Reply to Curriculum 2.0 was discriminatory, MCPS should make amends to the students harmed

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Honestly I'm not sure this problem is unique to 2.0.  [/quote]

It's not.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html[/quote]

Quote from this NYT article:

"One especially nonsensical result stems from the Common Core’s suggestion that students not just find answers but also “illustrate and explain the calculation by using equations, rectangular arrays, and/or area models.”

Love this ... this is at least 3 ways , right?

"Instead of memorizing familiar steps, students now practice even stranger rituals, like drawing dots only to count them or breaking simple addition problems into complicated forms (62+26, for example, must become 60+2+20+6) without understanding why. This can make for even poorer math students[b].[u] “In the hands of unprepared teachers[/u],”[/b] Lampert says, “[b]alternative algorithms are worse than just teaching them standard algorithms.[/b]”

Yes! 62+26 can be ...60+2+26 or 62+6+20 or just plain "62+26"[/quote]
The important part is the underlined bolded.

I think teaching kids why you compose and decompose (carry/borrow) is important. If you go through the steps without teaching them the "why", then yes, it's pointless.

If you are math person, you can see that decomposing is the same as borrowing, just different words and a different way to look at it. I read an article from a math teach who said using the word "borrow" was not a good way to teach them since the word "borrow" means you give it back. How do you give back the number?  Decompose is a much better word.

The problem is that many early years teachers lack numeracy.  And it's difficult to find good math teachers in the upper grades, too. There are always shortages of STEM teachers.

A lot of people don't like math, and IMO, part of it is because they were never taught the "whys" of math, only the steps. That's super boring.    [/quote]

That's always been a concern, but I think there's more to it.

Yes, it's important to know why carry/borrow works, and it's helpful to learn alternative methods.  But end of the day, it's also good to have a rote method that kicks-in and eliminate the thought from a routine process.  My DC had 2.0 from 2nd grade and is in HS now.  He's not bad at math, he's happy to do some arithmetic in his head, but his methods are scattershot, and whenever I work with him, I get the answer quicker, and I do not get it wrong.  Last night he's doing a dot product and needs 8*12, and got the wrong answer, I said 80 and 16, he's like, oh sure, I was thinking about how many 12s make 60 but I had it wrong and then...  He does have number sense, he shouldn't be sent back to third grade, but he's grown up without discipline.  Yep, I should have made him do more practice, but school should reinforce that, too, because there's a stage beyond number sense.  The pendulum swung too far, I don't like kids being taught with no motivation (although I don't think that was happening in my lifetime), but if you don't get past the navel-gazing stage of arithmetic, it's impossible to notice more sophisticated patterns.[/quote]

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