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Question for parents and teachers


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#1 SportsGuy

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 10:42 AM

I am starting to hear more and more frustration over the common core teachings going on in school now.

 

I have heard it from parents and a few teachers I know.  They all seem to hate it. 

 

This isn't something I have to deal with now but I will before I know it.

 

What are your thoughts on it? 



#2 BSLChrisStoner

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 10:58 AM

Seen a few interesting links recently...

 

AOL: The Common Core math quiz that has everyone outraged isn't about Common Core -- it's worse

http://www.aol.com/a...kusaolp00001371

 

Math Plus Academy: Here's why Math is taught differently now
http://www.mathplusa...ifferently-now/



#3 SBTarheel

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:06 AM

If parents would take 10 minutes to actually sit down and learn it, instead of whining about it and blaming everyone else, it's not that bad. 

 

It took me and my wife maybe 15 minutes to go to google and watch a you tube video. 

 

People would rather complain than learn something new. 

 

i recommend googling "Common Core Standards", reading them, and then tell me exactly what standard anyone disagrees with. 


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#4 You Play to Win the Game

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:08 AM

I hate the principal of it. There has to be flexibility based on each situation. There isn't anything "common" at all from school to school much less, county to county. I think it's largely a way for politicians to put into place some metrics to be able to point to as moving the needle.

I also despise the cookie cutter evaluation of teachers by test scores only. It's an awful antecedent to potentially very harmful behavior and kids and teachers livelihoods are at stake because of politics. It has nothing to do with improved education and everything to do with shifting even more money away from public schools who need it and already don't have it, to publicly funded Private schools. This gives politicians the ammo to shun and shut down poorly performing schools.

It isn't remotely about it's stated purpose. And even if it were, it's an incredibly flawed premise anyway.

http://www.rethinkin...8_02_karp.shtml

#5 SportsGuy

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:09 AM

Yep...this is what I have heard.

So, when we grew up and did addition and subtraction, the numbers were on top of them, you did the math and that's that.

Now, it's done several different ways. You have to show all work and if you do it different than what they say, it's wrong.

Chris, it's like Dr Chen with the round robin tourney. If you started team 1 on a bye but he wanted team 3 to start on a bye, he marked you wrong. It didn't matter that everyone played each other once and got a bye, it was where it started.

Also, apparently the amount of hours put into homework every night is crazy.

This has driven my brother to put my youngest nephew in private school because it's so over the top.

But I guess for me, is this just a few people complaining because they don't like change or is this a real issue?

From what I have heard, it's a real issue and needs to be stopped but again, it's a very small sampling of people I have heard it from.

#6 You Play to Win the Game

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:11 AM

If parents would take 10 minutes to actually sit down and learn it, instead of whining about it and blaming everyone else, it's not that bad. 
 
It took me and my wife maybe 15 minutes to go to google and watch a you tube video. 
 
People would rather complain than learn something new. 
 
i recommend googling "Common Core Standards", reading them, and then tell me exactly what standard anyone disagrees with. 



You know that isn't going to happen to millions of poverty stricken children.

Furthermore, I believe the standards, while reasonable and logical to a middle class suburban family, are simply a front for the real intention behind it which is to give politicians ammo to "justify" penalizing teachers and schools.

#7 SportsGuy

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:11 AM

I hate the principal of it. There has to be flexibility based on each situation. There isn't anything "common" at all from school to school much less, county to county. I think it's largely a way for politicians to put into place some metrics to be able to point to as moving the needle.

I also despise the cookie cutter evaluation of teachers by test scores only. It's an awful antecedent to potentially very harmful behavior and kids and teachers livelihoods are at stake because of politics. It has nothing to do with improved education and everything to do with shifting even more money away from public schools who need it and already don't have it, to publicly funded Private schools. This gives politicians the ammo to shun and shut down poorly performing schools.

It isn't remotely about it's stated purpose. And even if it were, it's an incredibly flawed premise anyway.

http://www.rethinkin...8_02_karp.shtml


I know there is a political angle to this and I agree that it's absurd that there is but let's keep that out of this conversation.

But I agree with a lot of what you are saying here.

#8 SportsGuy

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:12 AM

There is a lot of "teaching to the test" with this stuff right? Ala The Wire?

#9 You Play to Win the Game

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:13 AM

Fair enough. I've said my peace. I'm not going to go further down that rabbit hole.

#10 SportsGuy

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:14 AM

Apparently there is also an angle of certain states adopting it just for the money? Again, that probably gets too political but it sounds like it's more about them than the students...again, going back to what Ricker is saying...at least I think that's what you are saying?

