Preparing students today, so they are ready for tomorrow?

 

The Common Core curriculum was designed to establish universal guidelines for students in math and english language arts from grades k-12. The curriculum is designed to help students develop critical thinking, analytical and problem solving skills. The goal for this standard is to prepare students for the college careers and entry level positions.

 

However, the Common Core has come under a lot of fire recently for employing teaching methods that are quite… superfluous. The traditional way for doing very basic math problems, such as 44 -12, requires the student to perform vertical subtraction to get the answer 32, and usually takes a few seconds. But in order to solve this problem using the Common Core method, the student needs to do the following:

  1. You want to get 12 to the nearest multiple of 5 –15– so you do
    1. 12 + 3 = 15
  2. Then get 15 to the nearest multiple of 10. From there, you keep adding 10s until you get to 40.
    1. 15 + 5 = 20
    2. 20 +10 = 30
    3. 30 + 10 = 40

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  3. Now, you just add 4 to get to your larger number 44
    1. 40 + 4 = 44
  4. To get your difference, you add the numbers in the second row
    1. 3 + 5 + 10 + 10 + 4 = 32

This method relies on the ease of adding and subtracting by 5s and 10s, but wherever it succeeds in using easier numbers, it equally sacrifices in efficiency. Further, this longer process leaves many students confused and vulnerable to silly mistakes ( I was a major culprit of silly mistakes so this method may have been my own achilles heel).

 

While many students prefer adding 5s and 10s over 3s and 7s, some may prefer a more simplified math method– no pun intended. It is ultimately your choice to have your child take the common core exam at the end of the year, although opting out does leave your child with a zero.  

 

The common core has its pros and cons undoubtedly. But stay assured that your child’s teachers at school, as well as at Ceed, work their best to ensure that every child is fully prepared to succeed, and exceed, in life.