April 10, 2014

Common Core Continues Teaching Kids the Most Important Lesson of All:
Life is a Fog of Confusion and Every Choice is Wrong
— Ace

Yup.

Kids shouldn't have to wait until they're 30 to make this realization, like I did, last year. (Ahem.) They should be taught the Lessons of Kaboom while they're still young enough to give up without exerting too much futile effort.

The pic (at the link) shows a Common Core question. What they want kids to do is this:

Rather than just memorizing that 13 - 7 = 6, they instead want them only to memorize the minus tables up to ten.

Then they want them to realize that 13 = 10+3, so the problem of 13-7 can be thought of as (10 + 3) - 7. 10 minus seven is three. So, three plus three. The answer is six, of course.

Here's the problem with this, and I've said this before, so I won't belabor it: The method that they are offering to avoid rote memorization or the mechanical method of subtraction involving two digit numbers is actually more conceptually difficult than the memorization or mechanical "carry-over-the-one" method.

It is true that there is a mathematical insight in realizing that 13 is just 10+3, and that various mathematical laws (the Associative property, maybe? I forget) permit one to subtract 7 from 10 and then add 3.

But this is a higher-level, higher-conceptual-insight view of the problem.*

Confronted with kids who aren't proficient with the low-level, low-conceptual-insight view of the problem, they decide... we'll teach them the high-conceptual-insight method of doing it.

If kids "aren't getting math," it seems to me the wrong way to go is to go higher concept on them.

In addition, parents don't understand this. Parents were taught the old method of doing this problem. And parents are, let's face it, the primary teachers of children. (The actual in-class teacher is really just the pacesetter for any kid who's learning -- because that kid is really learning at home, from his parents. It's the parents who sit with him over homework and serve as in-house personal tutors, after all. A kid who is learning primarily from his teacher probably isn't learning very much at all, alas. Ultimately, you either learn from your parents or you learn on your own.)

The mistake here seems to be the exact same mistake that these Professional Education Theorists made with respect to reading. They realized that high reading ability kids weren't using Phonics to sound out words, but instead were reading new words via the "whole word" method-- they were just looking at the word and saying it.

So educators said, "Hey, let's stop teaching this stodgy Phonics stuff, and start teaching Whole Word reading, like the proficient readers employ!!!"

Well, one problem with that: The proficient readers had begun as Phonics readers, but then, having become adept at reading, then began Whole Word reading only when they were reading at a near-young-adult level.

By attempting to treat the lower-level readers like the more accomplished readers, the educators stopped teaching the lower-level readers the skill that the accomplished readers had used to become accomplished readers in the first place. And that skill was Phonics.

Similarly, it seems these people have realized that kids who have internalized the times tables and arithmetic tables have, after a few years of fluency with them, noticed certain patterns and rules they could employ -- tricks, shortcuts. Stuff like breaking 13 into 10 and 3 (and invoking the Associative Property, even if they don't know what that is) to make computation simpler.

And once again they are trying to teach lower-performing kids the tricks that higher-performing kids are using, but skipping over the basic stuff that higher-performing kids had to internalize themselves to become higher-performing kids.

This just seems wrong to me, and faddish, like Whole Word learning was -- the Cult of the New, you know. If it's New, it must be Better.

Right?

Well, if Whole Word reading was indeed Better, why can't Johnny read?

* Frankly, these tricks usually occur to someone when they understand the subject well enough that they no longer need tricks at all. At least not to get the answer; but understanding the math, they begin looking for faster (or at least different) methods of getting the answer.

I really do not get the idea being sold here that the way to make a kid who's struggling with math understand math better is to teach him the insights that come from a deeper understanding of the material.

He doesn't have the basics down yet. Why are you getting tricky with the second and third order deductions?

Understanding that 13 - 7 is the same as 10 + 3 - 7 is a very useful insight. And all higher mathematics -- and note that modifier, "higher" -- relies greatly on such manipulations-of-the-numbers-for-computational-convenience.

Right? Algebra is (almost) nothing but manipulating figures for computational convenience. When you factor out (x -2) from x(squared) -4 so you can divide both sides by (x-2), that's manipulating the expression to make it easier for you to work on.

But note this manipulation of expressions for computational convenience is chiefly introduced at... the algebra level, 8th grade at the earliest. (Oh, sure, the ideas of the Communicative and Associative properties are introduced before that, but that's like a day or two in the lesson plan.)

It's a tricky business. Memorization and mechanical operation ("carry over the one...") are boring, of course, these methods will get you the right answer.

And they're conceptually dead-simple. Why is 13-7 equal to six? Because 1, it just is, but 2, if you don't believe me, count out 13 jelly beans, then take away seven of them, and count up what you have left. You have six jelly beans left.

Dead simple from a conceptual standpoint.

People mistake memorization as some kind of high-level mental task. It's not. It's hard, it's tedious, it takes time. But it's conceptually easy. Just like walking 5 miles is conceptually easy. I don't want to walk 5 miles, but I know exactly how to do it. As a conceptual matter, it's as easy as putting one foot in front of the other. It'll take hours and hours, but it will be done with little mental exertion.

Executing a proper flop on a high-jump is much more conceptually difficult, although, once you know how, it will only take a second.

I am very skeptical that the way to cure a problem in learning conceptually-simple things is to teach some revolutionary new method of conceptually-difficult things.


That's why they were taught as the primary pedagogy in math for like... 2000 years.

Until now, I guess. Now our kids, who are struggling, are all geniuses who are going to be routinely manipulating expressions for computational convenience just like the first-track eighth grade algebra kids.

Posted by: Ace at 01:47 PM | Comments (472)
Post contains 1171 words, total size 7 kb.

1 If you can afford it: private school If you can't....try harder If you really can't....well your kid's fucked.

Posted by: Mr. Moo Moo at April 10, 2014 01:49 PM (0LHZx)

2 first

Posted by: mallfly at April 10, 2014 01:49 PM (bJm7W)

3 Er, instead of (10 - 3) - 7, as you wrote, that should be (10 + 3) - 7... #corrections #iwastoldtherewouldbenomath

Posted by: Brother Cavil at April 10, 2014 01:50 PM (rt3TY)

4 Yay New Thread smell !!!!

Posted by: Extremely grumpy momma bear at April 10, 2014 01:50 PM (BJ3mw)

5 And common core STINKS !!!!

Posted by: Extremely grumpy momma bear at April 10, 2014 01:51 PM (BJ3mw)

6 >>>Er, instead of (10 - 3) - 7, as you wrote, that should be (10 + 3) - 7... yeah i just corrected that, thanks.

Posted by: ace at April 10, 2014 01:51 PM (/FnUH)

7 It's like they're trying to drive our kids crazy...so they can then put them on drugs to subdue them.

Posted by: wheatie at April 10, 2014 01:51 PM (FWbLS)

8 Common core continuing the Liberal Dumbing of America

Posted by: Extremely grumpy momma bear at April 10, 2014 01:52 PM (BJ3mw)

9 Back in the '60s we tortured our kids with SMSG, known on the street as 'some mathematician sure goofed'. Now we're experimenting on the poor kids with this stuff. Lord save us from Phd Ed's.

Posted by: Benny Hill at April 10, 2014 01:52 PM (l3vZN)

10 The others have been summoned.

Posted by: johnd01 at April 10, 2014 01:52 PM (ukNFU)

11 My experience is they are teaching multiple strategies: memorization, number line, "base 10" etc. so that a kid can work with them all and adopt what works for him or her. My kid likes base 10.

Posted by: slick at April 10, 2014 01:53 PM (RIdwM)

12 rats and rats. I blame my boss for expecting me to work when at work

anyway, it's hard to bark about "equal pay" if it turns out that some people are smarter than others or better at some things than others are. So it's best to start everyone off with the same disadvantages in life, I guess.

