Does anyone know why Common core math takes complex steps to get simple answers?

I'm just going to copy this thread from GLP. I'm curious about this - is it the same in the UK as the US? This is my comment:

"Do you know what, I'm so glad I read your post, I thought it was just me. I was visiting my sister and her kids were doing their homework; I'm talking about six/seven year olds. One asked me to help. I saw this page of just gobbledygook and didn't have a clue what it was asking. Turned out it was a simple sum that could've been done in a simple way in seconds. This is in the UK. What the hell???"

Is it just me, or is there more to it? Why have simple subjects been made so complex? Is this why our standard of education is falling, because even intelligent kids would have a problem grappling with this tortuous form of study.

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message2550853/pg1

How to dumb down the masses to ensure they know their place. Here's an example of common core math:

http://theteddybeartales.alt-world.com/2014/03/11/unconditional-hugs-009-1-common-core/

Why are children not taught their "tables" any more? I.e.2x9= 18. 3x9=27, 4x9=36. even at my age I can still recite the whole from 2x1 up to 12x12, I was asked to go through the lot every morning at School and have never forgotten it.

by the way, why are children now taught sitting around a table instead of at rows of desks?

Ok maths concepts are taught in a few different ways as all children learn differently.
Some learn by sight, some are aural learners and some are memory learners.
This is why they are taught in different ways and to use different methods.

Nicko, it has been said that children learn better when they are sitting next to, opposite and amongst others.

I don't know if this makes them learn better, personally, but it does encourage team work and team learning.

tables are a bit of a waste of time as everyone has calculators now. better teaching them how to understand concepts, if more people understood statistical mathematics there woudl be a lot less bullshit in politics     

thats why we have the arithmetic incompetance we do...people like veya got into being educators.... ::D:: 

You cannot do ANYTHING until you have fixed in your head the "number bonds"
that is, tables
common squares and roots.
and THEN comes more complex "structural bonds"...like good old pythagoras
and then essential SOHCAHTOA
and BODMAS

IF (and it aint gonna happen) I was stoopid enough to allow my little business to grow to a size where in needed to employ some one

They would HAVE to be able to use all those and a ready reconer book to make up quotes on the spot...
not piss about trying to pursuade an electronic berk to give up its secret.....

you see if you use a calculator ...you dont know if the answer you get is correct....

IF you do it the OLD WAY...the steps you got through to do it "self check" the result, and in anycase...if you are halfway competant at that sort of basic arithmetic, you can "estimate" the answer pretty closely anyway...before you get the correct result...

calculator dependance is a serious illness

victorisnotamused wrote:thats why we have the arithmetic incompetance we do...people like veya got into being educators.... ::D:: 

You cannot do ANYTHING until you have fixed in your head the "number bonds"
that is, tables
common squares and roots.
and THEN comes more complex "structural bonds"...like good old pythagoras
and then essential SOHCAHTOA
and BODMAS

IF (and it aint gonna happen) I was stoopid enough to allow my little business to grow to a size where in needed to employ some one

They would HAVE to be able to use all those and a ready reconer book to make up quotes on the spot...
not piss about trying to pursuade an electronic berk to give up its secret.....

you see if you use a calculator ...you dont know if the answer you get is correct....

IF you do it the OLD WAY...the steps you got through to do it "self check" the result, and in anycase...if you are halfway competant at that sort of basic arithmetic, you can "estimate" the answer pretty closely anyway...before you get the correct result...

calculator dependance is a serious illness

but is that just your lack of computer skill,       

I am quite naturally very goods a maths so it has never been an issue for me, but you don't need to memorise tables you need to be able to solve equations, if you can work out the process for solving the equation then you can put the numbers into the calculator and get the answer. I would hate to try and do accounting with times tables much easier to do it with formulas. And that way more focus can be put on ensuring that the numbers being entered into the formula are correct in the first place.
The biggest issue with times tables is that when you get to advanced maths they are actually fundamentally wrong and you have to 'unlearn' them. To understand complex mathematics you have to view numbers as a scale with the centre being 0, and numbers counting infinitely in either direction (+/-).

"6 times -4" should be as easy as "6 times 4"

erm...veya...I hate to reveal this simple truth to you...but it is......

and 6 x -4 aint a "complex number"

and actually we aint on about "mathematics " here...its arithmetic...

I understand that you can do complex mathematics without involving ANY numbers ...but in real life situations mathematics isnt that much of an issue, indeed most people can go through life with a very limited repetoire of mathematical knowlege....

However even the simplest of lifes demands ...like shopping requires a degree of arithmetical skills...like being able to add up subtract and multiply...if you need a calculator to do THAT i recon you are screwed...

how much plywood do I need to cover a circle 8 feet in diameter...(feet because my customer is "getting on a bit" and only learned the old imperial system)....bugger the calculator...its 3 x 8 24 square feet...(so estimate 26 to cover the fact that its actually 3.142 x 8 (plus a bit for wastage) (the MATHS here is of course the approximation of pi x D) the arithmetic is the realisation of that as 3 x 8.....so you need to know your tables...since i could do that in my head faster than you could get the calculator out of your pocket....

Going to link to the problem so we can all see it on this page:



Now, if you assume the only purpose of the lesson were to teach a child how to subtract 12 from 32, it does seem an overly complicated way of doing it. But I suspect, from looking at the method used, that it's actually a lesson on counting by fives and 10s to solve problems.

This is just my theory, but I think they might be using an educational concept called "scaffolding" to teach fundamentals to a student who is unfamiliar with the concept of adding and subtracting numbers larger than 10.

