That is a problem with the educational system, not with the math. Obviously the whole thing is huge and probably should have been implemented gradually. Teachers should not be teaching anything they don't understand.
My 5th grader is required to solve a problem multiple ways right now. There could be 5 problems but she has 20 answers (methods) to show how to solve them. Later they will let the students decide what is best for them and they can stick with that method. Old school or new.
Actually, no. Go back to the 32-12 visual. The one step method that is so "easy" is what we learned in school. The 4-step method that looks so complicated on paper is what you end up doing in your head, because even though its more steps, they are simpler steps that are easier to track.
I fought this a few years back, but then they had a math class for parents and I saw what could be. It still frustrates me now. I have to learn the other ways so I can check the work. If it works for her, it works.
I can't figure out why anyone would be against their child learning how to think and use their brain to solve a problem instead of just memorizing the answer. It's not that hard either, I tried to help my kid one night and after she explained how it worked it made perfect sense. Did a little reading up on Eureka and I was good to go. I actually thought the picture of the check was pretty clever.
Good. She is evolving and will do well. I keep hearing complaints from parents that they don't understand the math. I hear relatively little of it from the kids.
I think parents are extremely lazy. And adults naturally don't like change. Add some new way to do math and it's the perfect storm. They'd rather bitch and complain about it because they can't figure it out, but if they took about an hour and actually did some reading it would make sense. I fought it a little bit too, because I couldnt just look at it and figure it out, I had have my kid show me, and then do some reading on how it's done. My daughter has always made straight A's in math and it's her favorite subject (which is odd) so maybe that's got a little to do with why I was able to pick it up, I had a good teacher.
You know, there are kids all around, you should get out more. Kids I helped raise have kids now. And I see a fresh crop of somewhat adult-looking kids at LSU every September. I am still astonished at how immature and naive they have become compared to my generation, . . . but they seem to know their math.