Posted by: mallfly at April 10, 2014 01:53 PM (bJm7W)

13 If you don't like common core your kids just dumb.

Posted by: John Ellis Bush at April 10, 2014 01:53 PM (Aif/5)

14 Insert obligatory "you keep letting the government run education" comment here. Frankly, Common Core is the same as the last dozen times they pushed for more Power and Control, which is what it's all about (not "education").

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i] [/b] [/s] [/u] at April 10, 2014 01:53 PM (qyfb5)

15 off Hill's Angels sock

Posted by: Jinx the Cat at April 10, 2014 01:53 PM (l3vZN)

16 Dept of Ed . Delenda est

Posted by: Extremely grumpy momma bear at April 10, 2014 01:53 PM (BJ3mw)

17 Fuck common core and where is zombie gotti?

Posted by: Velvet Ambition, the guy that will push that button at April 10, 2014 01:53 PM (R8hU8)

18 The goal is to make math more than a right or wrong answer, so there is latitude to tell children that suck at math that they used the arbitrary process correctly. Grade inflation continues. Everybody's happy.

Posted by: Bevel Lemelisk at April 10, 2014 01:53 PM (uhAkr)

19 Also, http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/ Note the free download. Of the whole book.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i] [/b] [/s] [/u] at April 10, 2014 01:54 PM (qyfb5)

20 2 and 2 are 4 ... 4 and 4 are 8 ... 8 and 8 are 16 ... 16 and 16 are 32 ... Inchworm, Inchworm, Measuring the marigolds, You and your arithmetic Will probably go far.

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 01:54 PM (oMKp3)

21

If by "Johnny" I assume you mean Sec. of State John Kerry.

 

Why cant he read? He's a dumbass. And possibly part horse.

Posted by: Jollyroger at April 10, 2014 01:54 PM (t06LC)

22 I would have preferred a Thread on The Common Whore.

Posted by: garrett at April 10, 2014 01:54 PM (DCl/+)

23 I went to Phonix once. That place is like it's in a desert.

Posted by: Joe Biden at April 10, 2014 01:54 PM (8ZskC)

24 >>>Cult of the New, you know. If it's New, it must be Better

Also, the Cult of Experts.

They know so much! They are so smart! They will solve the problems of the human condition! They know this to be true; everyone they hang out with agrees.

Posted by: dan-O at April 10, 2014 01:54 PM (D0bIN)

25 There's subtraction tables?

Posted by: .87c at April 10, 2014 01:54 PM (Ku6as)

26 Eh, math is just a 3 letter word.

Posted by: Jeenyus Joe Biden at April 10, 2014 01:55 PM (08jH8)

27 Why cant he read? He's a dumbass. And possibly part horse. Posted by: Jollyroger at April 10, 2014 05:54 PM (t06LC) Bugger off, bigot.

Posted by: Clever Hans at April 10, 2014 01:55 PM (8ZskC)

28
Jeb Bush 2016!


Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at April 10, 2014 01:55 PM (kdS6q)

29 OT and early where is the link to change Pale Moon to Pale Moon vs Firefox

Posted by: Ender at April 10, 2014 01:56 PM (Jm2U+)

30 Teach children hexidecimal!

Posted by: Bevel Lemelisk at April 10, 2014 01:56 PM (uhAkr)

31 Beep.

Posted by: Malaysian Air Flight 370 at April 10, 2014 01:56 PM (8ZskC)

32 because that kid is really learning at home, from his parents. This, right here, is funny.

Posted by: garrett at April 10, 2014 01:56 PM (DCl/+)

33 re 7: I recall reading some years ago that schools which used "whole language" reported a major increase in the number of kids with reading disabilities after the first couple of years. I was lucky, in my day we had phonics and memorized arithmetic.

Posted by: mallfly at April 10, 2014 01:56 PM (bJm7W)

34 "Then they want them to realize that 13 = 10+3, so the problem of 13-7 can be thought of as (10 + 3) - 7. 10 minus seven is three. So, three plus three. The answer is six, of course."

What?

Posted by: PJ at April 10, 2014 01:56 PM (ZWaLo)

35 >>> Teach children hexidecimal!

There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Posted by: dan-O at April 10, 2014 01:57 PM (D0bIN)

36 New math New-ew-ew math It won't do you a bit of good to review math It's so simple so very simple that only a child can do it

Posted by: Tom Lehrer at April 10, 2014 01:57 PM (PGXA8)

37 I knew that there were problems even before they went to Common Core-unless it's been around since 2009-and I went to a conference with my son's teachers and she said ,"Oh, we don't teach them to carry numbers anymore. " It's bad when your kid tells you "That's not how we were taught to do it." about 2nd grade math.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at April 10, 2014 01:57 PM (XyM/Y)

38 What's wrong with common corpse?

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 01:57 PM (bitz6)

39 Flash cards and times tables don't bring in the Big Bucks. That's all this is about. There are only so many ways you can make money in education. One of them is to think up new crap. The other is to write textbooks with the new crap in it and make everyone buy them. Repeat every generation.

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 01:57 PM (oMKp3)

40 Ace, "Amen" says this math teacher. Short comment -- at work, but had to chime in.

Posted by: Mindy at April 10, 2014 01:57 PM (DtKhn)

41 Given that they ETERNALLY must experiment with fads in education while ignoring traditional routes and seeing performance constantly decline, one must assume that their real priority is NOT education.

Posted by: --- at April 10, 2014 01:58 PM (MMC8r)

42 13 is also 9+4 and 8+5 and 7+6, not to mention 11+2 or 12+1.  What's so special about 10+3?

Socialist bastards are trying to sneak the metric system on us through our children, that's what's so special about 10+3.

Posted by: Baron Von Ottomatic at April 10, 2014 01:58 PM (uhMMS)

43 What kind of math is that?!

Posted by: Sir Issac Newton at April 10, 2014 01:58 PM (88xKn)

44 There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary, and those who don't. I don't get it. Not one bit.

Posted by: dudenolongerinsantacruz at April 10, 2014 01:58 PM (PGXA8)

45 Colbert had a pretty funny skit about Common Core this week. Ripped it to shreds basically showing these kinds of examples

Posted by: Mr. Moo Moo at April 10, 2014 01:58 PM (0LHZx)

46 *eye roll*

Posted by: Rene Descartes at April 10, 2014 01:59 PM (8ZskC)

47 You can have my Imperial measurements when you pry them from my cold, dead hands!

Posted by: Baron Von Ottomatic at April 10, 2014 01:59 PM (uhMMS)

48 That Kaboom post never gets old. Truly, an Ace classic.

Posted by: LGW at April 10, 2014 01:59 PM (+BmfA)

49

@34

 

I get it, but its like going to New York from Oklahoma by first traveling to Sydney, Moscow, London, back to Hong Kong, and then to New York.

Why? Look at how awesome I am at maths and or navigation?

Posted by: Jollyroger at April 10, 2014 01:59 PM (t06LC)

50 I said the very same thing about the Associative properties of Math the other day to my husband. Those things become intuitive after the rote lessons.

Posted by: no good deed at April 10, 2014 02:00 PM (ILBCY)

51 Whole language was chock-full of good-for-you nutrients, just like whole foods, h8rs!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars™ [/i] [/s] [/u] at April 10, 2014 02:00 PM (HsTG8)

52 Phonix? Clearly Ace was a Whole Word kid. It's ok, me too. You should see what my posts look like before I go and fix all the red squigglies.

Posted by: Lauren at April 10, 2014 02:00 PM (hFL/3)

53 44 LOL

Posted by: Ender at April 10, 2014 02:00 PM (Jm2U+)

54 re 25: yes, the IRS makes them available so you can stop pretending that men don't cry.