By the way, the adult who copied this down on paper should have called the old way the "old fashioned" way, not the "old fashion" way.  ::D:: 

veya_victaous wrote:

victorisnotamused wrote:thats why we have the arithmetic incompetance we do...people like veya got into being educators.... ::D:: 

You cannot do ANYTHING until you have fixed in your head the "number bonds"
that is, tables
common squares and roots.
and THEN comes more complex "structural bonds"...like good old pythagoras
and then essential SOHCAHTOA
and BODMAS

IF (and it aint gonna happen) I was stoopid enough to allow my little business to grow to a size where in needed to employ some one

They would HAVE to be able to use all those and a ready reconer book to make up quotes on the spot...
not piss about trying to pursuade an electronic berk to give up its secret.....

you see if you use a calculator ...you dont know if the answer you get is correct....

IF you do it the OLD WAY...the steps you got through to do it "self check" the result, and in anycase...if you are halfway competant at that sort of basic arithmetic, you can "estimate" the answer pretty closely anyway...before you get the correct result...

calculator dependance is a serious illness

but is that just your lack of computer skill,       

I am quite naturally very goods a maths so it has never been an issue for me, but you don't need to memorise tables you need to be able to solve equations, if you can work out the process for solving the equation then you can put the numbers into the calculator and get the answer. I would hate to try and do accounting with times tables much easier to do it with formulas. And that way more focus can be put on ensuring that the numbers being entered into the formula are correct in the first place.
The biggest issue with times tables is that when you get to advanced maths they are actually fundamentally wrong and you have to 'unlearn' them. To understand complex mathematics you have to view numbers as a scale with the centre being 0, and numbers counting infinitely in either direction (+/-).

"6 times -4" should be as easy as "6 times 4"

I've had a similar discussion with people who say you don't really need to be able to write cursive nowadays. So what happens in the event of, say, a cyber attack when all signals are down, or, worse, some sort of EMP strike or a war in which electricity/internet connections aren't available for a long time? How do we carry on if people can't communicate properly or do simple calculus in their heads?

Tesstacious wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

but is that just your lack of computer skill,       

I am quite naturally very goods a maths so it has never been an issue for me, but you don't need to memorise tables you need to be able to solve equations, if you can work out the process for solving the equation then you can put the numbers into the calculator and get the answer. I would hate to try and do accounting with times tables much easier to do it with formulas. And that way more focus can be put on ensuring that the numbers being entered into the formula are correct in the first place.
The biggest issue with times tables is that when you get to advanced maths they are actually fundamentally wrong and you have to 'unlearn' them. To understand complex mathematics you have to view numbers as a scale with the centre being 0, and numbers counting infinitely in either direction (+/-).

"6 times -4" should be as easy as "6 times 4"

I've had a similar discussion with people who say you don't really need to be able to write cursive nowadays.  So what happens in the event of, say, a cyber attack when all signals are down, or, worse, some sort of EMP strike or a war in which electricity/internet connections aren't available for a long time?  How do we carry on if people can't communicate properly or do simple calculus in their heads?

People communicate daily fine without the need of a PC and have got on fine before the advent of a PC came along. In fact it got along very fine. Most people can also do simple maths but the answer is also easy, there are also countless people who do know if I was to believe your view it would be paramount to carry on, which I do not, and these people can teach.

Simple really, we managed to advance very well without today's technology before

victorisnotamused wrote:erm...veya...I hate to reveal this simple truth to you...but it is......

and 6 x -4 aint a "complex number"

I was making it simple to make a point, you're better off understanding what you are doing them just learning to recite a few tables. because even just adding negative numbers give you 3 times the number of tables you have to learn, not even looking at fractions and decimals which WHEN you go and use maths for a more advanced purpose than totalling a shopping bill you need.

Tesstacious wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

victorisnotamused wrote:thats why we have the arithmetic incompetance we do...people like veya got into being educators.... ::D:: 

You cannot do ANYTHING until you have fixed in your head the "number bonds"
that is, tables
common squares and roots.
and THEN comes more complex "structural bonds"...like good old pythagoras
and then essential SOHCAHTOA
and BODMAS

IF (and it aint gonna happen) I was stoopid enough to allow my little business to grow to a size where in needed to employ some one

They would HAVE to be able to use all those and a ready reconer book to make up quotes on the spot...
not piss about trying to pursuade an electronic berk to give up its secret.....

you see if you use a calculator ...you dont know if the answer you get is correct....

IF you do it the OLD WAY...the steps you got through to do it "self check" the result, and in anycase...if you are halfway competant at that sort of basic arithmetic, you can "estimate" the answer pretty closely anyway...before you get the correct result...

calculator dependance is a serious illness

but is that just your lack of computer skill,       

I am quite naturally very goods a maths so it has never been an issue for me, but you don't need to memorise tables you need to be able to solve equations, if you can work out the process for solving the equation then you can put the numbers into the calculator and get the answer. I would hate to try and do accounting with times tables much easier to do it with formulas. And that way more focus can be put on ensuring that the numbers being entered into the formula are correct in the first place.
The biggest issue with times tables is that when you get to advanced maths they are actually fundamentally wrong and you have to 'unlearn' them. To understand complex mathematics you have to view numbers as a scale with the centre being 0, and numbers counting infinitely in either direction (+/-).

"6 times -4" should be as easy as "6 times 4"

I've had a similar discussion with people who say you don't really need to be able to write cursive nowadays.  So what happens in the event of, say, a cyber attack when all signals are down, or, worse, some sort of EMP strike or a war in which electricity/internet connections aren't available for a long time?  How do we carry on if people can't communicate properly or do simple calculus in their heads?

Abacus     
It is not that people should not be able to do it but more it no longer is needed as a core skill because the vast majority of people wont really need it (also carry around a device better than 99.9% of humanity at it) and there are so many more useful skills they could learn Like... Which buttons to press to get the RIGHT answer