Common Core

“Brian has some boxes of paper clips.  Some boxes hold 10 clips and some boxes hold 100.  He has some paper clips left over.  He has three more boxes with 100 paper clips than he has boxes with 10 paper clips.  He has two fewer paper clips than he has numbers of boxes with 100 paper clips.  What number of paper clips could he have?”

Um huh?  This was a math problem on my 2nd graders homework last night.  MY 2nd GRADER!  This isn’t the first time I have been totally confused helping my 8 year old do homework.  When I was in 2nd grade I wasn’t doing math problems like this.  What’s the point of this math question? Is there even an answer to this question?

Math homework in our home is usually a big fight,  the way my daughter is learning is not the way my husband and I learned.   What was so wrong with the way we learned?  If I can’t help my totally confused child because I myself am confused how is my child learning?  Sometimes she isn’t confused and I am, which makes me both proud and a little ashamed.

What is Common Core?  If your child is in public school it is very possible this is the teaching method.  According to http://www.commoncore.org “Common Core is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy (ELA). These learning goals outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade.”  Say What? Kind of sounds like the math question above.  Here is my definition… “Common Core is a set of highly confusing and pointless academic standards.  Even though there is a much easier why to figure out a problem, your child must run around in circles and stand on their head to get the answer.”

Oy vey! What is a parent to do?  I would love to make enough money to put her in private school.  Maybe with smaller classes, a school that doesn’t just spew out pointless “standards” in order to get a the best test scores.  But I don’t, and I am forced to inject my child into a system where she is not getting the best education possible.  Where if she does not meet these ridiculous “standards” there must be something wrong with her.  Maybe someday education won’t just be about tests and standards, maybe it will actually be about learning!