not a requirement to document everything like it was going to be used as evidence in court which is routinely done in schools today. A class of 30 students was not allowed to be disrupted by the actions of a few, the habitually disruptive would be removed, the parents called and if the issue could not eventually be resolved the student would be expelled Since the state required schooling until age 15 or 16 back then the parents would end up having to pay for the child to attend school which seemed to work as an incentive for the parents to deal with the issues early on.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Personally I think it all goes back to parents and societal expectations. One thing that was not much different between my parents day in school and my day in school is what was expected of the schools. They were not expected to act as daycare centers and default parents from the moment a kid left the house until the kid returns home. Further they were not expected to monitor what a kid did during non-school hours. They acted in loco parentis only while the student was on school property. For example if 2 kids got into a fight in a park next to the school that was a problem for the parents and police to deal with, not the school. If kids left the school and went the the mall next door and started trouble again it was an issue for the mall/parents/police to deal with. When I received a bad grade it was assumed by my parents that it was my fault, not the teachers fault. When I was disciplined in school there was not a requirement to document everything like it was going to be used as evidence in court which is routinely done in schools today. A class of 30 students was not allowed to be disrupted by the actions of a few, the habitually disruptive would be removed, the parents called and if the issue could not eventually be resolved the student would be expelled Since the state required schooling until age 15 or 16 back then the parents would end up having to pay for the child to attend school which seemed to work as an incentive for the parents to deal with the issues early on.

I agree with you there. I try not to generalize, but there are a lot of helicopter parents, a lot of 'special snowflake' children, etc which seemingly the teachers/administration/school system as a whole has to cater to or risk.. something? I guess? For all I know nowadays a district head can get fired for offending a parent, hence the overreactions we tend to see.

I'd like to feel like I would be a different parent, inherently trust that the school is doing right and that if my little spawn was getting bad grades/getting into trouble, it might just be his (and by virtue, my) fault, and not theirs. I see my sister-in-law's kids though and I just see them as a trainwreck-in-the-making. At .. 5? 7? and 9? they have *very* high opinions of themselves and what they are owed. I try to take them down a notch each Christmas, but it only comes around once a year