Curriculum 2.0 Math and 4th and 5th graders

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

A sixth grader we know who was on the same track is currently taking pre algebra and is on track to take algebra next year. Under the new system, will a current 4th grader who would have been on the same track now not take algebra until 9th grade (two year delay)?

To answer this question, I believe that making Algebra standard by 8th grade is still one of the county's main goals as part of their "Seven Keys to College Readiness."

But, "algebra standard by 8th grade" is not a very high standard. Many kids are taking Algebra in 7th grade, and some are even taking it in 6th. In my child's middle school at least 8-10 percent of the grade is taking Algebra in 7th grade. And we are not a very high level middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I haven't found the math track beyond 5th grade on the MCPS website, so I don't know what will happen with algebra.

But saying I would be frustrated at my child repeating the same math for the next 2 years is not "communicating to [my] children that they should be bored and uninspired and see school as a waste of time." Where'd that come from?? My child doesn't even know what's coming next year.

If you heard that your first grader had to repeat 1st grade reading for the next 2 years, with a few new lessons thrown in, you might be frustrated too, even if you felt the curriculum might be better for the next generation of students (e.g., rising Kers), who wouldn't have to repeat anything.

I didn't mean to put words into your mouth; I had just seen a poster say "I can imagine how boring/uninspiring it must be" and was hoping that she was not saying to her child at any point, "honey, I know how boring/uninspiring this must be for you."

I am the one with the first grader again, and I definitely get people's point that I may think differently in a few years. But really, if I heard that my first grader would have to repeat first grade reading, I don't know that I would be as upset as some on here. Reading (and math) is just one period in the day, and we read and do math at home too, and it's not like reading a book he has read before will somehow suck the ability to read out of him. If your student is saying they are doing something they already know how to do and therefore they hate it, that might not be quite the right attitude.

I'm a grown up and if you told me I had to read the same book I already read again, I'd grumble. It's a waste of time. I read it once and remember it, so why do I have to read it again? I'd rather read a different book. Worse yet, if I had to read it round robin in a reading group with other kids and the teacher was yelling at me because I was reading ahead or looking out the window, I'd be peeved.

I never understand why we expect little kids to tolerate situations we ourselves would not be wild about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The math that came home tonight for my 3rd grade student was total craziness. Absolutely was. There was no textbook for me to refer to nor did it connect to anything that came home prior. Obviously it was an extension (hard as crap) but it wasn't relevant for my son because it did not build upon anything he had been taught prior.

Basically, it was a worksheet that showed two additional ways of doing long subtraction. My son learned long subtraction 2 years ago and kept wanting to use that method but it wasn't what was demonstrated on the top of the worksheet. It wanted him to estimate subtraction, add in the difference of what you estimated, then add with estimating and putting in the difference and checking the answers which should be the same. Sheer craziness. This for a 3rd grader.

My son finally, after several tries could do the problems independently but then asked the logical question, why would anyone do math this way? Why not just solve the subtraction problem using long subtraction techniques. I'm thinking yep, my son is right. The old way was good enough for thousands of years. Why is MCPS trying to re-write math?

They are approaching the idea that, for example,

623 - 198

Is equivalent to

623 - (200 - 2)

Then you can teach negative numbers and distributive property of multiplication.

The alternative is to introduce the negative numbers as necessary to create a group with the subtraction operator, but the set-theoretic approach to teaching math to elementary students has been tried and never really worked.

[Anonymous]

They are approaching the idea that, for example,

623 - 198

Is equivalent to

623 - (200 - 2)

Then you can teach negative numbers and distributive property of multiplication.

The alternative is to introduce the negative numbers as necessary to create a group with the subtraction operator, but the set-theoretic approach to teaching math to elementary students has been tried and never really worked.

But, what is new here? This is how we all learned math yesterday. The distributive property is an ancient concept. This is not new...perhaps on in Maryland. These strategies and tricks to simply and do math in the head rather than brute computation on paper or with calculators are very well established. I am surprised everyone including teachers view this as new.

[Anonymous]

Simpler problem: kids were doing multiplication and division last year (and were ready to move on from there) and this year they are doing addition and subtraction. That is moving backward not forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

They are approaching the idea that, for example,

623 - 198

Is equivalent to

623 - (200 - 2)

Then you can teach negative numbers and distributive property of multiplication.

The alternative is to introduce the negative numbers as necessary to create a group with the subtraction operator, but the set-theoretic approach to teaching math to elementary students has been tried and never really worked.

But, what is new here? This is how we all learned math yesterday. The distributive property is an ancient concept. This is not new...perhaps on in Maryland. These strategies and tricks to simply and do math in the head rather than brute computation on paper or with calculators are very well established. I am surprised everyone including teachers view this as new.


NOPE - PP's lesson is not the lesson my kid brought home (By the way, he can do the math in his head with long subtraction. That's why he was getting so frustrated doing it the new MCPS way):

623 - 198 = ?

Step 1:

600 + 20 + 3

- (100 + 90 + 8 )


Step 2

520 + 3

- (90 + 8 )


Step 3

510 + 13

- (90 + 8 )


Step 4

420 + 5

Step 5

425


Check

198 + ? = 623

198 + 402 = 600

600 + 23 = 623

402 + 23 = 425

It checks! Yippee. Try doing all the above steps in your head. Do you have a migraine yet?

Could have just used long subtraction to figure 623 - 198 = 425 then added 198 + 425 = 623 to check.

If the purpose was to teach negative numbers or the distributive property, then the objective was lost with the assignment. My son knows nothing about the concept of negative numbers nor does he know what the distributive property is. For information to be relevant, it needs to be tied to something he already knows. Just teaching pie in the sky tricks without connecting concepts will be wasted effort because children will forget the knowledge as soon as new material is introduced.

