
2+2=What? Parents rail against Common Core math - unclebucknasty
http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/2-2-What-Parents-rail-against-Common-Core-math-5479465.php
======
bovermyer
I'd never heard of this before, but looking up some of the controversy, I
found this article:

[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/07/abou...](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/07/about-
that-common-core-math-problem-making-the-rounds-on-facebook/)

It actually makes some sense. I'm still skeptical, but it's sounding like it's
just a significant departure from the rote memorization methods I grew up
with.

~~~
hga
If you don't learn your math tables by rote memorization, how are you ever
going to be adept at algebra or anything based on it?

If you can't just look at something like 2x = 4y and instantly simply it....

~~~
tzs
> If you don't learn your math tables by rote memorization, how are you ever
> going to be adept at algebra or anything based on it?

Common Core includes memorization of tables. For instance, it explicitly calls
for knowing from memory all products of two one-digit numbers by the end of
Grade 3. By the time the students get to algebra, they'll be ready for
simplifying 2x=4y.

What is covered in each grade is given here:
[http://www.corestandards.org/Math/](http://www.corestandards.org/Math/)

A lot of the criticism I've read of it seems to be from people who have been
comparing grade X of CC (where X is the grade their kid is in) to what they
remember learning in grade X when they were a kid, and conclude that CC does
not teach the things they learned in grade X. In fact, it often does teach
those things--just in a different grade, or later in the grade X year.

Note that I'm NOT saying CC is better than prior K-12 math programs. I'm just
saying that comparisons should be done between CC and prior programs by
comparing them as K-12 programs, not by comparing them for specific grades.

~~~
hga
That's good, not to mention better than I expected ^_^.

But I'm replying to all those who denounce rote memorization in whatever
context, and claim this is not necessary to be good at math (or for a very
large fraction of children, phonics, in order to later read well).

(It's something I've recently gotten really focused on, after a sister-in-law
asked for help: one of her kids is great with numbers (even deduced negative
numbers on his own, and asked her what they meant), but the eldest just cannot
memorize the math tables, and we're despairing about what to do.)

------
Delmania
As a parent with a a first grader and child in kindergarten, my observations
of the Common Core isn't that the basis, or theory, is unsound, it's more that
the teachers were not given adequate training on it.

~~~
tomswartz07
As a person who works with K-12 educators, I agree wholeheartedly.

------
NateDad
The parents rail against the new style of teaching because they were taught
with the old style and never properly comprehended math other than by rote
memorization. This is exactly the problem the new methods are trying to fix. I
bet most people on HN are math-minded enough that they could pick up the new
ways of doing things and actually understand how it is teaching total
comprehension rather than just being able to get the right answer with no idea
of _why_ it's the right answer.

~~~
unclebucknasty
You nailed it. On the other hand, it's a bit double-edged.

As I am the parent with the CS degree, my wife is already referring our
second-grader to me for help with math homework. Sure, after calc I-III, diff-
EQ, linear algebra, etc. I can readily pick up on what they are doing and why.
I also absolutely agree that they need to go beyond rote-memorization and help
kids with a fundamental understanding of numbers, their relationships, etc.

But, here's the other side: I don't know that, say, a first or second-grader
is really ready to grasp some of the concepts (at least as they are currently
being taught). My daughter "handles" it pretty well and can get the job done,
but it sometimes seems that they are simply moving the rote-memorization ball,
so to speak. That is, now, instead of just remembering tables, she may be
simply remembering these new methods of arriving at the answer. I'm not sure
she really knows why though. And, it can actually be kind of difficult to test
where their level of true understanding is. For instance, asking them to
explain gets into their verbal skills as much as math. So, they may actually
understand it, but are unable to really explain it. One clue is the kind of
mistakes they make, but it's still kind of murky.

In any case, in the end, I'm not altogether sure that her comprehension has
been expanded. And, it sometimes seems that the result is that she simply has
to labor harder to arrive at the same answers.

On a side note, what's funny is that I learned the "old-school" way, yet I
somehow managed to comprehend and am now trying to help my daughter understand
the "new school" way. Something ironic about that.

~~~
NateDad
Glad to hear from someone currently going through it. My older daughter is
only 3, so I haven't gotten there yet. I hope the new way works, I'd like our
kids to understand math better than we did, and I'm not averse to learning
something new in order to help with that.

I find it funny that these parents get so upset at how hard it is.... if the
curriculum is designed for your third grader.... _you_ should be able to learn
it pretty easily, if you just try. My guess is that a lot of the parents
aren't actually trying to teach _themselves_ the new way, and then get mad
they can't help with the homework.

------
FeloniousHam
I have experienced this first hand with my daughter (2nd grade).

She's doing 2 and 3 digit addition and subtraction by breaking the problem
into chunks (I tried to cook up an example, but I don't remember how they do
it exactly). I learned the "carry way", so the chunk thing seems cumbersome
(and I didn't really know how to help her, since I keep reverting to my own
proclivities), but it seems to work, and I see the value in the way she
deconstructs the problem instead of just doing the mechanics.

~~~
agumonkey
It may be steep at first, but almost every problems involve breaking them into
manageable chunks, let's hope it pays on the long run.

~~~
zo1
These are peoples' lives they are affecting. _" Hope"_ and _" politics"_
shouldn't be a part of the decision making process.

~~~
hga
They could have at least pretended to do some experiments, maybe even with
proper controls (yes, that's a radical concept in education "research", e.g.
how phonics were tossed in the middle of the last century, resulting in a
massive decline in literacy), that showed the Common Core was good before
imposing it on the entire nation.

~~~
zo1
Being able to apply "common core" to a cross-section of schools, one would
have been able to control for a lot of the "unknowns" and common "problems"
that is complained about in education. Sadly, they didn't do that and instead
pigeon-holed this solution onto all schools. Wonderful opportunity missed, for
the sake of politics.

I'm not aware of the phonics things, though? Care to elaborate on it?

~~~
hga
Errr, entire forests have been consumed in the fight over phonics and teaching
reading, what in particular would you like to know? Note also this is
_intensely_ political, e.g. I just noticed the Whole World article on
Wikipedia was purged, apparently without a replacement or significant
inclusion of what that was all about. The Whole Language article pretends this
all started in the 1960s, instead of 1920s or so. And, absolutely seriously,
after poking around some more, it looks like a whole bunch of history has been
airbrushed out of Wikipedia, not sure much of anything goes back further than
the '50s.

For a tl;dr (heh), Progressives in the early-mid part of the century decided
rote memorization was bad _per se_ , a new "Whole Word" method was developed
but only? tested on children of University of College professors, who would
have been in the large cohort of children who'll learn reading pretty much on
their own, by the mid-50s it was widely realized that this left behind a
larger cohort who can't learn how to read without phonics, and to this day the
issue is still a battle to the knife.

------
hga
Without reading the fine article except for searching for "calculus", I'll
note that I've confirmed an accusation at the other end: the Common Core does
not even reach precalculus by the end of high school.

No student in a school solely based on it will be taking AP Calculus, let
alone be able to attend MIT or Caltech (the former requires you to be ready to
learn the calculus, the latter demands you've already learned single variable
calculus). Students interested in STEM majors, or anything needing serious
math, will join the current legions who didn't learn (enough) math in high
school taking remedial classes and be that much behind in graduating.

Perhaps America has too many people in STEM careers; absent supplementation by
school districts that e.g. already teach AP Calculus and don't want to stop,
this will help fix that....

(Well, outside of the states rejecting it; it was implemented in my home state
of Missouri without the input of the legislature, and they're about to zap it,
joining another state who's name I forget.)

~~~
tptacek
The idea that Common Core prevents students from taking calculus is disputed:

[http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2014/04/a_sorry_at...](http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2014/04/a_sorry_attack_on_the_common_c.html)

Further, a citation to Caltech's admission policy would be handy; I found
sources directly disputing your claim (also in the context of Common Core),
citing Caltech Math1a to rebut it.

~~~
tzs
Academic preparation Caltech says you should have [1]:

    
    
       4 years of math (including calculus)
       1 year of physics 
       1 year of chemistry
       3 years of English (4 years recommended)
       1 year of U.S. history/government (waived for international students)
    

They really want you to have calculus. From the admissions FAQ [3]:

    
    
       What if my high school does not offer Advanced
       Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB)
       courses?
    
       Many schools don't offer the AP or IB curricula.
       Regardless of the curriculum your school offers, we
       expect that you will have challenged yourself with
       demanding courses. The Caltech curriculum will require
       that you have completed rigorous courses in calculus and
       in physics. If these courses are not available in your
       high school, we strongly encourage you to take them at a
       local college or online.
    

Here is Caltech's required first year math course [2]:

\--------- BEGIN QUOTE -----------

Ma 1 abc. Calculus of One and Several Variables and Linear Algebra. 9 units
(4-0-5); first, second, third terms. Prerequisites: high-school algebra,
trigonometry, and calculus. Special section of Ma 1 a, 12 units (5-0-7).
Review of calculus. Complex numbers, Taylor polynomials, infinite series.
Comprehensive presentation of linear algebra. Derivatives of vector functions,
multiple integrals, line and path integrals, theorems of Green and Stokes. Ma
1 b, c is divided into two tracks: analytic and practical. Students will be
given information helping them to choose a track at the end of the fall term.
There will be a special section or sections of Ma 1 a for those students who,
because of their background, require more calculus than is provided in the
regular Ma 1 a sequence. These students will not learn series in Ma 1 a and
will be required to take Ma 1 d. Instructors: Marx, Katz, Mantovan,
Aschbacher, Ni, Kechris.

Ma 1 d. Series. 5 units (2-0-3); second term only. Prerequisite: special
section of Ma 1 a. This is a course intended for those students in the special
calculus-intensive sections of Ma 1 a who did not have complex numbers, Taylor
polynomials, and infinite series during Ma 1 a. It may not be taken by
students who have passed the regular Ma 1 a. Instructor: Staff.

\---------- END QUOTE ----------

Note: don't freak out over the unit numbers. Caltech's unit scale is different
from that of most other schools. 1 unit corresponds to 1 hour of work per
week, so a 9 unit course is one that should take 9 hours a week. The numbers
in parentheses, such as (4-0-5) break it down by number of hours of lecture,
number of hours of lab, and number of hours of outside preparation and
homework.

Ma1 does start with a "review of calculus", so you could probably do it
without having had calculus in high school if you were really good, but it
would be rough.

[1]
[http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/applying/freshman](http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/applying/freshman)

[2]
[http://catalog.caltech.edu/courses/listing/ma.html](http://catalog.caltech.edu/courses/listing/ma.html)

[3]
[http://admissions.caltech.edu/uploads/File/general/FAQapplyi...](http://admissions.caltech.edu/uploads/File/general/FAQapplying.pdf)

~~~
danielweber
What does CalTech do for students who didn't get first semester calculus? Are
they basically not admitted, or is there some summer crunch course for
bringing them up to speed?

(Most, but not all, MIT students enter with their first semester under their
belts and part of the second, so the second semester calc class offered to
first semester freshman is traditionally a wild monkey cage of chaos and
freshmen held inside a giant lecture hall. This may have changed in recent
years with on-line courses -- this would definitely be the perfect class to
kill the lecture. But the first-semester calc is still offered in various
difficulty levels for the first semester.)

(Oh, and MIT uses the same freaky unit numbering.)

~~~
hga
It sends them a very nice rejection letter, as Heinlein notes in his 1958
_Have Space Suit---Will Travel_ (his juveniles were intended to teach readers
what they needed to know to go out into space, from attitudes to what they
needed to learn. The latter was touched upon in the first, the 1947 _Rocket
Ship Galileo_ , this book gave it a very thorough treatment in the beginning
when the (genius, scientist, etc.) father of the protagonist realized how
awful was the public school education he was getting).

And as I can attest, there's this nice bit about how they have many fewer
spaces than qualified applicants, not going into the minor detail of if you
were one of the latter (I wasn't).

CalTech is very special, even more so than MIT I gather (I'm Class of '83 of
the latter). Much smaller, 1/4 the class size (~250 vs. 1100), much more
intense, much more science focused. Someone, commenting on how they'll clean
up your room every week (a service MIT is sadly lacking in :-), said it was
like a Hogwarts for science, and very simply, if you can't do magic at its
level, they don't accept you.

For some historical perspective, as I understand it, at the post-Civil War
beginning of MIT, most students were mastering the calculus by the end of
their undergraduate program.

(And our "freaky" unit numbering is great, totally transparent, and at least
at MIT there's a committee dedicated to the task of keeping professors and
departments in line with the Institute's limits on work demanded, and has been
known to take classes away from abusive professors. That's also done at the
departmental level, as I witnessed one semester while on the EECS department's
staff (took over and finished the sysadmin part of the job of moving it from
Multics to UNIX(TM), with the help of one on and off student like me who was
an old friend).)

------
j2kun
Why are we worried that elementary school children might misunderstand
arithmetic? This is the problem with the Common Core math standards, that they
think you need to have a perfect understanding of something before you can
move on, and if you have moved on then you have a perfect understanding of
everything that came before it.

That's just not how math works at any level! Understanding counting and
arithmetic and numbers is a continuously evolving process. Children should be
exposed to these things: the difference between a number and its
representation, alternative ways to understand counting, etc., but to require
every student understand all of them before moving on is ridiculous. And
likewise, in later grades (even in high school!) one should revisit the
concepts they thought they mastered from the different perspectives that their
more mature coursework allows them to. There are important things to say about
counting and arithmetic from first grade all the way through a PhD.

~~~
j2kun
My favorite example is this one, in which a man tries to teach the binary
number system to third graders
[http://www.garlikov.com/Soc_Meth.html](http://www.garlikov.com/Soc_Meth.html)

The point is he focuses on challenging their understanding of numbers vs
representations of numbers, despite the fact that they thought they mastered
simple counting in first grade. They come away from this not with a mastery of
binary arithmetic but with a better understanding of their usual decimal
counting system.

~~~
hga
I'm now remembering even more of the New Math that was remaining in my
elementary school education (1966-72): I always remember set theory in 3rd
grade (not particularly motivated as I remember, but very neat, a useful way
to help describe the world), 4th grade as I recall is where non-decimal bases
were introduced. And of course it had that obvious effect (at least for me).

This was in Joplin, MO, one of the reddest Red State parts of the country,
albeit in a school district famous after the 1955 publication of _Why Johnny
Can 't Read_ for still being able to teach its students how to read. But the
language arts were always very capably taught in the district, generally
better than math.

------
sitkack
Calculus can be taught to anyone independent of age. It is not a unit of
difficulty.

I think people are railing at teaching math to children because they
themselves suck at math. Your inability to grasp subject matter is not proof
that something is wrong or too hard.

[http://commonsensequantum.blogspot.com/2010/11/geometric-
rep...](http://commonsensequantum.blogspot.com/2010/11/geometric-
representations-of-higher.html)

~~~
ctdonath
Seems the problem is those _creating_ the curriculum likewise have a poor
grasp of it and of how to present it to inexperienced minds. They know that
"concepts" and "process" and "psychology" are important, but lack the Tufte-
and Feynman-like grasp of how to present the complex in simple clear ways.

~~~
sitkack
I am not sure how true this is. Most of the public sentiment has been 3rd
parties not able to understand the material. I think the adult population is
vastly under-educated. The problem isn't the children, it is the parents. The
parents can't understand their own child's homework. Whose failing is that?

You see this in developing countries where the whole population is illiterate.
It usually ends up that the children reach a level of proficiency that enables
them to teach their parents.

------
cLeEOGPw
I think this summarizes all the rails against common core pretty well:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/21zdln/the_common_core...](http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/21zdln/the_common_core_is_corrupting_school_mathematics/)

~~~
philbarr
Well I'm in the UK and it seems I was taught the "Common Core" way of doing
things. All makes sense to me! Right down to using the quadratic formula to
solve equations.

The "Old" way just looks weird...

~~~
adambard
The joke is that the new "Common Core" standards are presented as the "Old-
Fashioned" way, and vice-versa.

------
DanBC
I don't know anything about "Common core" but parents wanting to learn new
methods of teaching math and arithmatic may like "Maths for Mums and Dads"
[http://www.mathsformumsanddads.com/](http://www.mathsformumsanddads.com/)

------
dkhenry
You know when I in my job try something new and it doesn't work out my company
might lose a contract or in a really bad case I lose my job. When we as a
society decide unilaterally that we are going to change a few century's worth
of teaching style for something new we risk raising a generation of children
who can't do simple math. I am not worried about if this method is "better"
according to research. I am worried if it works, because if it doesn't we will
have an entire generation unfit to do anything but manual labor.

~~~
gnaritas
You're being ruled by fear. Fear is not a place from which good logical
decisions are made; if the research says it's better, then it's better; you
don't keep doing the worse way just because you're used to it and fearful of
anything new.

~~~
dkhenry
This isn't a place for "some research points to this being better" we
currently raised millions of children who _can_ do math just fine the current
way. Do you want to just change it because someone says they might have found
a better way. This is the kind of change that should have happened over
_decades_ slowly to prove its self not as one big political push with no real
world example of broad success.

What happens when it turns out a combination of poor training of teachers and
lack of exposure by parents combines to produce an entire generation that
can't do the most basic of math problems. Who will be do the STEM work in this
country when we don't have enough students who know basic math let alone
calculus and beyond. Your betting the future of the American economy and
society on this change you better have more proof for it then "we did a study"

~~~
gnaritas
> we currently raised millions of children who _can_ do math just fine the
> current way

Unfortunately that’s simply not true, we live in a culture where most people
can't do math, and find it acceptable to not be able to. How math is being
taught is simply wrong and those methods you're so resisting aren't new,
they're decades old and they're already proven.

> What happens when it turns out a combination of poor training of teachers
> and lack of exposure by parents combines to produce an entire generation
> that can't do the most basic of math problems.

We're already there.

You're just fear based and will resist any change whatsoever.

~~~
dkhenry
I guess we just have a different outlook on the world. If your working under
the assumption that people currently can't do basic math nothing I can say
will change that opinion.

~~~
gnaritas
Sounds like you live in a bubble and haven’t met most people.

------
syvlo
There was this really great documentary talking about the way kids should
learn math (and also how useful maths are in today's society):
[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1etsod_how-i-came-to-
hate-...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1etsod_how-i-came-to-hate-math-
comment-j-ai-deteste-les-maths-2013-trailer-english-subs_shortfilms)

I don't know if there is an english version of the whole documentary, but if
there is, I strongly recommend it (plus, there are strong contributions by
Villani who won Fields medal).

------
Shorel
It doesn't seem efficient, or very useful to aid understanding.

It replaces one operation by many operations. It trades one abstraction by
increasing the memory requirements (external memory, in the paper).

At least I had finished the subtraction in my head way before I was reading
halfway through the 'new' method, in all examples.

It would be useful if they students could each design their own favourite
subtraction algorithm, and compare notes with fellow students, instead of
having to memorize 3 or 4 cookie cutter algorithms.

------
bglazer
I think this quote from a parent at the very end of the article is quite
telling: "To me, math is numbers, it's concrete, it's black-and-white. I don't
understand why you need to bring this conceptual thing into math — at least
not at this age."

I am not a professional mathematician, but I get the overwhelming impression
from professional mathematicians that "this conceptual thing" is really quite
important in the big picture of math. To me this reflects a parent who hasn't
used mathematical concepts in a real way and who doesn't understand the value
in anything but arithmetic. It's the same mindset as people who throw their
hands up at algebra because suddenly letters are mixed with numbers and they
aren't doing multiplication tables anymore.

Edit: I don't mean this as a personal attack. It's just a problem of educating
parents. People need to understand that conceptual math and abstract reasoning
may seem like strange things to teach children, but that they will, in fact,
provide the competitive edge for our kids. Perhaps the Common Core way of
teaching this is terrible and makes children cry, but we shouldn't throw it
out based on poor implementation.

~~~
j2kun
I am a professional mathematician, and yes, the parents in these articles will
almost always say things that reveal their own fears and misunderstandings of
math. This doesn't make the Common Core implementation any better, and part of
the reason is that these same parents (people of equivalent mathematical
experience) are the ones teaching the kids and writing the state-wide tests
and writing the textbooks.

------
Rusky
The goal of Common Core is a good one. But the research was not nearly
thorough enough. The curriculum was adopted all at once instead of giving it
any testing.

And at least in my area, students _must_ take the math class at their age
level, at least through elementary school. Now students that excel at math get
bored and hate it, and students who need extra help can't get it. That is the
wrong way to improve education.

------
chrismcb
I don't know much about core math, but what are is the "context" the parents
are missing? It seems to me that the homework is going to pretty hard to solve
if it doesn't contain the complete "context." Or is he referring to some
terminology that the parents probably don't know? Why is this context missing,
or not available to the parents, if nothing else via the text book or
handouts?

And how many different ways is there to add two numbers?

------
monkmartinez
We choose my son's school based on the curriculum. They use Saxon maths,
Spalding Reading (which includes phonograms), traditional teaching methods and
the children wear uniforms. Its a Charter school and we love it.

My son (kindergarten) is loving math and has 2 or 3 worksheets of math a night
as homework. A lot of it is just repetition from previous days concepts, but
he feels really good showing us how well he knows "1st grade math." Its not
really 1st grade math, but its more advanced than the public school kids that
live in our neighborhood... AND way less frustrating it seems. I have yet to
hear anything good about Common Core from my friends who deal with it on a
regular basis.

Basis is a school here in Tucson that is one of the top 5 in the country. They
use Saxon math as well: [http://educationnext.org/high-scores-at-basis-
charter-school...](http://educationnext.org/high-scores-at-basis-charter-
schools/)

If my son wants to go to Basis after grade school he will be prepared. If
not... he will be so far ahead of the CC kids, we will probably just sign up
for classes at the community college. We go here:
[http://www.legacytraditional.org/district-home/northwest-
tuc...](http://www.legacytraditional.org/district-home/northwest-tucson/)

~~~
zo1
I can't tell if you're serious, or trolling?

------
todd8
I suffered through this sort of math with my kids. I'm afraid that this may
end up being flamebait, but here goes...

These reformed Math programs are a tremendous mess being foisted on us by
"Education" professionals and academics. Instead of teaching one, well-tested
method of performing operations (addition, subtraction, etd.), these programs
present a number of alternative "algorithms". In _Everyday Math_ (the program
my own kids were taught), the standard methods for multiplication and division
were not taught and years of drill using alternative (and inferior) methods
were used. This leads to tentative confusion over the way to solve problems.
Proficiency with basic multiplication and so forth is downplayed and instead
proficiency with calculators is developed.

The Education majors (teachers and professors of Education) aren't STEM people
themselves. I remember how we, the parents, were lectured (during the parent
introduction to these programs) on mathematics and how, we were informed,
"there is more than one way to get to an answer" as if this was some
astonishing revealed truth. How there was (are you ready for this?) more than
one way to do multiplication. Then the teachers would illustrate some method
(for example, the Lattice method of paper and pencil multiplication) and with
wide and astonished eyes exclaim, "see it gives the SAME result". Now, for
those that don't know the Lattice method, its just a method of doing multi-
digit multiplication that keeps the intermediate products, which will
eventually be summed, in a grid.

Many years ago I was taught the standard methods for computing the basic
operations because after centuries of use they have become the prefered
methods by people that have to work with numbers. That's why adults haven't
bothered to learn the Russian Peasant method or the Egyptian method or
whatever. So while our kids will struggle with some new text book, fat and
full of colorful pictures that will have pictures of ancient pyramids, the
kids in Singapore will by using thin, little black and white books full of
exercises, written in English. And then, the kids in Singapore will go on to
absolutely kick our asses in mathematics. I've used these Singapore math
books, somewhere around the summer after third grade, to reteach my own
daughter mathematics. A couple of days ago, she just took the Calculus AP exam
after her Junior year in high school, no thanks to _Everyday Math_.

Not everything about _Everyday Math_ nor _Common Core_ is bad, but some of it
is really bad.

It's argued by the people putting these programs in place that they know
better and that their programs are supported by research. Have you looked at
this supposed research? It's not good. Few well controlled studies done by
people in Education departments[1].

The first (so called) research paper listed on the _Everyday Math_ program web
site uses Knuth Vol. 3 as justification for studying so many algorithms. It
completely misses the point of Vol. 3. It's a book about sorting and searching
algorithms. Almost every one of them has some reason for it's use: easy code,
fast average performance, fast worst case, works well with a limited number of
tape drives (wow!), and so on. This has nothing to do with the desirability of
teaching inferior methods of basic calculation to our kids. This paper, which
is used to justify some of the core principles of the _Everyday Math_ program
is an example of the poor foundation for these reforms to math education in
the US.

[1] How Brainy Is Your Major: [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/finding-
the-next-einstei...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/finding-the-next-
einstein/201108/how-brainy-is-your-major)

[2] Algorithms in _Everyday Math_
[http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/about/research-
results/algo...](http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/about/research-
results/algorithms.pdf)

~~~
ebrenes
What was the Singapore book you used to re-teach your daughter mathematics if
you don't mind me asking?

~~~
todd8
Searching the internet should bring up several places to buy the Singapore
Math books. There is an official site[1]. The books come two per grade level,
for example 3A and 3B. They are small books, but filled with content. They
only cost about $12 each. There are also workbooks available (for more
exercises, but you might not need these) and some teaching guides too (that
I'm unfamiliar with). For someone that was in elementary school 50 years ago,
the math lessons look very familiar. There was one subject covered for which I
wished there was more explanation: translating word problems into equations to
be solved. This always came easily to me (I ended up majoring in Math in
college), but Singapore Math has an interesting step that seems to work well
for kids. They translate the word problems into a standard diagram where
rectangles stand in for quantities and then the equations are derived from the
diagrams. I wasn't taught that way, and so I wasn't sure how to motivate the
correct construction of the rectangles. Don't let this minor complaint disuade
you from trying Singapore Math. Consider the latest international rankings of
students, the PISA [2]. Singapore is one from the top (Shanghai-China is
number one), and as I understand it, all students in Singapore take the test
so there is no selection bias. Furthermore, their books are in English while
all the other top rated countries (China, Korea, Japan, Switzerland, etc.)
have text books that I can't read.

[1][http://www.singaporemath.com](http://www.singaporemath.com)
[2][http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results-
snaps...](http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results-snapshot-
Volume-I-ENG.pdf)

------
nodata
Well what are the four ways to do addition?

~~~
sirtel
1\. 5+9=14

2\. let 9=10-1, 5+9=10-1+5=15-1=14

3\. let 9=5+4, 5+9=5+5+4=14

4\. cann't make it up

~~~
ww2
you missed two most important methods:

5+9 = (((((((((5+1)+1)++1)+1)+1)+1)+1)+1)+1) 5+9 = 9 + 5 =...

------
coldcode
Funny how today's leaders in math and programming all learned basic math the
old fashioned way; now it's not good enough. Yet no one preaches teaching kids
economics, basic taxation and interest rates, and how investing works. So we
wind up with people who know math but get fooled by politicians and scammers.

~~~
dec0dedab0de
Personal accounting should be required from kindergarten.

~~~
fixermark
Really, "home economics" should be a required skill learned by high school (at
least in the US).

The US is a capitalist society. We do a significant disservice to our
citizenry by failing to teach fundamentals of how money works in the public
education system.

------
Grue3
You'd think they would be happy that their kids are taught something they
can't do themselves. Instead they're whining in order to make their stupidity
hereditary.

------
tokenadult
Ooh. 28 submission points for 104 comments. I'm glad that the submitter
submitted the article. On the other hand, it may be correct (as is apparently
the judgment of most participants here) that the article just isn't that
informative. See an important article from _The Atlantic,_ "Confusing Math
Homework? Don’t Blame the Common Core: States, districts, and schools are
actually in charge"[1] for more on what's really going in classrooms around
the country.

Some of the comments here refer to a period of "reform math" instruction
BEFORE the introduction of the Common Core State Standards in mathematics,[2]
which are actually quite recent. Implementation of the Common Core in school
classrooms in the United States is only a year or two old today. The Common
Core was an attempt to introduce coherency and logical progression into the
mishmash of topics that characterized "reform math" textbooks such as
_Everyday Math_ (which is probably the best and most mathematically sound of
the reform math textbooks) and _TERC: Investigations,_ among other titles. The
Common Core standards are generally regarded, as curriculum standards, as a
plain improvement over what most states set as mathematics curriculum
standards before.[3] On the other hand, many of the mathematics who criticized
the preceding period of "reform math" instruction (basically most United
States school practice in the twenty-first century) think that the current
Common Core textbooks and teacher training courses still don't go far enough
in improving instruction.

As a parent, I expect and welcome school instruction in any topic that is
better and more research-based than what I received as a child. The quotations
from parents in the article kindly submitted here along the lines of "Why
should my child be expected to learn things I don't understand?" seems like a
very bizarre approach to parenting to me. (As a homeschooling parent, I used
the Miquon Math[4] and Singapore Primary Mathematics series[5] with great
success in helping my four children learn their elementary mathematics. They
have been able to go on to more advanced mathematics study with relative ease.
I had to learn new topics and new techniques to use those materials, but that
is good for me. I was lucky that my wife, educated in Taiwan, largely
understands the approach taken in the Singapore materials, but so far both of
our older two sons have gone well beyond the mathematics study level of either
of their parents. Education is supposed to improve from generation to
generation, or what are schools for? (That's why we homeschool--we lay a good
foundation for our children with the best available curricular materials to
get them ready for classes with teachers who know what they are doing for our
children's secondary education.)

[1]
[http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/confusi...](http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/confusing-
math-homework-don-t-blame-the-common-core/360064/)

[2] [http://www.corestandards.org/Math/](http://www.corestandards.org/Math/)

[3] [http://educationnext.org/the-common-core-math-
standards/](http://educationnext.org/the-common-core-math-standards/)

[4] [http://miquonmath.com/](http://miquonmath.com/)

[5]
[http://www.singaporemath.com/Primary_Mathematics_US_Ed_s/39....](http://www.singaporemath.com/Primary_Mathematics_US_Ed_s/39.htm)

~~~
unclebucknasty
> _I 'm glad that the submitter submitted the article._

And the submitter is glad that you're glad that he submitted the article.

> _the article just isn 't that informative_

Indeed. One of the things that's awesome about HN is that, given merely a
topic of interest, many HNers will delve more deeply, look for concrete
information, pull citations, and generally drive more thoughtful discussion
around the base topic.

Accordingly, I've frequently found discussions on HN to be far more insightful
and informative than the initial submissions.

For example:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7752318](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7752318)

Off to research Singapore Primary Mathematics. Thanks for the tip.

