IGX

Most of the problems I see people posting on fb are not that hard. Maybe the problem is that most of the US is functionally retarded.

syaigh wrote:Most of the problems I see people posting on fb are not that hard. Maybe the problem is that most of the US is functionally retarded.

I believe the proper term is "highly functional"

syaigh wrote:Most of the problems I see people posting on fb are not that hard. Maybe the problem is that most of the US is functionally retarded.

The problem is with Satan-worshipping scientists telling children that dinosaurs weren't all killed in the flood for being gay.

syaigh wrote:Most of the problems I see people posting on fb are not that hard. Maybe the problem is that most of the US is functionally retarded.

I saw that recent video. Check this out-

At first I was irritated with the hippie chick teacher and her soft, calming NPR voice. And I cast dispersions.

Then I performed the computation. And here's what happened:

It took a minute to make sense.

I started using the method.

I started making the computations faster each time I tried a new problem.

That's interesting...

I thought all th dinosaurs died from the AIDS.

syaigh wrote:I thought all th dinosaurs died from the AIDS.

Yes...gayness

By the way, heard a great definition of the difference between training and education. Basically, ask yourself how you'd feel if your son or daughter came home from school and told you they're starting sex training next week.

nafod wrote:By the way, heard a great definition of the difference between training and education. Basically, ask yourself how you'd feel if your son or daughter came home from school and told you they're starting sex training next week.

i don't think of you as naive, but do you believe that just because they call it education the kids aren't actually training?

syaigh wrote:Most of the problems I see people posting on fb are not that hard. Maybe the problem is that most of the US is functionally retarded.

Saying that kids should learn the way you did because you aren't able to figure out their homework is a special kind of logic.

Phaedrus wrote: Saying that kids should learn the way you did because you aren't able to figure out their homework is a special kind of logic.

Children have been taught how to communicate in their language and cipher since the dawn of civilization.

Somehow our pointy headed Ed.D's manage to come up with the new "one true way" of educating our young every decade or so. And, we always stay dumber than some obscure 2nd world country.

I smell an expensive make work program for bureaucrats instead of better outcomes for children.

Phaedrus wrote:Saying that kids should learn the way you did because you aren't able to figure out their homework is a special kind of logic.

Yeah. Because why should parents be able to help their kids with their homework? Or get their kids to school? Or feed them breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Or teach them morality?
Or do anything that the State is doing such a stellar job on?

Parents get out of the way! Uncle Sugar can do a better job!!!

There's a guy who teaches average kids long numbers like 27349623 times 7095646823 in their heads in seconds. He's called the Human Calculator and it starts with factoring out tens and going from there. The method is like what's demonstrated here. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.
I learned that from his video and could do it . But then came the calculators and the skill waned away.

If people were serious about education reform, we would see an end to teacher tenure and colleges of education would be razed.

johno wrote:

Phaedrus wrote:Saying that kids should learn the way you did because you aren't able to figure out their homework is a special kind of logic.

Yeah. Because why should parents be able to help their kids with their homework? Or get their kids to school? Or feed them breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Or teach them morality?
Or do anything that the State is doing such a stellar job on?

Parents get out of the way! Uncle Sugar can do a better job!!!

Do you even read the crap you post?

syaigh wrote:Most of the problems I see people posting on fb are not that hard. Maybe the problem is that most of the US is functionally retarded.

In all seriousness, I agree.
When I was 20 years old I applied to a job and was given a test than included remedial math problems. I was hired on the spot because, in their words, "no one has ever answered all the questions correctly." The questions were the most basic of math, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and a couple of fraction question and everyone who has had any schooling should be able to answer them. In my first college English class we exchanged and edited our peer's papers. I learned that all but a couple of people in the class were functionally illiterate. This is not an exaggeration.

