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I have a math question


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Reading an article, and I came across this term.

 

>And that’s how I ended up standing at a chalkboard in an empty fifth-grade classroom while Chase’s teacher sat behind me, using a soothing voice to try to help me understand the “new way we teach long division.” Luckily for me, I didn’t have to unlearn much because I’d never really understood the “old way we taught long division.” It took me a solid hour to complete one problem, <

 

My question.

 

What is "the new way we teach long division"?

 

I remember"New Math", back in the 60s. Stupid, so it only lasted a few years. I hear of "Common Core", but don't know what it is.

 

Can someone explain it?

 

 

 

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First - I am a retired (after 28 years) elementary school teacher that taught all subjects.  Texas didn't adopt Common Core, but basically most of the math you do is "in your head," not with pencil and paper.  The "new math" is just another way to simplify problem solving so the students understand it.

 

I always made my students show a second (and sometimes a third) way that the math problem could be solved and explain their answer/thinking. That way I "knew" they actually understood the process.  If they didn't, I showed them another way to solve after they tried to solve on their own.   (If they couldn't explain how they got the answer, then they probably just copied from someone else and didn't understand on their own.)

 

Yes, the old ways work for us old folks, but I remember rote memorization without actually understanding what was happening and why. Many years later as a teacher I finally understood the whys.  Today's education also uses manipulatives to help show the process.  Manipulatives can be little cubes for ones, a stack of ten cubes for tens, and a flat of 100 cubes for hundred, and so on. It does make a big difference when students "manipulate" these manipulatives to show how they solved the problem.

 

One of the biggest problems I saw before I retired is that concepts were pushed to lower and lower grade levels, and more and more objectives per year meant teachers only had a "fixed" amount of time to cover an objective (i.e. measurement, multiplication, etc.) before "moving on" to another objective.  Lots of kids can't "get it" in the short period of time you have to teach all these objectives.

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I believe the common core stuff was invented to make our kids dumber not smarter. 

 

I finally got it through my son's thick head to show his work, always, even if it's simple and he can do it in his head. I'm still trying to get that through my daughter's even thicker head. I won't check their homework without the work on a separate sheet of paper.

 

I still don't completely understand the 'new' math and likely never will.

 

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I taught consumer math for four years in what was then called "junior high school" before I decided the pay wasn't up to my needs.  I wasn't told to use any particular method, so I used what my dad taught me.  He was a fifth-sixth grade teacher for many, many years.  He said " relate the subject to something they already know".

 

It worked for me and most of my students.  Only a half dozen never got it in those four years.

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Dealing with physics in real life and death situations, reconstruction for 20+ years I could examine the scene and pretty much have the answer in my head. You sure cannot go with the answer in my head when in criminal court. So, you have to document every evaluation/procedure on paper for the jury, and be able to explain it. Everything will be broken down into simple math so everyone could understand. 

So, just what was in your head when figuring out that math problem, prove it on paper.

I'll go with the old math ways. Worked for us dinosaurs.:D

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The "gozintas":  One gozinta two.  Two gozinta four.  Ma gozinta pa's pocket when pa begins to snore!  :P

 

Part of the problem with pushing the math into earlier and earlier grades is not only leaving the teacher with less time to get the subject across, but also the fact that some kid's brains haven't fully developed to the point where they can comprehend certain things.

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Unfortunately for me, when I came out of a stint in reform .. er .. private school, and reentered public schools, California was in the throes of teaching Stanford Mathematical Study Group .... Math.  Whiz-Bang stuff.  The emphasis was not on the answer you got, but how you got it.  I did algebra the old mechanical way to get the correct answer.  I would turn in a test with ALL correct answers and be "failed" because I couldn't do it the "new" way.  I use to stick my hand up in class at the end of a problem going up on the board with the correct answer.  The teacher would snidely say "wrong."  Then I found the "teacher" was only two chapters ahead of us in the book and also didn't really have a clue.  I had to leave public school shortly after that .. again.  

 

I'm not surprised clerks can't make change without the register.  I am surprised when the demonstrate they can actually tie their shoes.  :ph34r:

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I remember back in school about 6th or 7th grade.  I was having problems with division. At home I asked my father about it and showed him how they wanted it done at school. He looked at and said he didn't understand their way and said and showed me how he did it. Whatever he did clicked with me and I had n more problems with division. The nuns at school were not pleased and told him so at the next parent teacher meeting. I still did it his way.

 

This is how I did math for a while.

IMG_0850.JPG

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Colorado Coffinmaker - I had SMSG math in 7th grade back in the dark ages (1961).  I always thought it was stupid to learn about base 7 and base 12.  Still think it is stupid.  Now base 2 - useful for understanding computer programing probably.

 

Dustin Checotah - I NEVER could get how a slide rule worked.  I am amazed that they don't teach it anymore, but with all the new calculators and phone apps, I think it is a forgotten art.  One day we'll regret not teaching how to use slide rules.

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14 hours ago, Lorelei Longshot, SASS #44256 Life said:

Colorado Coffinmaker - I had SMSG math in 7th grade back in the dark ages (1961).  I always thought it was stupid to learn about base 7 and base 12.  Still think it is stupid.  Now base 2 - useful for understanding computer programing probably.

 

Dustin Checotah - I NEVER could get how a slide rule worked.  I am amazed that they don't teach it anymore, but with all the new calculators and phone apps, I think it is a forgotten art.  One day we'll regret not teaching how to use slide rules.

Miss Longshot

the top slide rule in that picture was one that I bought for use in my 12th grade physics class. The teacher taught us how to use them. I also used it when I went to the Navy's Nuclear power school. The slide rule has about 24 scales and by the time I was done at Nuke school I could use about 22 of them. Also about that time hand held calculators were about 7 in. by 3 in. by 1 in. thick. My calculator was that size but the Navy in their vast wisdom would not let us use them in school. By the time that I got my calculator I was familiar enough with the slide rule that when I did a complex equation on the calculator I actually checked it with the slide rule. 

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Both my parents were great!!!!  Earned every spanking I got.  When it came to math, the answer I always got was “That wasn’t taught in my day”.  (Mom born in 1922 and Dad, 1924).  “Simple math” no problem.  Algebra, Trig, Geometry and the like were taught in College.  One of many great laughs was me, a senior, sitting at the table scratching my head on a math problem.  Mom looked over my shoulder, shook her head and said “I’m sorry, but your on your own”!!!

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I thought I was Right Brain and couldn't do math.  When I went to Europe in 1989 with High School students who couldn't estimate the $$ exchange rates in their heads, I realized that, yeah, it ain't the result -- it's the process.  If you got the process, the result will come.

9 hours ago, Clueless Bob said:

Algebra, Trig, Geometry and the like were taught in College.

Took all of the above, in middle/high school.  That's why I could estimate the $$ exchange rate.  I understood the process.

 

Baby Girl, whom we paid extra to send to Parochial School, once asked why she needed to learn fractions.  I was cooking supper; she was sitting with me in the kitchen.  I told her to pull any cookbook from the bookshelf, and open it to any recipe.  How many does it feed, sez I.  Six, sez she.  You have 10 people coming for dinner, sez I.  Oh, sez she.

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