The confluence of societal and governmental factors leading to these outcomes is an irredeemable tragedy. Nobody gives a fuck about education and the consequences are accelerating

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins@hexbear.net 8 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

is it more advanced or does it just seem more advanced because the last time I saw the common core math they were teaching kids it was like, wow, this is a lot of unwieldy and useless bullshit

iirc I think I was looking at what was basically chunking (where you break up numbers into easier to manage segments) but written down in some weird way where I imagined I'd spend as much time learning the notation as learning the actual math

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 7 points 3 weeks ago

It’s a downward spiral, overtesting creates a “teaching to the test” environment which erodes creative and critical thinking, which leads to lower test scores. The bureaucrats look at this and come to the conclusion that more testing is needed so they can get more metrics to “analyze.” Rinse and repeat.

[–] grouchy@hexbear.net 7 points 3 weeks ago

Common Core math actually is pretty good/fine in concept, but the execution is where it's terrible. A lot of "common core" math textbooks (if the school even bothers with textbooks anymore instead of digital problem banks) are a complete scam, for one thing, just repackaged versions of older books. And a lot of the teachers, especially in lower grades, themselves do not have strong enough of a math background to have a "big picture" view of math education and so have no idea how to bridge earlier concepts to later concepts. The fact that calculator usage is allowed way too early in a lot of places is one symptom of this -- they do it so that students' lack of basic arithmetic skills doesn't get in the way of learning algebraic skills without realizing that it's all one and the same. Or sometimes they do know but simply have no choice because the kids are already behind and they have to do "something."

(and nowadays if the teachers don't care the kids don't care either and will skip the calculators entirely and ask ChatGPT for answers...)

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 5 points 3 weeks ago

Nah, the common core math method is different from the traditional notation I grew up with, but I get that it’s presenting kids with a variety of options to complete the problem so they can choose the one that fits their processing style. Whereas the “one size fits all” approach with traditional notation is intuitive for some kids, some kids can muscle through it, and some kids, well they end up being the people that say “I’m not a math person”.

Not to mention that my feeling isn’t just coming from the math work, if anything it’s the writing work that feels more advanced.