Why is this so confusing? The question is clearly not asking the kid to make 8+5=10, but is instead asking a question about the operation used to get to what 8+5 equals. Think of it this way. If youre buying a couple of (oddly cheap) things at the grocery store, and one is .80¢ and the other is .50¢, how do you add it up in your head? Do you add 80 + 50 with your fingers? Or count up in your head by ones, so you can find out that it will cost 130 pennies? Probably not. What you do is go by dollars and cents, or hundreds and tens in this case. You bump the .80¢ up to $1.00, by taking .20¢ off the .50¢ item before adding the remaining .30¢ back in to give you a total of $1.30. Which all sounds a lot more complicated written out than the process actually is when you do it on a daily basis. And thats all this method is trying to teach kids: to think beyond the finger counting algorithm and understand the math beneath it. If youre going to add 8+5, sure. Counting up 5 from 8 is pretty quick and easy...and mindless. But thinking by tens (in a base 10 system) just makes more sense, and makes things easier with larger numbers. So I make 8 into 10, which requires adding 2 to 8 by taking it from the 5. That leaves 3, which now makes my problem 10+3, instead of 8+5. Its actually pretty dang simple. And not only does it make the final problem easier to solve, it - in theory - helps to establish core concepts at an earlier developmental stage that students will use in higher levels of math. Its a better foundation than finger counting, in other words. New does not always mean worse, even when its hard for grown-ups to wrap their minds around it. But if you calm down, climb off the political soapbox for a second and look rationally at what is being taught, it really isnt all that scary. rightwingnews/top-news/even-kid-realized-common-core-stupid/
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 19:14:36 +0000
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