@ArtOfCode The Common Core is essentially a means of teaching that was creating by people who makes laws, not by teachers, and it makes learning math (for example) much more difficult. Parents helping their kids with their homework are having trouble doing long division because it's such a bad way of teaching. livesmarter.com/2014/05/…
I personally think that "Common Core math" makes more intuitive sense. I and a few of my mathy friends think that it more closely reflects how we do arithmetic in our heads.
Probably worth taking this with a grain of salt since I have very little direct experience with Common Core.
^ People can pretty much only do basic arithmetic in their heads, and if you don't teach them to do it the way we know, they'll have trouble later because upper math doesn't use CC.
@Kaz Oh, absolutely. I have the impression that Common Core only applies to elementary school math, though, so math at that level essentially is arithmetic.
@ArtOfCode I've heard a couple complaints against CC that center on kids being penalized for not showing their work because they did it in their heads.
Honestly, I don't think that making a subject mandatory is what kills interest in it. I think what ruins education is the focus on grades. In college, I gave up understanding certain material well, instead opting to quick memorize and regurgitate for tests, then forget, or to use Google to help me with math. This emphasis should instead be on effort and learning over time. If people learn to enjoy learning, they'll pursue their own education at all times.
I had one or two classes where grades were essentially participation, and those are the (math) classes that I enjoyed and learned the most in.
So I understand when it says > The main problem with school mathematics is that there are no problems
I took "problem solving" in college. People are getting worse at solving problems on their own. This needs to be addressed at an early age.
There's the five percent of kids that will always want to learn, and the (more) percent of kids who never will. It's the middle bunch that we're trying to sway.
@El'endiaStarman I like this analogy. I meet too many kids - by which I mean college-age these days - who seem completely unable to apply anything they've learned, or even understand that it can be applied.
@El'endiaStarman I went to private school, but the other students were always slower at (sometimes deliberately) learning the topics. I could've learned much more if I had been homeschooled, bc I wasn't challenged enough at school.
@mbomb007 Fortunately, I had an excellent maths teacher in year 9 (8th? 9th? 10th? grade), who actually taught us to use fractions instead of decimals (:P) wherever possible
@mbomb007 12/5 isn't a fraction of something; you can't eat 12/5 of the cake you just bought. However, it's useful to extend the concept of fractions to numbers that aren't fractions in the proper (i.e., strictly correct) sense.
I told my math teacher one time, "if the numbers are imaginary, how is this applicable in the real world" because she was always going on about using math everday and blah blah blah. (full disclosure, i suck at math)
@PaulWhite Nah. If computer science skill was measure in rep on SO, that wouldn't make sense. Maybe I just prefer spending time on PPCG, or writing code, rather than helping answer dumb questions.
I have the XKCD application on my phone, but there's a big number of them that I haven't seen because they're in the middle. I've started from the beginning and read a bunch, and I've read a bunch from the end, and random ones, but I'm sure I'm missing many in the middle.
Honestly, I don't think Trump will do as bad as those opposed to him are expecting. Our current president is as businessman with no prior experience in politics, has been accused of many things (including breaking the law), and his ideology is vastly incompatible with mine. In spite of all that, he's the best president we had in at least six decades.
@Yodle He's generally anti-science, though, isn't he? And, in fact, disinclined to listen to expert advice generally, because he's too arrogant to imagine that anyone could ever teach him anything.
