Traditional Algorithms SUCK!!!

Now, let me be clear…I am in no means in love with Common Core.  There are a few issues that I see in the math content standards, there are issues with the implementation piece that has been put upon teachers’ shoulders, and there are issues with the testing aspect.  But most of that is not the Common Core itself (it is the implementation of it), so if I put the issues aside for a moment and really look at the heart of what Common Core Math is trying to build for our students, IT IS AWESOME.

The thing that makes me so irritated is that the opponents of Common Core are using examples that are ridiculous!!!  Every time I see a photo that shows how the “old way” to do math is way simpler and easier than this “new way” they are teaching, the numbers in the math problems are simple and easy to begin with.   Below are two examples along with my responses to each:

(Update: also check out these responses from Overthinking My Teaching , Re-Learning To Teach, Five Twelve Thirteen, and this great post from a HS Teacher’s perspective at MathCoachBlog all of them about the “Common Core Jack NumberLine Problem” and Mathy Cathy’s post about the Old Way versus New Way photo.)

Try doing the algorithm with a hard problem and tell me how much easier and simpler it is…Please, show me an example of a DIFFICULT subtraction problem (where you have to borrow) that would be easier and simpler with the algorithm…YOU CAN”T, because the algorithm SUCKS!!!  It builds absolutely no place value understanding in kids, no number sense, and kids really have a difficult time understanding the idea of borrowing (or regrouping as it is called now) and if they do “get it,” what they are usually getting is just following the procedure that their parent or teacher taught them…they really have no understanding of what they are doing.  If you want to check to see if your child(ren) understand what they did after they borrowed, ask them if they know how much the top number is worth now after they did all that borrowing:

If they don’t understand that nothing changed, it is still worth 52, then they don’t understand the algorithm.  Too many kids think that they just created a 4 and a 12…or worse, they think they made 412.  So, instead, teachers are trying to build place value understand and number sense so that they can see how you aren’t borrowing a ‘1’ from the ‘5,’ you are borrowing ’10’ from the 50 which makes a 40 and 12, which is still 52.