Reply to Curriculum 2.0 Math and 4th and 5th graders

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Curriculum 2.0 Math and 4th and 5th graders"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
[quote]They are approaching the idea that, for example,

623 - 198

Is equivalent to

623 - (200 - 2)

[b]Then you can teach negative numbers and distributive property of multiplication.[/b]
 
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. [/quote]

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.

[b]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):
[/b]
623 - 198 = ?

[u]Step 1:[/u]

600 + 20 + 3

[u]- (100 + 90 + 8 )[/u]

[u]Step 2[/u]

520 + 3
[u]
- (90 + 8 )[/u]

[u]Step 3[/u]

510 + 13

[u]- (90 + 8 ) [/u]

[u]Step 4[/u]

420 + 5

[u]Step 5[/u]

425

[u]Check[/u]

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.

[/quote][/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics