> I just spent some time reading through /Math/Content/K/ on corestandards.org. Most of it is, IMO, complete trash and not at all aligned with how kids in kindergarten actually learn this shit. As a "spec" it's writing is sloppy, poorly defined, and highly ambiguous.
I respect that you took the time to read the document, but your criticism isn't very specific. Are you bothered by the fact that it uses words that aren't appropriate for Kindergartners to describe what they should know? Or that it says what they should know, but not always how to teach it?
I think the "spec" analogy is a good one. The goal of a spec is to lay out requirements, not implementation. Same idea here, which strikes me as the right choice.
The actual expectations are to know a few things about counting, numbers, and shapes. That seems developmentally appropriate to me (admitting that I don't have much recent experience with kids this age).
What do you think Kindergartners should know?
Re: the practices part, these same practices are mentioned at every grade level through high school. I agree that the practices sound way too advanced for Kindergarteners, but the goal is to get students to do them well by the end of high school, not by the end of Kindergarten.
A specific accounting of that would be several blog posts long I think, it's quite hard to get specific without cherry-picking particularly bad parts.
I continued to read through 5th grade math curriculum, and really I think it's completely the wrong approach for how children should learn the material. It's hard to summarize everything I dislike about it in just a few sentences. Mainly I think the process should be much more natural. This isn't something that really has to be taught, through 5th grade at least it all comes naturally in the right environment. So the approach is backwards; it's not 'here are the list of skills which should be taught and mastered at each grade' it's here are the ways we foster learning over this 6 year period.
The whole approach of setting these micro-goals, the whole thing is far too low level. When a spec starts at such a low level, it becomes a prescriptive checklist, not a spec.
I respect that you took the time to read the document, but your criticism isn't very specific. Are you bothered by the fact that it uses words that aren't appropriate for Kindergartners to describe what they should know? Or that it says what they should know, but not always how to teach it?
I think the "spec" analogy is a good one. The goal of a spec is to lay out requirements, not implementation. Same idea here, which strikes me as the right choice.
The actual expectations are to know a few things about counting, numbers, and shapes. That seems developmentally appropriate to me (admitting that I don't have much recent experience with kids this age).
What do you think Kindergartners should know?
Re: the practices part, these same practices are mentioned at every grade level through high school. I agree that the practices sound way too advanced for Kindergarteners, but the goal is to get students to do them well by the end of high school, not by the end of Kindergarten.