Is close good enough or should we be working towards correct? Thanks to Common Core grading and executive function heavy techniques we are allowing wrong to be right if its close enough.
I realize there is a wide road with Common Core where the teacher can lead their classroom similar to what previous generations grew up with. There is however a growing urge to lead a child to good enough. There is also a need to teach new math and other topics that fit the testing, even the SAT is going Common Core soon. I wonder when homeschoolers will be eyeballed to fall into line?
A student I know in the public school system wrote their homework out and got the right answers. This student did not show the technique taught via common core methods. The student used good old-fashioned math that his math tutor mom had taught him for years. The student’s homework was marked wrong.
Mom was not a push over and talked to the teacher about this immediately. She was told that if her child had just used the technique taught that day the homework would have easily had a passing grade. But the goal of the homework was not correct answers it was using the common core technique.
The goal was NOT CORRECT ANSWERS?
So close is okay as long as you use the right technique???
In what?
Bridge building?
Rocket launching?
Medication dispensing?
When you teach children that close is okay then how will you know what right is? How will you know which students are struggling but getting close enough to fly under the radar?
I was a student tutor in middle school. One of the students I taught did all math backwards. He started from the left and moved to the right. He would squish in carried numbers or ignore them all together. To see his math work it was mostly right. He flew under the radar until 8th grade by being mostly right or close enough to get half credit.
When I asked for help in tutoring him from his math teacher the teacher tried to re-teach him. It didn’t work. He was used to getting by with his own method. He had no desire to learn math the correct way.
I see kids learning common core methods that are confusing to adults and students with no learning disabilities. I wonder how will we find and help those with learning disabilities. Will we find them too late? Or will they be so patted on the head and led through the maze by the hand that they have no desire to learn on their own the correct way because Good Enough has become the slogan of the day.
Good Enough is not correct. Close doesn’t solve the mysteries of the universe. Math has set laws and reasoning behind it that must be taught and uniformly applied to come to the proper answer. When given 2+2=__ the answer from everyone must be 4.
From where I stand Common Core is not helping the learning disabled community at all!
HSLDA wrote an article that is along these lines. http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/2015/201502020.asp