Posted by: mallfly at April 10, 2014 02:01 PM (bJm7W)

55 Memorization be old school. We be new skool.

Posted by: Rachel Janteel at April 10, 2014 02:01 PM (Aif/5)

56 What's so special about 10+3? That's decemnormative!

Posted by: dudenolongerinsantacruz at April 10, 2014 02:01 PM (PGXA8)

57 30. 30? I thought you had lesions that were 30!?

Posted by: garrett at April 10, 2014 02:01 PM (DCl/+)

58 Is this Common Core history???


>>>The White House        ✔ @WhiteHouse 
President Obama: "We are here today because we know we cannot be complacent. History travels not only forwards, but backwards and sideways."
1:39 PM - 10 Apr 2014<<<


Maybe he traded in TOTUS for TARDIS?

Posted by: Hate Miser at April 10, 2014 02:01 PM (08jH8)

59 schoolhouse rock ROCKS !

Posted by: Puncher at April 10, 2014 02:02 PM (Yq9SI)

60 And the US takes the express elevator down on the list of math and science scores by country.

Posted by: Tami [/i][/b][/u][/s] at April 10, 2014 02:02 PM (bCEmE)

61 Show of hands - who here immediately knows how much change they're getting back as they pull the bill from their wallet at the register?

Posted by: Baron Von Ottomatic at April 10, 2014 02:02 PM (uhMMS)

62
yep learning both 10 + 3 and 13 - 7 is just way too hard.  They should stick with that do 2 addition problems for a subtraction problem.

That's the ticket.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at April 10, 2014 02:02 PM (hUf/y)

63 Do they teach Phonics in France? Neaux.

Posted by: bergerbilder at April 10, 2014 02:02 PM (8MjqI)

64 Years ago there was a late-night informercial hawking this crap, I recall.

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:02 PM (O96tM)

65 The Age of Math is over.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:02 PM (bitz6)

66 44 There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary, and those who don't. I don't get it. Not one bit. Posted by: dudenolongerinsantacruz at April 10, 2014 05:58 PM (PGXA ISWYDT

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars™ [/i] [/s] [/u] at April 10, 2014 02:03 PM (HsTG8)

67 obama: History is an acrobat.

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:03 PM (O96tM)

68

It wasn't until I had kids that I realized that I didn't learn like normal people. I see a whole page and read the whole page at once. It's hard for me to describe other than I take a picture of it, in my head, and then read the picture I just took.  As a result, I can tell you where on the page a certain fact is, like in a textbook, down to what's in the yellow anchor box in the lower left corner.

And I see numbers as pictures in my head, too. They come apart and go back together and I can move them around to solve problems.

Any kid in America would be f*&cked if I decided to teach kids based on how I learn.  Especially because they would hear constant noise in their heads, too.

There is not a d%mn thing wrong with memorizing. My parents are a heck of a lot better educated than my generation because they had antiquated s*it like spelling bees and vocabulary words.

 

Posted by: the other coyote at April 10, 2014 02:03 PM (yK44T)

69 If you can force new textbooks to be published, and then corner the market on those textbooks, you will be a millionaire. I know what I'm talking about. A family member of mine has the contract for an entire country. It is a very small country, but he will never have to work another day for the rest of his life.

Posted by: Wish I Was In the Will at April 10, 2014 02:03 PM (oMKp3)

70 Posted by: Baron Von Ottomatic at April 10, 2014 06:02 PM (uhMMS) I know what the total is going to be. That makes figuring out the change a lot easier.

Posted by: garrett at April 10, 2014 02:04 PM (DCl/+)

71 The Age of Math is over. Mr. Maths will not be denied.

Posted by: rickb223 at April 10, 2014 02:04 PM (ndIek)

72

61 And the US takes the express elevator down on the list of math and science scores by country.

 

Posted by: Tami at April 10, 2014 06:02 PM (bCEmE) 

 

------------

 

It's a part of our Fundamental Transformation into being a 3rd world country.

 

Posted by: wheatie at April 10, 2014 02:04 PM (FWbLS)

73 62 I do. The cashier even with a cash register doesn't know. They just do what the machine tells them to do.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:04 PM (bitz6)

74 I think it was the same guy who had the informercial for improving your memory. He used the same convoluted method for both the memory and the math crap. It was all bullshit.

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:05 PM (O96tM)

75 "The method that they are offering to avoid rote memorization or the mechanical method of subtraction involving two digit numbers is actually more conceptually difficult than the memorization or mechanical "carry-over-the-one" method."

In this example, yes. But it can work a as shortcut with more complex examples, such as 1996 - 277. If you're doing the math in your head, it's easier to subtract 281 from 2000, or, if you're feeling frisky, 2019 - 300. I think a lesson like this is simply intended to lay the foundation for making the more complex work that is to come later a little easier.

One of the hardest things when teaching sports or music is to teach kids to embrace a method which seems more difficult at first, but which is important to understand for the more difficult lessons later on.

I realize this makes me a bad person. I denounce myself.

But I can't believe you didn't include the Tom Lehrer math video from... the 1950's, which has been making a resurgence lately. Search for "lehrer new math".

Posted by: JohnJ at April 10, 2014 02:05 PM (9F0oW)

76 Is it wrong that I think 3-7= -4 + 10 => 6? Or how about 13+1 = 2x7 -7 = 1x7 - 1 => 6

Posted by: dudenolongerinsantacruz at April 10, 2014 02:05 PM (PGXA8)

77 Hey, wait a minute, there's a new thread? This is hard...

Posted by: JEM at April 10, 2014 02:05 PM (o+SC1)

78 I knew that there were problems even before they went to Common Core-unless it's been around since 2009-and I went to a conference with my son's teachers and she said ,"Oh, we don't teach them to carry numbers anymore. " It's bad when your kid tells you "That's not how we were taught to do it." about 2nd grade math. Posted by: FenelonSpoke at April 10, 2014 05:57 PM (XyM/Y) Have a teacher acquaintance who was dancing on her facebook page when she learned that she no longer needed to teach cursive writing to her students. Thought it was the greatest thing ever, such a complete time waster teaching cursive. Because it took time away from teaching communism and how to properly color rainbows with identical people underneath holding hands. And yes, she is a big lefty, Democrat, war on women type.

Posted by: Jen at April 10, 2014 02:05 PM (Mt+Yq)

79 President Obama: "We are here today because we know we cannot be complacent. History travels not only forwards, but backwards and sideways." "...and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards Freedom!"

Posted by: Kang at April 10, 2014 02:06 PM (DCl/+)

80 The White House ✔ @WhiteHouse President Obama: "We are here today because we know we cannot be complacent. History travels not only forwards, but backwards and sideways." No, the man's just a fucking retard via Occam's Razor

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars™ [/i] [/s] [/u] at April 10, 2014 02:06 PM (HsTG8)

81 The Phonix arose from the asses.

Posted by: Beagle at April 10, 2014 02:06 PM (sOtz/)

82 Posted by: Baron Von Ottomatic at April 10, 2014 06:02 PM (uhMMS)

Do you add up the total and calculate tax?