#11 SBTarheel

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:15 AM

I again ask that someone actually go read the standards and tell me what's so "over the top". 


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#12 SportsGuy

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:18 AM

I again ask that someone actually go read the standards and tell me what's so "over the top".


I'm going to go with examples I have heard. Hell, that aol article says it well.

If you tell me to do 3 x 5 in a different way(which is dumb anyway but whatever) and you do it 5+5+5 and they wanted 3+3+3+3+3 and they mark it wrong, that's bs.

It's absurd to do that.

Now, you can say that students should do what they are told but to make it so rigid is absurd and that's over the top.

#13 SBTarheel

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:27 AM

I'm going to go with examples I have heard. Hell, that aol article says it well.

If you tell me to do 3 x 5 in a different way(which is dumb anyway but whatever) and you do it 5+5+5 and they wanted 3+3+3+3+3 and they mark it wrong, that's bs.

It's absurd to do that.

Now, you can say that students should do what they are told but to make it so rigid is absurd and that's over the top.

Ok. 


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#14 SportsGuy

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:30 AM

Ok.


You think it's ok to mark someone wrong for the right answer?

#15 SBTarheel

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:36 AM

You think it's ok to mark someone wrong for the right answer?

Not saying that at all. 

 

You said you don't want to actually read the standards, you just want to go on "what you've heard" instead.  Ok, what can I do at that point. 


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#16 RShack

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 11:55 AM

The main motivation for a common core is not so politicians can do whatever politicians do... the main motivation is to ensure that a kid gets a decent education that covers the basics no matter what part of the nation he lives in...  that motivation is perfectly sound and reasonable...

 

Like anything else that is "a program", there's always some diff between the motivation and the implementation... doesn't matter what kind of program it is... education program, computer program, health program, whatever kind of program, the issue is the same:  you need to constantly debug it to bring the implementation more in line with the motivation..,  AFAIK it *never* happens that the first try is perfectly hunky-dory and you can just sit back and let it go... it *always* needs debugging.... even if it's been around for 20 years and has been debugged competently and diligently, there's *always* something that can be done better...  this is true of any program created by humankind.

 

A big part of the problem is that, as a society, we're not having the right conversation about it... the conversation we're having is about "kill it or keep it"... which is stupid and not productive... the right conversation to have is about how to best debug it, how to make it better, how to make the implementation more in line with the motivation...  anything else is not constructive...

 

My understanding is that the current implementation has too much of the wrong kind of testing...

 

As for whether you should take off points when somebody gets the right answer in the wrong way, there are times when that doesn't make any sense and there are also times when it does make sense... it depends on what the particular teaching-and-learning agenda is about....  I can assure you that I taught classes where the main goal was to teach the students how implement computing solutions properly, and in situations like that the a computer program that produced the correct output was worth partial credit and the other qualities of the computer program they constructed also received partial credit... so, to get full credit, the student needed to more things right than just produce the correct answer...  the main reason for such things is that your goal is to prepare the student for how to handle problems right when their difficulty and complexity scales up... the worst thing you can do is help them establish bad habits that will interfere with problem-solving later when the problems get more hairy....


 "The only change is that baseball has turned Paige from a second-class citizen to a second-class immortal." - Satchel Paige


#17 SportsGuy

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 12:15 PM

Not saying that at all.

You said you don't want to actually read the standards, you just want to go on "what you've heard" instead. Ok, what can I do at that point.


That's not how I meant it...didn't make that clear.

Let me try this way. If the standards say that what we are complaining about is just how it is, then I disagree.

If I agree with the standards but the teaching of things is the issue or people aren't following the standards, I have an issue with that then.

#18 SportsGuy

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 12:16 PM

Why did things need to be changed? Why did the old methods not work anymore?

#19 SBTarheel

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 12:18 PM

That's not how I meant it...didn't make that clear.

Let me try this way. If the standards say that what we are complaining about is just how it is, then I disagree.

If I agree with the standards but the teaching of things is the issue or people aren't following the standards, I have an issue with that then.

Ok, that's fair. The curriculum is different from the actual standards. The standards are very basic, and extremely logical. 

 

How each state is implementing them is an entirely different issue altogether. 

 

i do honestly that a lot of people don't want to take the time to learn how to help their kids, and would rather bitch about things. 


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#20 SBTarheel

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Posted 07 November 2015 - 12:20 PM

Why did things need to be changed? Why did the old methods not work anymore?

They always change. "No Child left behind" was the most recent before this. 

 

It'll change again, it always has. There will be something new by the time little Kevin is in school. 

 

People will complain about that one too. 


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