If you want to look further into this subject I recommend reading or listening to John Taylor Gatto and/or researching the Prussian education model. The purpose of public schooling isn't to educate. It is to socialize, prolong adolescence and learn obedience to and dependence on authority. This is one reason why the elite send their children to private and highly expensive schools. It is also one reason why these same children often end up in high positions in life. They prefer their children not be a part of the slave class. I don't blame them. Search youtube for "John Taylor Gatto The Elite Private Boarding Schools" for more information if you are so inclined.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeEWPbTad_Q[/youtube]

Pinky wrote:If people were serious about education reform, we would see an end to teacher tenure and colleges of education would be razed.

In a move rarely seen in academia, Wayne State University is trying to fire multiple faculty members depicted as abusing their tenure by doing as little work as possible.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/l ... /99758592/
Of coarse, we all know that WSU won't win.

I love math

DrDonkeyLove wrote:I smell an expensive make work program for bureaucrats instead of better outcomes for children.

My son is in second grade. At back-to-school night this year and last year, they did a presentation on "how we are going to teach math to your kids this year". There were also "math nights" in the first half of the school year (maybe first quarter) where parents came in and listened to presentations the math teachers did, with sample problems and "how to help your kid with math", including some games to play at home etc. The curriculum is straight Common Core – or, "aligned with the Common Core State Standards Initiative," as the verbiage has it.

I have been impressed. The order that they're teaching stuff in makes a ton of sense: "anchoring to tens" when adding/subtracting; how to "decompose" a number by its place values, eg 372 = 3 hundreds + 7 tens + 2 ones; etc. You can see how (a) it makes a lot of arithmetic operations easier, and (b) it will tie together with other math topics in later grades. My son is very confident about math: his classmates seem to be too. The other day we were driving somewhere, and I was helping him practice his "math facts", in this case his times table for nines: what is 2x9, 3x9, 36/9, etc. He knew most of them right off, but when I asked him "what is 8x9" he blanked. He said "Daddy don't tell me!" We drove a mile or so. Then he says "72?" I said yeah, he said "Daddy, here's how I did it." Then he told me that he knew 10x9 is 90, and he knew 2x9 is 18, so he subtracted 18 from 90.

What he described to me is the Distributive Property: 8*9=(10-2)*9=10*9 - 2*9.
I don't think I learned that until Algebra (8th grade?). He doesn't know the name of that property (I don't think); but he knows the fuck out of what to use it for and how to use it. That was impressive to me – real, solid mathematics intuition – but it was just the most recent example of something impressing me about how they're teaching him math. The curriculum just seems to makes sense, and to work.

My son's math teacher – they have different teachers for math/science and for Language Arts / Social Studies) – his teacher this year (2nd grade) is a fresh faced young thing who seems like she's still idealistic, hasn't had time to get beaten down by the system yet. His teacher last year (1st grade) was an experienced veteran, who conveyed a completely different impression: had seen at all and knew what worked and didn't. Both reassuring in a different way: both 100% bought in to this curriculum.

The one thing, and the teachers have emphasized this, is that you MUST do the basic drilling. They call them "math facts": times tables this year, and add/subtract facts last year. Last year it was add/subtract by two, then by three, then by four, etc. This year times tables by two, by five, etc. When they pass a test on that level, they move on to the next. Just last week my son passed 9s; this week he's working on 4s. The basic drilling kind of makes the engine go: they need the "fluency" of just knowing those off the top of their heads, for the other methods to work. One cool thing, they do the add and subtract ones together, teaching how the operations are linked. This year they're doing the multiple/divide facts together, again teaching the link.

So: based on my experience, I think I am impressed with the Common Core.

I don't have kids, or a degree, or much of a dog in this fight. But about 12 or 13 years ago, I worked at a restaurant in the Hamptons that brought in some kids from Romania to bus tables. Two of them scored a job teaching tennis to kids at a country club. That lead one of them to tutoring a kid in math.
When he saw the math that was being taught to 14 year olds in America, he laughed his ass off.
He was from fucking Romania.

JimZipCode wrote: My son is in second grade. At back-to-school night this year and last year, they did a presentation on "how we are going to teach math to your kids this year". There were also "math nights" in the first half of the school year (maybe first quarter) where parents came in and listened to presentations the math teachers did, with sample problems and "how to help your kid with math", including some games to play at home etc. The curriculum is straight Common Core – or, "aligned with the Common Core State Standards Initiative," as the verbiage has it.

