The dysfunction of Common Core...

I get the distinct impression that if I were being taught math these days, I'd be doing much worse than I did back in the bad old days (reckoned as "before 'New Math'" but somewhat after 'making impressions in wax tablets').

Consider the following problem, answer, and (apparently) teacher's comment, from a post at IJReview:


Me, I can see the kid's point. On the one hand, that may be so because I never could see the point of explaining to my teacher why addition was commutative, while subtraction was not. It just seemed intuitive to me.

On the other, it may just be that—in my opinion—asking a kid to "make 10 when adding 8 + 5" is a little like asking someone to "determine how much soap to use when making potato salad." (The answer, by the way, is "enough to wash your hands thoroughly before handling food." Isn't that, like, obvious?)

But what really, really kills me is the educator's comment. Read it closely.

What's the result when you "take 2 from 5 and add it to 8"?

Dunno about you, kimosabe, but I get 11, not 10.

Why are we asking kids questions to which teachers apparently have trouble explaining the answers?

Given that the teacher's answer is—let's face it—wrong, I'd say the kid won this one.

Cheers...

P.S. It occurs to me that, if you follow the teacher's attempt to explain how to get the answer, there is an alternative answer—involving subtracting 3 from 8 and adding the result to 5—that is equally valid. Come to think of it, I can also add 8 + 5 to get 13 right off the bat and then subtract 3. Is this abundance of answers a good thing? Maybe later on, but in grade school? I think that had I been exposed to this kind of drivel, I would have very likely shoved it all to the side at the first opportunity and become a math-hater for the rest of my life.

True colors...

The folks in charge of programming plugged both Castle and NCIS: Los Angeles into the same time slot this evening, which would have made for a difficult situation in a pre-DVR world, but not so given the ability to record multiple channels at a time.

The situation does, however, underscore one's viewing priorities. In my particular case, the question at hand was whether I was more interested in learning what had happened to Richard Castle on the way to his wedding the last time we saw him, or in how Sam and Callen, trapped in the bow of a small submarine loaded with explosives, were going to thwart the evil terrorists who were at the vessel's helm and and clearly intent on committing mischief with it?

I guess romance won out. I watched Castle first, in "real time" (ads and all).

Cheers...