Poll of the Day > It's been a while. How do you feel about common core math?

(+) Yeah! (+)

i don't actually know what it is

tl;dr It teaches the relationships between numbers over getting the right answer.

I don't have a problem with it as a way of learning math, I have a problem when people teach it as the ONLY way to learn math.

What's been a while? It's been a while since we learned common core math?

Why? I think learning a natural instinct about numbers can be helpful in understanding math and why it works. I sort of tought myself common core on my own as a way to get answers quicker. As a kid.

I think it'd be great if they continued reviewing basic math up through highschool for 15-20 minutes. It's easy to forget and just needs a little maintenance. A lot of young people struggle with higher math, but could really benefit from keeping their basics solid.

Math is in a weird place in education. Far, far too few teachers recognize and explain its value as effectively running laps for your brain, which in turn leads to many students (especially those who don't inherently "get it") viewing it as pointless. Because of that, it's pretty common to just accept that some kids "aren't good at math" and letting them stagnate on the basics because the value of being able to learn and practice higher stuff isn't appreciated. In practice, though, almost everyone can learn basic math well enough to be able to practice the higher stuff, it just takes a different approach.

Math is honestly about problem solving and learning how to show why you think something's wrong or right.
Which people skip over into it being purely about algebraic numbers.

I blame calculus personally, and everyone saying it's the be-all end-all of mathamatics.

Bingo. I'm a high school math teacher.

When students ask "when am I going to use this", I typically have a possible career connection to share but I mostly just say something along the lines of "we learn math in high school to train your brain to logically tackle problems that you didn't even know existed yesterday using both information you've previously obtained and brand new information. In that sense, you'll use the skills you learn here almost every day of your life".

Students generally are happy with that answer. Math gets a lot of scrutiny from students because of how abstract it can be, without understanding that it being abstract is the entire point.

Algebra in my day was taught so stupidly. Letters, missing symbols, and moving parts around. It never made sense to me and still doesn't.
Also I do it 100s of times a day in programming. Nearly every single line you write in code is ultimately c = a + b. But the way it's represented and explained in algebra is beyond useless.

i don't actually know what it is

You haven't gotten involved in simulations. Without algebra, you're useless when it comes to any of that.

The physical world runs off algebra and without people understanding it we wouldn't be able to create anything remotely advanced.

You haven't gotten involved in simulations. Without algebra, you're useless when it comes to any of that.

The physical world runs off algebra and without people understanding it we wouldn't be able to create anything remotely advanced.

Bingo. I'm a high school math teacher.

When students ask "when am I going to use this", I typically have a possible career connection to share but I mostly just say something along the lines of "we learn math in high school to train your brain to logically tackle problems that you didn't even know existed yesterday using both information you've previously obtained and brand new information. In that sense, you'll use the skills you learn here almost every day of your life".

Students generally are happy with that answer. Math gets a lot of scrutiny from students because of how abstract it can be, without understanding that it being abstract is the entire point.

If the simulation uses single letter variable names and is written all on one line then they can go fuck themselves

I guess, why would anyone think its a bad thing?

Calculus is just a programming language

What.

15% of 4200 is the same as 4200% of 15.

If it's stuff like you round up to a number then subtract the difference after I've been doing it since before it was a thing.

It makes doing it in your head easier but on paper nah I do it the original way.

I might argue that in today's world, being able to do it mentally is more valuable than being able to do it on paper. In almost any situation where you're doing math on paper, you'll have a calculator available to do it for you. Estimating/calculating mentally, however, is the basis of the common sense checks you should be doing after any larger-scale calculations, can help quite a bit with any accounting/bookkeeping process to track down any discrepancies you find, and saves the hassle of pulling out a phone to do things like calculate sales taxes or double a recipe.

Of course, at the same time, doing more complex math problems on paper is the basis for that mental exercise part of teaching math in schools, so students should still be getting a foundation that prepares them for that. It's a tricky balance, I guess.