Common Core math problem with easy solution

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intertidal

New Member
Hodr said:
I remember one of my gradeschool teachers using this as an example of why we couldn't use calculators in class. My argument though was that the slide rule (and the slide rule table) is a tool, just like a calculator is a tool. You may be able to perform the task by hand, but I wouldn't wan't someone to do this professionally.

I wouldn't ask a carpenter to use only hand tools to build my house, and I wouldn't ask NASA to count on their fingers to calculate trajectories for sending spacecraft to Mars.

An abacus, a slide rule, a simple calculator, or even an advanced computer program. They are all tools (or crutches) that provide an advantage, we are now just arguing over how much of an advantage should be allowed.

EDIT BELOW-

Another thing my teacher used to say; what if you were walking down the street and a madman jumped out of the bushes and forced you to solve a math problem, and if you got it wrong he would kill you.

If only my teacher had known that 30 years later nearly every person in the western world would be carrying a calculator at all times.

Imagine another 30 years from today.
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Agreed. I well remember the old days when carrying the slide rule on a belt was routine and the new basic HP calculators being introduced cost as much as a semester's college tuition. It would take me a week then to laboriously produce the graphs than I can now produce in a few minutes. I know that some of my powerpoint presentations have taken less time to do all the figures (and they are far more interesting to see) than I could have made a single graph just 35 years ago.
 
GWguy

GWguy

*
intertidal said:
Agreed. I well remember the old days when carrying the slide rule on a belt was routine and the new basic HP calculators being introduced cost as much as a semester's college tuition. It would take me a week then to laboriously produce the graphs than I can now produce in a few minutes. I know that some of my powerpoint presentations have taken less time to do all the figures (and they are far more interesting to see) than I could have made a single graph just 35 years ago.
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I was pretty adept at using a slide rule, but hid mine. Kids with slide rules were geeks and nerds with pocket protectors and thick black glasses. I was a cool kid.....








not. :ohwell:
 
I

intertidal

New Member
GWguy said:
I was pretty adept at using a slide rule, but hid mine. Kids with slide rules were geeks and nerds with pocket protectors and thick black glasses. I was a cool kid.....








not. :ohwell:[/QUOTE

Times change. Many of our slide rule carriers were Vietnam vets on the GI Bill and older than much of the student population - and didn't much care about the appearances of things.
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Bann

Bann

Doris Day meets Lady Gaga
PREMO Member
Pete said:
OK, I am sure I will catch grief for this but I have and still do use what appears to be common core math. When I was a kid I moved a lot so I got behind in math. Memorization sucks for me so I learned "my own" method which appears to be the same thing as common core. So common core makes sense to me. I can see where it makes no sense to you all who did the memorization method.

3X6 to me early on was 3X5=15+3
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:yay: I get you! I get it. I think. Doing a trick to get the answer.

When I memorized my multiplication tables waaaaaay back when - I did something similar with the 8's. The 9's were super easy, but for some reason the 8's were more difficult for me.

Still - those are exceptions. Why does this method need to be the norm?
 
Pete

Pete

Repete
Bann said:
:yay: I get you! I get it. I think. Doing a trick to get the answer.

When I memorized my multiplication tables waaaaaay back when - I did something similar with the 8's. The 9's were super easy, but for some reason the 8's were more difficult for me.

Still - those are exceptions. Why does this method need to be the norm?
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From what I understand our national math scores have sucked beyond comparison for decades. This is proved is you go to the Burchmart on the corner of 235 and Sotterly Road and watch the brain bearings start to smolder when they have to make change. On top of our scores sucking, less and less of our population embrace math past the mandatory elementary level. So some very smart people started studying how human children think about math and solve problems as they develop into adulthood. Common core is a teaching method that uses the methodology of the raw human mind for doing math and expands on it instead of having a room full of adult math geniuses develop a method for everyone to memorize in an attempt to make math easier and more engaging. In a sense after 150 years of training people to ram a square peg into a mathematical round hole, they are giving them a round peg.
 
I

intertidal

New Member
Pete said:
From what I understand our national math scores have sucked beyond comparison for decades. This is proved is you go to the Burchmart on the corner of 235 and Sotterly Road and watch the brain bearings start to smolder when they have to make change. On top of our scores sucking, less and less of our population embrace math past the mandatory elementary level. So some very smart people started studying how human children think about math and solve problems as they develop into adulthood. Common core is a teaching method that uses the methodology of the raw human mind for doing math and expands on it instead of having a room full of adult math geniuses develop a method for everyone to memorize in an attempt to make math easier and more engaging. In a sense after 150 years of training people to ram a square peg into a mathematical round hole, they are giving them a round peg.
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That sounds very nice. I would be far less skeptical if I wasn't aware of the history of how such schemes are sold. Some of us somehow managed, way back in the Paleocene, to get a perfect SAT math score and excel at every math class through grad school. There are many different paths to achieve results. The "One size fits all" approach sold to the education business is rarely effective for all. Remember that this latest fad will almost certainly be replaced by another in 3 to 4 years, the sales lifespan of these schemes.
 
I

intertidal

New Member
Pete said:
But isn't that what we have had for 150 years? Johnny, memorize this table, there is a test tomorrow.
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So replacing one "one size fits all" with another one is the solution? How will the education business rationalize buying the next scheme?
 
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