Is Common Core helping or hurting our kids?
As we all know, the newly adopted Common Core educational standards are being taught by most states. Uuggghhhh!!! While I can speak for most subjects, the one that makes me sick to my core the most is the new Common Core Math. Helping my 5th grader with her math homework is like trying to build a castle in the air! Are they kidding? The new standards of teaching math skills involve a series of so many technical steps, that the minute you try computing the problem, you're completely and utterly lost before you've even begun! The number sense makes absolutely no sense at all!...besides the fact, that now you have 2 major problems on your hand as a parent. #1, You're trying to help your child logically figure out the equation the "new common core" way (which might I add takes longer and uses more steps), and #2, Now your child is more stressful and throwing math tizzy fits at home because when me, mom, can't seem to figure out how to help solve the math equation, I call in my other daughter, or husband to come to the rescue! Now we've got the entire family pulling our hairs out as we try to make sense of this completely absurd and twisted way of doing math!
There may be plenty of reasons to see how the new Common Core Math will help students use more critical thinking methodologies, but my number one reason for wanting to stick to doing math the old fashioned way is simple people....IT WORKS!!!
Here's a recent Fox News report video of a frustrated parent of a 2nd grader who responds to his son's Common Core math homework...