Because that is good practice for...I have no idea...but it keeps me entertained while the idiot in front of me fumbles for her purse in surprise that she has to pay for her purchases, after the clerk has finished bagging the shit.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 10, 2014 02:06 PM (QFxY5)

83 Alternate post title: Common Core Is Really Just De-Education

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:07 PM (O96tM)

84 I'm inclined to think that kids nowadays know a lot about technology and (by age 11) how to avoid pregnancy because of public school teaching. However, if you were to put sit them down in front of McGuffey's readers from the 1800's or whatever the math equivalent was, they'd be saying, "Whaaaaaaaat??!!". The kid who graduated from 8th grade in the 1880's was probably years ahead of someone of the equivalent age that came up in the public school within the last 20 years or longer. unless they did a lot of reading/studying on their own.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at April 10, 2014 02:07 PM (XyM/Y)

85 Fucking New Math, bitches, do you remember it? 1963-ish? THANKS FOR THE **Innumeracy** issues all m'life, LA Unified School District! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math

Posted by: OK, thanks, bye at April 10, 2014 02:07 PM (uopHF)

86 The method used to teach me subtraction was the wooden ruler.

Posted by: bergerbilder at April 10, 2014 02:07 PM (8MjqI)

87 I'd be happy to find one young person who can make change without the computer telling him or her what it should be.

Posted by: navybrat at April 10, 2014 02:07 PM (JgC5a)

88

#62 --

 

My pet peeve - cashiers who hand back bills, then change on top. I have tiny hands (I am a girl, so ...) and the change always slides off. WTF, I guess cashiers rely on the cash register and hand back bills then change, instead of change to a whole dollar (which fit in the palm of my hand), then bills on top. 

Posted by: the other coyote at April 10, 2014 02:08 PM (yK44T)

89 Ace is lying about being 30. He wants you to think he's older and more mature than he really is. He's 29. Or rather he will be 29 soon.

Posted by: Buzzion at April 10, 2014 02:08 PM (4mRCR)

90

From what I've read...the other parts of the Common Core curriculum are even more dreadful.

 

That's where the heavy prog-indoctrination really kicks in...

 

They insert things like:

"We should always trust our government"....when trying to teach sentence structure, for example.

Posted by: wheatie at April 10, 2014 02:09 PM (FWbLS)

91 Octal, damnit.

Posted by: Crazy Eight at April 10, 2014 02:09 PM (aDwsi)

92 Every common core math problem I've seen so far is so overly complicated and convoluted its like they're deliberately trying to keep our kids ignorant. And let me tell you as someone who works with ChiCom educated grad students, the ChiComs memorize everything. EVERYTHING. Of course they can't extrapolate worth a damn, but at least they've memorized the basics. Which is light years more than we put our precious widdle ones through.

Posted by: Iblis at April 10, 2014 02:09 PM (9221z)

93 Recent example, I was in line where they were training a new cashier.  Rang up everything, I handed a bill, the had to key it in to see what the change was.  Then refer back a couple of times while gathering my change.  The 83¢ I got back was eight dimes and three pennies.

The trainer started explaining three quarters, a nickel, and three pennies to an utterly befuddled face.

Base 10 my ass.

Posted by: Baron Von Ottomatic at April 10, 2014 02:09 PM (uhMMS)

94
Hey, maybe this could work with the hexadecimal system.  We should ask a second grader.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at April 10, 2014 02:09 PM (hUf/y)

95 The method used to teach me subtraction was the wooden ruler. Because you got rapped on the knuckles or because you start at the 11" mark and count back 6" to do 11-6?

Posted by: dudenolongerinsantacruz at April 10, 2014 02:10 PM (PGXA8)

96 My pet peeve - cashiers who hand back bills, then change on top. I have tiny hands (I am a girl, so ...) and the change always slides off. WTF, I guess cashiers rely on the cash register and hand back bills then change, instead of change to a whole dollar (which fit in the palm of my hand), then bills on top. Posted by: the other coyote at April 10, 2014 06:08 PM (yK44T) I hate that too....so I cup my hand. Forces them to put the change in first.

Posted by: Tami [/i][/b][/u][/s] at April 10, 2014 02:10 PM (bCEmE)

97 90 Ace is lying about being 30. He wants you to think he's older and more mature than he really is. He's 29. Or rather he will be 29 soon. Posted by: Buzzion at April 10, 2014 06:08 PM (4mRCR) Which is just more proof that "Ace" is actually a girl. Men don't give a shit about their age.

Posted by: Iblis at April 10, 2014 02:10 PM (9221z)

98 I went to an experimental school for high school, at the University of Illinois during the late 60s / early 70s. I'm still angry about what they did to my head concerning math. Seriously messed me up, on purpose. Just to see what would happen for their damnable research papers.

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 02:10 PM (oMKp3)

99 My wrists do not twist, (which is the chief reason I am not fond of revolvers), getting change back from the drive-thru from those nitwits is never easy.

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:10 PM (O96tM)

100 No More Kings.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:11 PM (bitz6)

101 I once had a nurse ask me if I was a mathematician because I calculated my cholesterol ratio in my head. That was an eye-opener...some people are dumb.

Posted by: --- at April 10, 2014 02:11 PM (MMC8r)

102 I have tiny hands (I am a girl, so ...) We will need pics in order to update your profile.

Posted by: garrett at April 10, 2014 02:11 PM (DCl/+)

103 13 is also the number of rounds in a Springfield Armory XD45 magazine.

If you shoot 7 Communists in the head, that leaves 6 more bullets for killing Communists.

Simple.

Posted by: A Barrel Shroud at April 10, 2014 02:11 PM (D46MP)

104 The White House ✔ @WhiteHouse President Obama: "We are here today because we know we cannot be complacent. History travels not only forwards, but backwards and sideways." 1:39 PM - 10 Apr 2014 I figured out awhile ago that he didn't understand the whole idea of "cause and effect," but that the notion of linear time also escapes him comes as something of a surprise.

Posted by: Grey Fox at April 10, 2014 02:11 PM (DFYUG)

105 Thank you thank you thank you. This is one of the most cogent explanations of why the common core way of teaching math is wrong that I have seen. One note, as part of common core they actually decided that 8th grade was too early to teach algebra except to accelerated math track kids. Which screws up when geometry and pre calculus are taught too. Simply put, common core math is a hot mess that even some prominent math professors who were on the committee refused to sign off on.

Posted by: Paranoidgirlinseattle at April 10, 2014 02:12 PM (hjRtO)

106 We're at the Mediocracy stage on our way to Idiocracy.

Posted by: eleven at April 10, 2014 02:12 PM (fsLdt)

107 88 - I'd be happy to find one young person who can make change without the computer telling him or her what it should be. Posted by: navy ------------------------------ Dilbert cartoon: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1993-03-20/

Posted by: Mike Hammer at April 10, 2014 02:12 PM (aDwsi)

108 National Labor Relations Board members ruled Monday that NBC Universal, the parent company of the namesake TV network and the cable news channel MSNBC, was illegally refusing to deal with its employees' union, the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians. It ordered the company to "cease and desist" avoiding the union.

"he Respondent has been failing and refusing to bargain collectively and in good faith with the exclusive collective-bargaining representative of its unit employees and has engaged in unfair labor practices," ruled a three-member NLRB majority.

The announcement is ironic given that MSNBC has remade itself as a liberal news outlet and advocate of progressive causes like collective bargaining. Many of the hosts of its news programs, like Ed Schultz, are vociferous supporters of organized labor.

Posted by: E Howard Hunt at April 10, 2014 02:12 PM (e8kgV)

109 Levin nailed it several weeks ago. What's wrong with our educational system is that we have allowed millions of third world "immigrants" in the country and dumbed down the averages. Government creates the problem then has to devise a way to fix it.

Posted by: Golfman in NC at April 10, 2014 02:12 PM (/djtm)

110 Here's the stupidity in the school district I live and probably in most or all public schools in the state. They teach physics as a freshman high school course when they have no adequate basis for understanding it without lower level courses, and it's all to bump up the test scores.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at April 10, 2014 02:12 PM (XyM/Y)

111 >>>One note, as part of common core they actually decided that 8th grade was too early to teach algebra except to accelerated math track kids. i thought algebra always was taught in 8th grade for the fast-track kids. I thought non-fast-track kids learned it in 9th.

