Did you know that 3 times 4 equals 11?
That’s the new standard, apparently, when it comes to Common Core style math.
A Math instructor in Illinois was giving information to a group of concerned teachers and parents about how we should teach math in schools today.
Amanda August, as is seen in the video below, says that under the Common Core standards students could get credit for an incorrect answer as long as they could explain their “reasoning” for the answer.
Amanda August: “But even under the new common core if even if they said 3 * 4 was 11, if they were able to explain their reasoning and explain how they came up with their answer. Really in words and oral explanation and they showed it in a picture but they just got the final answer wrong. We’re more focused on the how and the why.”
Question: “Will we be correcting them?”
Amanda August: “Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We want our students to compute correctly. But the emphasis is moving more to the explanation, and the how, and the why, and can I really talk through the procedures that I went through to get at this answer — and not just knowing its 12, but why its 12. But the emphasis is really moving on toward the explanation and the how and the why and can I really talk through the procedures that I went through to get the answer.”
Is this really what we need? Is this how America stays competitive educationally with other nations of the world?
Or is this just more dumbing down of our youth?
Leave a comment under the article and let us know what YOU think.