The Common Core Curriculum Standards have been an unending source of irritation for students unlucky enough to attend school in districts that subscribe to them. This is especially true of kids who have been condemned to learn Common Core math (aka consigned to the fourth ring of hell).
How bad is it? Here is a sample problem:
Betty bought 1,568 stickers. For her birthday she got 1,423 more. On Monday she went back to Sticker Station and bought 680 more. How many stickers does Betty have now?
And here is a video of an 8-year-old using Common Core techniques to solve that problem:
In case you gave up trying to make sense of the child’s explanation after the fourth agonizing minute, here’s a different problem:
Tell how to make 10 when adding 8 + 5.
Give up? When a child assigned this problem did just that, exasperatedly telling the teacher it can’t be done, the teacher argued that it could. The answer, she explained, was to take 2 from the 5 and add the difference to 8. (No explanation was given for what happens to the leftover 3, but my guess would be that they’re both nickels.)
Then there was the delightful brainteaser below, complete with a comment by a parent with an engineering degree.
As every parent who has ever grappled with his child’s Common Core math homework can attest, “Frustrated Parent” isn’t alone. In fact, one enterprising parent from Ohio decided to make a cash gift to his child’s school in the form of a check. The only hitch is that the amount is written out in Common Core “numbers.”
If the school wants to deposit this generous gift, one of its teachers is going to need to be able to explain to the teller how to read it!
Related Articles
- One state’s ‘brilliant’ fix to stopping students from opting out of Common Core
- When is a door not a door? A Common Core math riddle
- Watch a third grader struggle to solve a math problem using a Common Core plug-in
- Common Core math: So hard to comprehed a PhD can’t hack it
- Who says Common Core math doesn’t work?
- A Common Core math problem that is positively facepalm-inducing
- Common Core math question for sixth graders: Was the 2000 election ‘fair’? *UPDATE*
- Do the math: Common Core math question ‘worst in human history’?
- Picture of the Day: More math fun with Common Core