Posted by: ace at April 10, 2014 02:13 PM (/FnUH)

112 My eye Doctor computes glasses prescriptions in his head. I have no idea how complicated that is.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:13 PM (bitz6)

113 "My wrists do not twist, (which is the chief reason I am not fond of revolvers), getting change back from the drive-thru from those nitwits is never easy"

Come.  We have much to teach you...

Posted by: Hungry, Homeless, Please Help at April 10, 2014 02:13 PM (uhMMS)

114 longtime lurker , first time commenter - I am an educational advocate-for-hire who works on both ends of the spectrum (<70 - >130) and have seen a *lot* of dumb things. My son happens to be going into his 4th year as an education major (big school, full ride, 4.0gpa in the honors college) We talk about Common Core - me from the perspective of "Schools fuck things up" and him from the perspective of a smacked-ass - but highly intelligent - student. Common Core is the standard of performance - not the curriculum. So, being against "Common Core" is exactly like being against Building Codes. What people should be against are dumbass curriculum publishers. Which means that there are non-dumbass curriculum publishers out there and - having done a metric shitload of in-the-trenches advocacy work at the district and state level (and a bit at the Federal) the key to all this is The School Board. Your district has an administrator in charge of curriculum - parents who are in a tizzy need to FIND THAT ADMINISTRATOR and make their concerns known. ... but, hell, that doesn't happen. 90% of people, nearly half, prefer bitching and griping about the issue to insisting and persisting until the issue is solved.

Posted by: BumperStickerist at April 10, 2014 02:13 PM (4CVLy)

115

#103

 

Not sure if it's a bug or a feature, but the only things tiny on me are hands (wear kid sized gloves) and feet (ladies' 5.5). Everything else, not so tiny. Proportional, but not tiny.

Posted by: the other coyote at April 10, 2014 02:14 PM (yK44T)

116 The edjamacators have to tweak everything or even throw it into the dumpster because they've gone on to "earn" higher degrees. Their crania are so chock-full of knowledge that they just have to prove that so to we, the undereducated (by comparison) rubes. They twiddle with, twaddle with and otherwise fcuk around with teaching methods. "Discard the old; bring in the new that, we, with our awesomely full crania just know, know, mind you, will do the job better!" The end result, which they wanted all along, is a dumber generation (which, not by accident, includes their eventual replacements), capable of doing less and with greater difficulty, than the generation before. Give me these asshats for one week, in a wilderness survival situation, and we'll just see how much they "know".

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars™ [/i] [/s] [/u] at April 10, 2014 02:14 PM (HsTG8)

117 Posted by: the other coyote at April 10, 2014 06:08 PM (yK44T) So I'm not the only one. And I have big hands.

Posted by: Golfman in NC at April 10, 2014 02:14 PM (/djtm)

118 Posted by: dudenolongerinsantacruz at April 10, 2014 05:58 PM (PGXA

That was two bits.

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Waiting For SMODOT) at April 10, 2014 02:14 PM (JS0vr)

119 longtime lurker , first time commenter - Fibber McGee!

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:15 PM (O96tM)

120 Interestingly, it was only late in life that with large sums, I found it easier to work from left to right, rather than right to left.  Grab a piece of paper, write down some numbers, and tell me if you agree.  Takes about five minutes of practise to "get it".  Kinda mind blowing actually.

Posted by: Erik L at April 10, 2014 02:15 PM (RYQAM)

121 I learned how to subtract using that method, 50 years ago so it is not real new. Much faster method.

Posted by: Fredlike at April 10, 2014 02:15 PM (rF/yy)

122 @99.

Wonder. Do you have your own brick at the Alumni Center?

Posted by: GMB (et al) at April 10, 2014 02:15 PM (nkPV9)

123 longtime lurker , first time commenter - Posted by: BumperStickerist at April 10, 2014 06:13 PM (4CVLy) I seem to recall you commenting before...either way, welcome to the fold.

Posted by: Sandra Fluke at April 10, 2014 02:16 PM (DCl/+)

124 Confronted with kids who aren't proficient with the low-level, low-conceptual-insight view of the problem, they decide... we'll teach them the high-conceptual-insight method of doing it There are adults out there that believe you should treat our children like adults. They are allowed in (personal) conversations between parents, or in making (higher level) family decisions, etc. Children are not adults. This is just another example of a "concept" that some cannot understand or comprehend. It's like they were never children themselves.

Posted by: artisanal 'ette: The Green Jacket at April 10, 2014 02:16 PM (IXrOn)

125 I figured out awhile ago that he didn't understand the whole idea of "cause and effect," but that the notion of linear time also escapes him comes as something of a surprise. Posted by: Grey ------------ Remember, this is the guy who, as President, was surprised to learn that magnets do not attract non-ferrous metals.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at April 10, 2014 02:16 PM (aDwsi)

126 I can't even help my middle school-aged kids with their math anymore because I don't know how to do the "new math", and if they do it they way that I was taught the teacher will count it wrong. It's complete bullshit! How am I supposed to supplement their learning if the parents' methods are considered obsolete? But that's pretty much the point, isn't it!

Posted by: Say what? at April 10, 2014 02:16 PM (UkfaC)

127 i thought algebra always was taught in 8th grade for the fast-track kids. I thought non-fast-track kids learned it in 9th. That's how it was in the school I went to. You took pre-algebra or algebra in the 8th grade dependent upon your track.

Posted by: no good deed at April 10, 2014 02:16 PM (ILBCY)

128 Everything else, not so tiny. Proportional, but not tiny. Now we will definitely be needing pics.

Posted by: garrett at April 10, 2014 02:17 PM (DCl/+)

129 You sound like a mutant. Did you grow up on Three Mile Island?

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:17 PM (O96tM)

130 123 @99. Wonder. Do you have your own brick at the Alumni Center? If I did, I'd be sure to throw it at my geometry teacher.

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 02:17 PM (oMKp3)

131 "But that's pretty much the point, isn't it!" Yes. Exactly the point. Make parents as removed from education as possible so they can slip all the marxist crap in that they want.

Posted by: Lauren at April 10, 2014 02:17 PM (hFL/3)

132 My mother (PBUH) tought me all the basics before I entered school. That left me with a LOT of time to get into trouble.

Posted by: bergerbilder at April 10, 2014 02:17 PM (8MjqI)

133 Posted by: BumperStickerist at April 10, 2014 06:13 PM (4CVLy) I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Performance standards are easy to arrive at. You come up with some high minded shit and put it on paper. That's pretty much "bioethics" in a nutshell. Metrics are harder to come by. Plans for achieving the goals measured by the metrics still harder. Common core is dumb because all it is the high minded "standards" with no actual plan of attack (clearly.) And you can still be against it because (to use your analogy) it's like a federal building code.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:17 PM (HDwDg)

134 Common core has done wonders for my local community.  Here's an example of a typical local PTA meeting conversation:

Sheriff:  So you're an honest farmer, you recognize this man?
Tuco:  Huh?
Sheriff:  Yeah, it's you!
Tuco:  Hey, who said so, huh? You can't even read!
Tuco:  Roll it up, roll it up! I'll give you a good idea where you can put it!

Posted by: Fritz at April 10, 2014 02:18 PM (oJUxt)

135 If you send your kids to public school you should be arrested for child abuse.

Posted by: Beyond Disgusted at April 10, 2014 02:18 PM (thLL8)

136 Dad is/was a carpenter. Math and Geometry were drilled into me well before school got around to it.

Posted by: garrett at April 10, 2014 02:18 PM (DCl/+)

137

#127

 

I had the same thing happen. My daughter's math teacher won't let them use cross products.  I told her (nicely, at first, then not so nicely) to F*ck herself and the horse she rode in on, and believe it or not she blinked first.  I don't think she even grades my daughter's work or tests any more.