This notion that 2.0 is better because it digs into the curriculum deeper is total BS for those of us parents in the trenches seeing what are children are doing and learning. I can see the future of this generation and without outside intervention at home, these kids will NOT have the skill necessary for today's workforce. 2.0 should be scraped, dismantled, and replaced by a professional curriculum that has already been tried and tested. What are the other 47 states doing? Surely not the BS Montgomery County has come up with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

They are approaching the idea that, for example,

623 - 198

Is equivalent to

623 - (200 - 2)

Then you can teach negative numbers and distributive property of multiplication.

The alternative is to introduce the negative numbers as necessary to create a group with the subtraction operator, but the set-theoretic approach to teaching math to elementary students has been tried and never really worked.

But, what is new here? This is how we all learned math yesterday. The distributive property is an ancient concept. This is not new...perhaps on in Maryland. These strategies and tricks to simply and do math in the head rather than brute computation on paper or with calculators are very well established. I am surprised everyone including teachers view this as new.

I never was taught math that way, though I figured that out on my own the hard way. Perhaps it depends on the school.

[Anonymous]

I suspect your teachers did not understand the basic and fundamental math tenets of the commutative, associative and distributive properties that permit you to make these manipulations (number sense) to arrive at quick and easy solutions to what may appear, at first glance, a more complicated problem. These properties are not new. They have been around for centuries. What is new is most elementary school teachers in our public schools today have very weak foundations in mathematics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suspect your teachers did not understand the basic and fundamental math tenets of the commutative, associative and distributive properties that permit you to make these manipulations (number sense) to arrive at quick and easy solutions to what may appear, at first glance, a more complicated problem. These properties are not new. They have been around for centuries. What is new is most elementary school teachers in our public schools today have very weak foundations in mathematics.

You have no basis to say teachers know this math. And while this type of problem solving surely is not new it's not commonly taught, not now and not 50 years ago.

[Anonymous]

I would love it if this year's 4th graders could skip out on deceleration next year. Does anybody really know what's going to happen next year? Nothing official was said at back to school night, but I heard informally from an administrator that no plans have come from the District about dealing with 5th graders (that is, how to decelerate them), and that the cluster middle school is scrambling to figure out what to do. Not very reassuring. How do we record concerns against changes that are still unknown?

Estimation and distributive properties were covered under the old curriculum, including formal instruction that estimation is a technique (and a very useful one) for solving real world problems.

Reviews I've heard from parents of a 1st grader are that their child is completely unchallenged in math, although they're happy with reading/writing. Their solution is to add a little teaching on the side at home.

[Anonymous]

You have no basis to say teachers know this math. And while this type of problem solving surely is not new it's not commonly taught, not now and not 50 years ago.

I was taught this approach by my teachers. Granted some of them had British educational backgrounds. I managed to use these principles and simplification "tricks" through high school, college, graduate schools and all of the standard American "useless" standardized tests (eg, SSAT, PSAT, SAT, MCAT, GRE..). There is no reason or need to ever use a calculator for these exams if you understand these principles. They apply to integers, whole numbers, natural numbers, fractions, decimals, and algebraic expressions. These basic mathematic properties are as old as your grandparents. Perhaps MCPS should sift through math teaching materials from the 1950s to build their 21st century curriculum |x|.

Thefundamental problem is the quality of the teachers not reinventon of math curricule every 10 years. This gets quite resource intensive and expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You have no basis to say teachers know this math. And while this type of problem solving surely is not new it's not commonly taught, not now and not 50 years ago.

I was taught this approach by my teachers. Granted some of them had British educational backgrounds. I managed to use these principles and simplification "tricks" through high school, college, graduate schools and all of the standard American "useless" standardized tests (eg, SSAT, PSAT, SAT, MCAT, GRE..). There is no reason or need to ever use a calculator for these exams if you understand these principles. They apply to integers, whole numbers, natural numbers, fractions, decimals, and algebraic expressions. These basic mathematic properties are as old as your grandparents. Perhaps MCPS should sift through math teaching materials from the 1950s to build their 21st century curriculum |x|.

Thefundamental problem is the quality of the teachers not reinventon of math curricule every 10 years. This gets quite resource intensive and expensive.

Right so stop saying its a teacher problem if this was NEVER commonly taught in US schools not in the 1950's not ever. Since you for some reason had British elementary school teachers well ummkay... But Montgomery County is currently one of the best school districts in the country.

[Anonymous]

Correction: Montgomery County used to be one of the best school districts in the US. With the 2.0 curriculum that aligns with the 47 other states, I'm sure the test scores and abilities of the graduates will be slipping as the current 3rd graders advance through the system. It will just take time to reflect the damage being done to this generation of kids.

[Anonymous]

Right so stop saying its a teacher problem if this was NEVER commonly taught in US schools not in the 1950's not ever. Since you for some reason had British elementary school teachers well ummkay... But Montgomery County is currently one of the best school districts in the country.

Who teaches basic math principles in US schools?

You use the term NEVER for emphasis. The creatures you decide that teach basic math principles in US schools; why don't they teach these basic and elementary math properties and principles in our schools?

Could this be related to wide, thin, and shallow math understanding and expertise?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Correction: Montgomery County used to be one of the best school districts in the US. With the 2.0 curriculum that aligns with the 47 other states, I'm sure the test scores and abilities of the graduates will be slipping as the current 3rd graders advance through the system. It will just take time to reflect the damage being done to this generation of kids.

Exactly. This is so sad and upsetting as a parent of a current 3rd grader. I see how flawed this 2.0 transition has been. What (if anything) can parents do to end 2.0?