OverVolt
Lifer
- Aug 31, 2002
- 14,278
- 89
- 91
This might blow your mind, but most 4th grade math teachers are not exactly math people or else they'd have been engineers. So teaching the rote memorization way and letting students learn shortcuts on their own works here, instead of this Japanese cooperative crap. Its a totally different culture over there you can't just regulate good teachers into existence. Odds are you went to private school like me anyway which wasn't beholden to all this crap and just went ahead and taught good math skills.Jesus fuck, you're stupid.
8+5 is still 13 the "Common Core way." They just teach you different ways to get there.
I don't know where you're getting this 8 + 5 = 10 bullshit, but I've seen this picture making the rounds: http://youngcons.com/this-kid-sticks-it-to-common-core-big-time-when-he-answered-this-math-problem/
Children are taught that when you're adding 8 + 5, you can break it down to 8 + 2 = 10, and 10 + 3 = 13 (and obviously, 2 + 3 = 5). There are good reasons for doing this. 1. We have an easier time doing math with round numbers. 2. It demonstrates the relationship between different place values of numbers.
The old way of teaching math was rote memorization and recitation of procedures. The new way teaches kids to understand what's happening behind the scenes before teaching the most efficient way to do mathematical operations. These kids aren't going to do 8+5 this way for the rest of their life, they're being taught this way so they understand why 8+5=13.
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard" said every Teabagger everywhere.
Do this in your head: 142 - 57
Did you:
1. "Borrow" 1 from the 4 in 142, then subtract 7 from 12 and 5 from 13, placing the first result in the ones place and the second result in the tens place.
2. Add 42 + 43
3. 100 - (57 - 42)
If you picked 1, congratulations! You learned math exactly the way it has been taught for decades. It's kind of a stupid way to do math when you look at it though, isn't it?
If you picked 2, you did it the Common Core way. You probably weren't taught to do it that way, you just figured it out and realized how much easier it is than option 1.
If you picked 3, you've demonstrated an understanding of numbers that the Common Core tries to teach.
Math has always come easy to me. When I see people complaining about Common Core math on the Internet, it's usually stupid people following memorized procedures who have no understanding of math. I see the way math is being taught, and it's the way I've always understood math without being taught it. If these methods help kids understand math half as well as I did, they'll be kicking ass when they get to high school.
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