Posted by: the other coyote at April 10, 2014 02:18 PM (yK44T)

138 So, being against "Common Core" is exactly like being against Building Codes.
Posted by: BumperStickerist at April 10, 2014 06:13 PM (4CVLy)


I'm not opposed to Building Codes, but I am opposed to a Federal Building Code.

Posted by: mugiwara at April 10, 2014 02:19 PM (3a584)

139 I know some people who complained about Physics being taught in the 9th grade and gave a rationale for why it shouldn't be taught until later. Nothing changed.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at April 10, 2014 02:19 PM (XyM/Y)

140 It's all good, the little dears will all be getting advanced degrees in Womyn's Studies with an LBGTXYZ minor, and there is no math there. Of course, when they try to make change as a MickeyD's server, they be really challenged.

Posted by: Hrothgar at April 10, 2014 02:19 PM (o3MSL)

141 This is, seriously, another brick in the wall of male destruction.  The problem cited requires abstract thinking, and every psych 101 student knows that children, especially boys, cannot do abstract thinking in a productive way until they are *at least* 12, and some don't make it until 14.  So boys - who used to be 'better' at math - have now been handicapped.  So, like, to make it fair and stuff.

School your kids at home! Especially boys!

Posted by: Pentangle at April 10, 2014 02:19 PM (2ygle)

142 I cannot lurk because I cannot see, but when you talk of receiving change I had to join in the discussion.  I cannot receive change because my hands are limp, and flappy.  Plus, I cannot see.

Posted by: Rachel Corrie at April 10, 2014 02:19 PM (jucos)

143 Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 06:17 PM (oMKp3) My geometry teacher was old school. Line by line proofs. I'm actually stunned how handy that has become in a pseudo-philosophy field.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:20 PM (HDwDg)

144 There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

I thought the 10 types were those who understood binary, and those who get laid.

Posted by: Blanco Basura at April 10, 2014 02:20 PM (4WhSY)

145 Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 06:13 PM (bitz6)

The correction is calculated as 1/focal length (in meters), so it should be easy.


Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 10, 2014 02:20 PM (QFxY5)

146 fwiw I called up and had several conversations with the University of Illinois lead researcher for the Everyday Math program. Nice guy. Not a communist or commie sympathizer from what I can tell. The premise of the thing is "Constructivist" in nature, which is why teachers throw in things like 'scaffolding' and 'spiralling' and other edubabble. The funny thing was that the goofy crap (butterfly multiplication, needlessly obtuse division) was put in by the team as an afterthought - The reason for mentioning it at all had to do with laying the ground work for dealing with matrices. But, once it hit the field the teachers glommed onto it and parents everywhere, me included, we said "What the fucking shit is this fucking shit?" while helping their 5th grader do a math problem. I got a timeout for that one. -

Posted by: BumperStickerist at April 10, 2014 02:20 PM (4CVLy)

147 In my public school as a kid, they taught reading comprehension. The way they did it was by holding reading races, followed by a short quiz to see how much each kid absorbed. The winner was the first kid to get all the questions right. It was absolutely fantastic. Every boy in the class was jazzed up for these races, and so the girls parents went in and whined. Too much ugly "competition" they said. But they were training all these great readers, said the boys parents, who were delighted that their kid (who had never once in his life picked up a book) was "practicing" at home for the reading races. Nowadays the girls would be fine with the competition, but there would no doubt be someone pissed off at the idea. It worked though.

Posted by: MTF at April 10, 2014 02:20 PM (1Boes)

148 Line by line proofs.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 06:20 PM (HDwDg)

I fucking HATED those.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 10, 2014 02:21 PM (QFxY5)

149 Posted by: garrett at April 10, 2014 06:18 PM (DCl/+) Similar thing here. Dad was a CPA, so I knew algebra long before I had a name for it.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:21 PM (HDwDg)

150 "My geometry teacher was old school. Line by line proofs. " Wait, they don't do proofs anymore? What do they do now?

Posted by: Lauren at April 10, 2014 02:21 PM (hFL/3)

151 My pet peeve - cashiers who hand back bills, then change on top. I have tiny hands (I am a girl, so ...) and the change always slides off. WTF, I guess cashiers rely on the cash register and hand back bills then change, instead of change to a whole dollar (which fit in the palm of my hand), then bills on top.

Posted by: the other coyote at April 10, 2014 06:08 PM (yK44T)


This! Do none of these cashiers ever shop and pay cash?



Posted by: Retread at April 10, 2014 02:21 PM (cHwk5)

152
Do you add up the total and calculate tax?
Because that is good practice for...I have no idea...but it keeps me entertained
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo




When I was a kid, I did.  I made a game out of trying to calculate what the sales tax was going to be before the register showed the amount.

Good times, good times.

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at April 10, 2014 02:22 PM (kdS6q)

153 112 >>>One note, as part of common core they actually decided that 8th grade was too early to teach algebra except to accelerated math track kids. i thought algebra always was taught in 8th grade for the fast-track kids. I thought non-fast-track kids learned it in 9th. Posted by: ace at April 10, 2014 06:13 PM (/FnUH) That's how it was in my school. Graduated in 2000. In the 8th grade I was actually bumped up to the advanced class so I could take algebra. Some schools in the area didn't even have 8th grade algebra. Which of course would mean no calculus for seniors which I also took.

Posted by: Buzzion at April 10, 2014 02:22 PM (4mRCR)

154 #152  Our local cashiers are teenagers or those on EBT cards, so I think the answer is no.

Posted by: the other coyote at April 10, 2014 02:22 PM (yK44T)

155 Liberals are people who think sex should be taught in the schools and math should be taught at home.

Posted by: AmishDude at April 10, 2014 02:22 PM (T0NGe)

156 151 "My geometry teacher was old school. Line by line proofs. " Wait, they don't do proofs anymore? What do they do now? Posted by: Lauren at April 10, 2014 06:21 PM (hFL/3) They say, "So sayeth Barky", and accept the outcome on faith.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars™ [/i] [/s] [/u] at April 10, 2014 02:23 PM (HsTG8)

157 I cannot lurk because I cannot see, but when you talk of receiving change I had to join in the discussion. I cannot receive change because my hands are limp, and flappy. Plus, I cannot see. She had flat eyes......like a pancake doll's eyes.....

Posted by: Zombie Flint at April 10, 2014 02:23 PM (fsLdt)

158 They should teach ALL kids how to use a Speed Square.

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:23 PM (O96tM)

159 Who's Zombie Flint?

Posted by: Zombie Quint at April 10, 2014 02:23 PM (fsLdt)

160 I have been doing centerfolds lately.  It's easy for me to fold back into the magazine.

Posted by: Rachel Corrie at April 10, 2014 02:24 PM (jucos)

161 Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 10, 2014 06:21 PM (QFxY5) To this day, I have no idea how an "arrow proof" works. Oddly, I could do Riemannian geometry better than the kids in the advanced class though (in theory our class was only supposed to cover Euclidian, I didn't really feel like taking advanced geometry as I didn't know what the point of the non-Euclidian geometries was. But our teacher covered it as extra credit because apparently we were ahead of schedule.)

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:24 PM (HDwDg)

162 144 Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 06:17 PM (oMKp3) My geometry teacher was old school. Line by line proofs. I'm actually stunned how handy that has become in a pseudo-philosophy field. Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 06:20 PM (HDwDg) My geometry teacher handed us the textbook the first day of class, announced that there would be no assignments, no tests and no homework. If we had a question about the geometry book, she was available by appointment. At the end of the school year we were free to assign our own grade to ourself as we saw fit. I know not the first thing about geometry.

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 02:24 PM (oMKp3)

163 >>>81
The White House ✔ @WhiteHouse
President Obama: "We are here today because we know we cannot be complacent. History travels not only forwards, but backwards and sideways."

