Disclaimers prior to reading:
1. Parents, I hear your concerns and they are valid.
I would never want my son or daughter to come home and be confused by math homework. I would want him/her to be ALWAYS working within their Zone of Proximal development (which is a fancy way of saying, struggling but not to the point of suffering <--- struggle vs. suffer, I just learned all about that at a math conference).
2. I agree that there are teachers out there who don't understand the Common Core Standards and therefore are not teaching them well.
That's a shame and it's bad teaching. There are no two ways about it. If you choose this profession, any profession, you need to understand it and if/when you don't, you need to do a shit-ton of homework until you do. Period.
3. You can believe me.
I'm know what I'm talking about. Democrat/Republican/Math Hater/Math Lovers, I know Common Core Math Standards. This is my job. This is all I do every single day-research standards and the best ways to teach them so I can help teachers teach them well. So, if you continue to read, you can lower your affective filter and just take it in because I know what I'm talking about.
4. This blog is dripping with sarcasm and knowledge because...well, because it's me.
Read on or get off now.
5. I'm not "a math person."
I was never ridiculously good at math. In fact, I was never ridiculously good at English or Spanish or Writing. I was never labeled as gifted or placed in advanced classes. So, if you weren't either, you're in good company. I was ridiculously good at socializing in class but that's it.
What I have always been is a thinker and problem-solver.
6. If you choose to read this, I expect you to, even if you decide you still hate it, use more precise language (one of the Mathematical Practices in Common Core) than, "Fuck Common Core Math."
Please say things like like "I disagree with a constructivist approach to teaching math."
Ok, those who are still with me...here we go.
"What the hell are these standards that are written by crazy communists?"
"My kid has homework that looks like this!"
"I mean, what was wrong with the old way of teaching math? Fuck this new math."
1. Parents, I hear your concerns and they are valid.
I would never want my son or daughter to come home and be confused by math homework. I would want him/her to be ALWAYS working within their Zone of Proximal development (which is a fancy way of saying, struggling but not to the point of suffering <--- struggle vs. suffer, I just learned all about that at a math conference).
2. I agree that there are teachers out there who don't understand the Common Core Standards and therefore are not teaching them well.
That's a shame and it's bad teaching. There are no two ways about it. If you choose this profession, any profession, you need to understand it and if/when you don't, you need to do a shit-ton of homework until you do. Period.
3. You can believe me.
I'm know what I'm talking about. Democrat/Republican/Math Hater/Math Lovers, I know Common Core Math Standards. This is my job. This is all I do every single day-research standards and the best ways to teach them so I can help teachers teach them well. So, if you continue to read, you can lower your affective filter and just take it in because I know what I'm talking about.
4. This blog is dripping with sarcasm and knowledge because...well, because it's me.
Read on or get off now.
5. I'm not "a math person."
I was never ridiculously good at math. In fact, I was never ridiculously good at English or Spanish or Writing. I was never labeled as gifted or placed in advanced classes. So, if you weren't either, you're in good company. I was ridiculously good at socializing in class but that's it.
What I have always been is a thinker and problem-solver.
6. If you choose to read this, I expect you to, even if you decide you still hate it, use more precise language (one of the Mathematical Practices in Common Core) than, "Fuck Common Core Math."
Please say things like like "I disagree with a constructivist approach to teaching math."
Ok, those who are still with me...here we go.
"What the hell are these standards that are written by crazy communists?"
"My kid has homework that looks like this!"
"I mean, what was wrong with the old way of teaching math? Fuck this new math."
New Math!
We should always do things the same way we have, right? No new thinking. If I learned math one way, it should be the same way my kids learn it, right? My kids should read the exact same books I read in school and we should practice the exact same medicine we have always practiced, right?
WRONG
New does not equal bad. You not understanding something does not mean it's wrong. It means it's different than the way you learned it.
Here are some facts for you.
1. Common Core Math Standards were written using research from some of the greatest math minds in the world.
Marilyn Burns and John Van de Walle who taught us that when kids construct their own knowledge and learn the WHY before the HOW, it sticks. They have been helping us answer questions like, WHY do you multiply the base times the height when you find the area?
WHY do you start on the right and work to the left when you answer a multiplication or addition problem.
WHY do we invert and multiply when dividing decimals.
2. Math doesn't have to be fast.
Why do we have to do math fast? The greatest mathematicians in the world mull over math problems for days, weeks or months. Why are we obsessed with doing it fast?
3. Common Core Math works for ALL learners.
Here are some problems I have seen over the years...
Parents come in and say, "Well I wasn't good at math either," as if there is a math gene that makes you good at math. I want to punch parents who say that. Way to set your kids up for failure. Way to let them off the learning hook. How about saying, "How is my son/daughter doing in math? What can I do to help?"
Common Core Math lets all kids be "Math Kids." Yay!
We allow our kids who have never understood math in the past "get it" by drawing it out. Tape diagrams? Yes! Using manipulatives? Yes! All encouraged in Common Core!
We push our gifted kids to explain their thinking because they HATE doing that. Every year in my classroom I made a gifted kid cry because he/she was FORCED to explain his/her thinking.
Whoa, you made kids cry? All the time. I wouldn't want my kid in your class. Yes you would. I have references that are hundreds of kids thick ;)
4. Math is about the process, not just getting the right answer
Yes, there was a time that math was ONLY about getting the right answer. From that, we created a Nation of "math people" and "non math people" when we should have been working to create a Nation of thinkers. Please tell me ONE job where the only thing you are focused on is getting the right answer? Where you memorize a formula, regurgitate it and slap the answer on a paper.
Oh, that's right, those jobs are now called COMPUTERS! In the twenty-first century our jobs call for people who can work together, problem solve, come up with multiple ways to solve a problem and what's that you say, Common Core Math does exactly that?! Imagine that!
It's not NEW MATH, it's a constructivist approach to mathematics. Let's learn it together!
Open Invitation:
For those of you who are still skeptics about how and why this "new math" can be good for kids I would like to personally invite you to my school. Come by and I'll take you into classrooms where kids are talking about math, where they can explain their thinking to one another, where they can mentally add number in their heads better than adults can. Seriously, come in and watch some amazing teachers teach math...and if you live in California, I'll send you to my friend's school because she's probably the best math teacher I have ever seen.
Another Open Invitation:
If your kids are confused about their math homework, post a picture on my Facebook and I will send you links to help you help them, write out something that might help, or even Skype them myself to help...and then I'll write a letter to the teacher asking WHY they sent home homework that was outside of that child's ZPD and ask about his/her check for understanding, what percent of their class was ready for this homework.
I got your back ;) Stop hating on Common Core Math, it makes my heart hurt.
