Common Core math can be a mystery, and parents are going to school to understand it

CAT Tracks Editor's Note:

One of the big obstacles to the teaching of mathematics has always been a lack of parental support...

...the adult guardian on Parent-Teacher Conference night who dismisses the teacher's attempt to explain a child's progress (or lack thereof) with the classic defense of: "I always had trouble with math in school too."

So, how best to win parental support...

...why, go out and create a math system that is different from what these admittedly math-challenged parents experienced in school, a math system than is even more complicated than the one with which they struggled.

Yeah, well, good luck with that!

"Reformers", really...

...you spend your days lambasting the current teaching profession, chortle when TIME magazine aids and abets your attack on tenure protections, as it brings the gavel down of the "bad apples" that allegedly infest their ranks...

...and now give them an extra "homework assignment", to teach the parents and guardians how to do the new math? (Have you by any chance heard the old adage: "You can't teach an old dog new tricks"?)

Talk about designing a system to fail.

Oh, wait, that's right, that's what this was all about in the first place, wasn't it?!

And another thing...

...all this praise that the new approach/method relies more heavily on "word problems", that this new approach will save children from the boring hell of rote memorization, having to learn those god-awful times tables.

If you think that kids complained about memorizing the times tables, wait until you saddle them with explaining why 7 x 8 = 56. And, just wait until the little urchins go home and ask mama and papa "Why does 7 x 8 = 56?" They will get an answer along the lines of "Because it is...at least it was when I went to school!"

Hell, I struggled with word problems and I was a math geek.

Word problems are not for the math-challenged, they are at best for math-lovers.

A final damn thing...

We lost a generation of math students (and their off-spring and great off-spring) with the first New Math movement during the Sputnik-fueled paranoia of the 1960s.

That "history" of the ill-advised attempt to complicate what is already challenging for the "average Joe or Jane" is already in the books.

Now, reformy types, ignoring that history, set out to change the teaching/learning of mathematics.

Bears repeating...

...good luck with that!

POSTSCRIPT:

No, I didn't forget...

...that I said that I was done with the CCSS.

It's just that I had this extra hour this morning.

I have a daily schedule that I try to adhere to and this old CAT doesn't deal well with change.

So, when in doubt...

...rant!

Have a great day!

Speaking of schedules, it's 4:30 a.m., ...

...it's time for my nap now.