No, the man's just a fucking retard via Occam's Razor

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars™ at April 10, 2014 06:06 PM (HsTG <<<

 

he really said that

 

The arc of the Obama Administration is long, but it bends towards stupidity and incompetence.

Posted by: rich@gmu at April 10, 2014 02:24 PM (RhQvZ)

164 "(The actual in-class teacher is really just the pacesetter for any kid who's learning -- because that kid is really learning at home, from his parents. It's the parents who sit with him over homework and serve as in-house personal tutors, after all.)"

Right out of the gate, let's note that one-third of the kids in America do not have "parents", plural.

In the black community, it's closer to three-quarters of kids who do not have "parents", plural.

So there's a central problem right there. Adults have to do a bunch of things for children beyond merely helping with homework (if those adults are even capable of it). Meals. Laundry. Medical issues.

And when there's just the one adult who has to cover all the bases at once with regard to children in the home, hey presto, homework is likely to be neglected.

This is why one of the single biggest predictors of educational success among children is whether or not they come from a stable two-parent household.

Posted by: torquewrench at April 10, 2014 02:24 PM (noWW6)

165 Posted by: Golfman in NC at April 10, 2014 06:12 PM (/djtm) I fail to see how not speaking English should impact your ability to learn in the least. To say otherwise is obviously racist! /sarc

Posted by: Hrothgar at April 10, 2014 02:24 PM (o3MSL)

166 It wasn't until I had kids that I realized that I didn't learn like normal people. I see a whole page and read the whole page at once. It's hard for me to describe other than I take a picture of it, in my head, and then read the picture I just took. As a result, I can tell you where on the page a certain fact is, like in a textbook, down to what's in the yellow anchor box in the lower left corner.

Sounds like you have what they used to call a photographic memory. Don't know what they call it now.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 10, 2014 02:25 PM (I8YZX)

167 >>My pet peeve - cashiers who hand back bills, then
change on top. I have tiny hands (I am a girl, so ...) and the change always slides off. WTF, I guess cashiers rely on the cash register and hand back bills then change, instead of change to a whole dollar (which fit in the palm of my hand), then bills on top.
Posted by: the other coyote

This! Do none of these cashiers ever shop and pay cash?
Posted by: Retread

Even worse, bills then a receipt *then* the coins.

Posted by: weft cut-loop [/i] [/b] at April 10, 2014 02:25 PM (m58Tu)

168 But Snowden also warned that crypto systems aren’t always properly implemented. “Unfortunately,” he said, “endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it.”

This week, that caveat hit home — in a big way — when researchers revealed Heartbleed, a two-year-old security hole involving the OpenSSL software many websites use to encrypt traffic. The vulnerability doesn’t lie in the encryption itself, but in how the encrypted connection between a website and your computer is handled. On a scale of one to ten, cryptographer Bruce Schneier ranks the flaw an eleven.

Posted by: Spinal Tap at April 10, 2014 02:25 PM (e8kgV)

169 Holy shit, grammie winger. That's criminal.

Posted by: Lauren at April 10, 2014 02:25 PM (hFL/3)

170 The reason for mentioning it at all had to do with laying the ground work for dealing with matrices If you want kids to learn matrices, just teach it to them. We best learn to swim by diving in the ocean. (Okay, that's probably not true).

Posted by: Bevel Lemelisk at April 10, 2014 02:25 PM (uhAkr)

171 They say, "So sayeth Barky", and accept the outcome on faith. Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars™ at April 10, 2014 06:23 PM (HsTG Said teacher saw geometry as a fundamentally logic based field. We required no protractors or compasses "it's a circle because you say it's a circle, not because you drew it with a compass."

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:25 PM (HDwDg)

172 C'mon, guys Mathz iz hard..... That is why all the really smart-smart humans are looking at wimenz studies, aferkin art and filo-sphy for the gubbermint jobz...

Posted by: Havildar - Major at April 10, 2014 02:26 PM (kduZC)

173 I'd love to see one of these Common Core Champs layout a stairway.

Posted by: garrett at April 10, 2014 02:26 PM (DCl/+)

174 Ace, "Amen" says this math teacher. Short comment -- at work, but had to chime in. Posted by: Mindy at April 10, 2014 05:57 PM (DtKhn) I haven't met a teacher, yet, that advocates Common Core.

Posted by: artisanal 'ette: The Green Jacket at April 10, 2014 02:26 PM (IXrOn)

175 This is why one of the single biggest predictors of educational success among children is whether or not they come from a stable two-parent household. Posted by: torquewrench at April 10, 2014 06:24 PM (noWW6) _________ Indeed. But point this out and your political career is over.

Posted by: Mr. Moo Moo at April 10, 2014 02:26 PM (0LHZx)

176 My geometry teacher handed us the textbook the first day of class, announced that there would be no assignments, no tests and no homework. If we had a question about the geometry book, she was available by appointment. At the end of the school year we were free to assign our own grade to ourself as we saw fit. Yeah, but was she hot?

Posted by: typical disgusting Moron at April 10, 2014 02:26 PM (jmU07)

177 I think there is some variance per school district but because they are delaying when they teach multiplication division and fractions that pushes algebra to 8th and geometry to 9th. Some districts are responding with fast track math so kids who need to get to pre calculus senior year still can. Algebra used to be 7th and geometry 8th.

Posted by: Paranoidgirlinseattle at April 10, 2014 02:26 PM (g2ldK)

178 Those cashiers are not stupid. They know (some) that you might drop some change  and guess who goes out to the drive thru to pick it up?

They also are hoping for you to drop a bill or two. You're too close to the wall to open your door and if you move up, the care behind you will cover the spot. How many people actually will take the time to go and recover some change or a dollar?

Me. I just reach over and grab the change and make them keep holding the bills then I grab the bills.

I do the same to any cashier who does this. Inside or  window.

I grin at them while I'm doing it so they know I know what they're doing.

(some may be just stupid and don't realize why it's not the way to do it. Most don't care or do it on purpose.)

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Waiting For SMODOT) at April 10, 2014 02:26 PM (JS0vr)

179 Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 06:24 PM (oMKp3) WTF? They did mess with your head. Granted, I don't know how much geometry I actually remember, so it's probably moot.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:27 PM (HDwDg)

180 New Math? Again? How much lower do kids scores need to go before the idiots in power figure out that they're going in the wrong direction with these wild-assed teaching methods?

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit [/i][/s][/b][/u] at April 10, 2014 02:27 PM (0HooB)

181 this is the end result of the academic/publishing complex publishers like to sell books, reinventing the wheel to make money academics make up bullshit theories to create new teaching methods because they need grant money to pay the rent and god forbid they be stuck in the classroom again teachers get bored teaching by rote, and a huge number of math teachers, especially in elementary school, have a shockingly poor command of the material and of course, mix in teacher's unions none of this has anything to do with teaching the kids and has everything to do with enriching the adults but Jeb Bush loves it

Posted by: thunderb at April 10, 2014 02:27 PM (zOTsN)

182 This! Do none of these cashiers ever shop and pay cash?


Posted by: Retread at April 10, 2014 06:21 PM
=====
Your change is four dollars and 23 cents. Four (dollar bills) and twenty three cents.  On self-serve registers, the machine always counts out the bills first, then ejects the coins.

Posted by: mrp at April 10, 2014 02:27 PM (JBggj)

183 Are you kidding me, grammie winger? That is awful. Oh, it's called an eidetic memory.

Posted by: no good deed at April 10, 2014 02:27 PM (ILBCY)

184 We have auto coin change machines here. The idiot cashiers only have to count bills.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:27 PM (bitz6)

185 Common Core is Obamacare for education... think about it...

Posted by: Romeo13 at April 10, 2014 02:27 PM (84gbM)

186 We only tested a few subjects without telling them the dangers for a couple of days. But the DOEd is going to push Common Core on practically every kid for almost a decade and a half? That's pretty cfuked up right there.