I have been impressed. The order that they're teaching stuff in makes a ton of sense: "anchoring to tens" when adding/subtracting; how to "decompose" a number by its place values, eg 372 = 3 hundreds + 7 tens + 2 ones; etc. You can see how (a) it makes a lot of arithmetic operations easier, and (b) it will tie together with other math topics in later grades. My son is very confident about math: his classmates seem to be too. The other day we were driving somewhere, and I was helping him practice his "math facts", in this case his times table for nines: what is 2x9, 3x9, 36/9, etc. He knew most of them right off, but when I asked him "what is 8x9" he blanked. He said "Daddy don't tell me!" We drove a mile or so. Then he says "72?" I said yeah, he said "Daddy, here's how I did it." Then he told me that he knew 10x9 is 90, and he knew 2x9 is 18, so he subtracted 18 from 90.

What he described to me is the Distributive Property: 8*9=(10-2)*9=10*9 - 2*9.
I don't think I learned that until Algebra (8th grade?). He doesn't know the name of that property (I don't think); but he knows the fuck out of what to use it for and how to use it. That was impressive to me – real, solid mathematics intuition – but it was just the most recent example of something impressing me about how they're teaching him math. The curriculum just seems to makes sense, and to work.

Same here.

The Ginger Beard Man wrote:I don't have kids, or a degree, or much of a dog in this fight. But about 12 or 13 years ago, I worked at a restaurant in the Hamptons that brought in some kids from Romania to bus tables. Two of them scored a job teaching tennis to kids at a country club. That lead one of them to tutoring a kid in math.
When he saw the math that was being taught to 14 year olds in America, he laughed his ass off.
He was from fucking Romania.

FUCKING ROMANIA?!?

OMG!

I CAN'T EVEN

Lines up well with this article from a year or so ago.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... on/426855/


I'd always thought it interesting that in Chinese the number 37 is said three tens seven ones. Place value is built into the language. Think it was in Gladwell's Outliers. Having briefly taught fourth grade, place value is tough to teach. Especially when you're in Teach for America and don't really know what you're doing.

Turdacious wrote:

Pinky wrote:If people were serious about education reform, we would see an end to teacher tenure and colleges of education would be razed.

In a move rarely seen in academia, Wayne State University is trying to fire multiple faculty members depicted as abusing their tenure by doing as little work as possible.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/l ... /99758592/
Of coarse, we all know that WSU won't win.

University tenure systems should be reformed, but they are less in need of reform than the tenure systems for public school teachers. There is simply no justification for granting school teachers a job for life, regardless of performance, simply because they didn't quit in their first two years on the job.

But universities will reform long before public schools do because university faculty haven't organized into a lobbying group that buys and sells politicians.

Oh, I meant to add: they send math worksheets home as homework, one "packet" a week of 2 or 3 worksheets. A lot of the homework questions are of the type, "use the Whatchamacallit Method to solve..." whatever. So the exercise isn't just to get an answer, but to use some particular method to show the answer. This makes sense to me. To make a Judo analogy: if we are working on ogoshi in class, and I throw my partner some other way; well it's nice that I got my partner down, but I can't be said to have done the assignment. I didn't show my teacher what we're supposed to be working on. Same thing with the math homework.

A lot of the complaints I see about Common Core on the internet & Facebook seem to fall into the category: "my kid got the right answer, but she didn't do it the way the teacher wanted her to, so fuck that teacher and fuck Common Core." I don't in general agree with that complaint category. I mean, I'm sure some specific teachers are being assholes, and some specific school districts are fucking up their curriculum. But in general, if your kid's math class is working on some particular method this week, then it makes sense to require the kid to practice and show THAT method. Part of math is teaching tools & methods. One teacher marking a kid down for not showing a particular tool or method, doesn't make Common Core bullshit.


BTW, there's also Common Core english / language arts. I never see any complaints about that. I'm not sure why the math triggers, and the english doesn't.