Posted by: U.S. EPA at April 10, 2014 02:28 PM (1CroS)

187 Hay i kin red jes fin

An tha computr at miki dees tels me hw mulch chang to giv

Posted by: LIV at April 10, 2014 02:28 PM (OZmbA)

188

"Life is a Fog of Confusion and Every Choice is Wrong"

 

When children are confused and depressed, we put them on drugs.

 

When children are on drugs, they are easier to control.

 

When people are easier to control, they make better voters.

 

When you have better voters, you can change the country.

 

Trust us. We know what we're doing.

Posted by: Your Betters in the Government at April 10, 2014 02:28 PM (FWbLS)

189 They're also teaching kids high level American politics:
Republicans are racists and sexists that want you to be poor, suffer and die. 
That morsel of projection is where all that elite leftist intellectualism and higher learning has got them to, so I'm not surprised they've got math and readings ass backwards too.

Posted by: The Mega Independent at April 10, 2014 02:28 PM (QCo5R)

190 This is why one of the single biggest predictors of educational success among children is whether or not they come from a stable two-parent household.
Posted by: torquewrench at April 10, 2014 06:24 PM (noWW6)

That's a bit PRE-MEDIEVAL isn't it?

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Waiting For SMODOT) at April 10, 2014 02:28 PM (JS0vr)

191 171 Holy shit, grammie winger. That's criminal. Posted by: Lauren at April 10, 2014 06:25 PM (hFL/3) The University of Illinois department of education has done grave sins to the youth of America. They were at that time heavily communist-influenced. A lot of educational theory came out of the U of I.

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 02:28 PM (oMKp3)

192 We have auto coin change machines here. I won't touch that fucking petri-dish that the change drops into.

Posted by: garrett at April 10, 2014 02:29 PM (DCl/+)

193 My geometry teacher handed us the textbook the first day of class, announced that there would be no assignments, no tests and no homework. If we had a question about the geometry book, she was available by appointment. At the end of the school year we were free to assign our own grade to ourself as we saw fit.

Wow. So they were paying her to not really teach unless she was asked. Which was probably never.

Nice work if you can get it.

Sucks to be one of her students, though.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 10, 2014 02:29 PM (I8YZX)

194 Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Waiting For SMODOT) at April 10, 2014 06:26 PM (JS0vr) ?! When I worked at McD's change collection in the drive through was done by the maintenance man (As he was the only one assigned to "float" away from customers.) Dunno if it was store policy or just us, but we always put the lost change in the Ronald McDonald house box. (Occasionally back in our register if we dropped something like dollar bill and it needed to go in to balance.)

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:29 PM (HDwDg)

195 The really freaky thing about common core is you'll hear an equal amount of complaints from people saying a) it's dumbing down kids and b) the material is too hard for the age level I think the root cause is the same, that it's just a stupid way to learn math...but it's interesting how 2 people looking at the same issue can find such opposite results.

Posted by: Mr. Moo Moo at April 10, 2014 02:29 PM (0LHZx)

196 >>>The White House ✔ @WhiteHouse President Obama: "We are here today because we know we cannot be complacent. History travels not only forwards, but backwards and sideways." 1:39 PM - 10 Apr 2014<<< Swirling the toilet? Floater-in-chief?

Posted by: OK, thanks, bye at April 10, 2014 02:29 PM (uopHF)

197 last thought for the evening - I told both my sons that my only expectation, nay, demand, of them is that upon graduating high school they can do math and write well. = My central piece of advice: write the way you speak, don't speak like an idiot. And, in case they work in retail during the summer, I showed them the "Don't Subract, count up to the amount given by the customer." Bill is $17.37 - customer hands you a $20 38 - 39 - 40 (three pennies) 50 (a dime) 75 - 18 (two quarters) $19, $20 (two one dollar bills) $2.63 in change provided with no subtraction or placeholding. My sons shall be as Gods among their retail peers. ps. some SciFi author wrote a story about a guy rediscovering arithmetic after computers had been given all the calculation chores. It ended with them figuring out how to put people in missiles who could do math to get the missile to the target... (I think)

Posted by: BumperStickerist at April 10, 2014 02:29 PM (4CVLy)

198 Everybody has Math limits.  Mine was Partial Diff Eq.  burnt the notebook after that final.  I've rarely used anything more than basic algebra since.  I'd like to blame the prof but he couldn't have been all bad since he got kicked out of USSR during a visit for talking to refuseniks.

Posted by: DaveA[/i][/b][/s] at April 10, 2014 02:30 PM (DL2i+)

199 Posted by: thunderb at April 10, 2014 06:27 PM (zOTsN) Its worse... The Common Core standards themselves are Copyrighted.... you cannot use them without paying the Vig... Which only very few companies will be able to afford... thus creating a monopoly on US Education material. Note, one of the primary proponents, and group that really got the ball rolling with MONEY???? The Bill Gates Foundation. They gave millions to the Governors association for this.

Posted by: Romeo13 at April 10, 2014 02:30 PM (84gbM)

200 "192 They're also teaching kids high level American politics: Republicans are racists and sexists that want you to be poor, suffer and die." And somehow history class always stops right before Reagan becomes president, but FDR was the Greatest President Ever, and Rosie the Riveter was the most important thing that came out of WW2.

Posted by: Lauren at April 10, 2014 02:30 PM (hFL/3)

201
Bring back the slide rule and abacus.

Posted by: YIKES! at April 10, 2014 02:30 PM (mETGQ)

202 I'd love to see one of these Common Core Champs layout a stairway. And no, you can't use the app for run and rise calculations.

Posted by: no good deed at April 10, 2014 02:30 PM (ILBCY)

203 Sheeit! You can't get an EdD by saying "The way it's been done the last 100 years works well enough". Gotsta come up with new shit to beef up your publication count. Keep your eye on what's really important for Ghod's sake!

Posted by: the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth at April 10, 2014 02:31 PM (6jKOp)

204 181 Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 06:24 PM (oMKp3) WTF? They did mess with your head. A lot of these loony theories are tested out in University schools on unsuspecting elementary and high school students. That's where they come up with this crap that they shove on the rest of America.

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 02:31 PM (oMKp3)

205

>> New Math?

 

You've heard of it.  I *lived* through that shit.

I forget when I was finally abandoned.  I did not forget my dad's assessment of it, which was "this is the most fucked up stupid goddamn bullshit I have ever seen".

 

Posted by: Dave in Texas at April 10, 2014 02:31 PM (WvXvd)

206 They were at that time heavily communist-influenced. A lot of educational theory came out of the U of I.

Li'l Billy Ayres comes to mind...

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 10, 2014 02:31 PM (I8YZX)

207 Our (research university) math department hosted the head of education for the state regents to give a presentation on Common Core. It was a filibuster. She didn't let anybody get a word in edgewise. She has an EdD and was talking to PhDs but the only people who were nodding their heads were the non-PhDs who do remedial eduation. The whole discussion was about getting kids ready to take College Algebra by the time they graduate from High School. Look, College Algebra is neither. The latter is complicated but the "College" part is the most horrible. College Algebra is what you should have learned in 8th and 10th grade. They should be ready to take calculus. Period. And I don't give a damn about what easy field you plan to get your Barista degree in, an educated person should be at least ready for calculus if they want a serious university education. Or at least that should be the goal of any educational reform. And what do they focus on? Making the remedial students a bit less remedial. It's a bunch of inadequate EdDs trying to pass off their inadequacies as normal. Crabs in a bucket, pulling everybody else down. "Why does Johnny need to learn math? I never did and I'm a smart person. My mommy says so." The one thing...ONE THING...that education reform should do is improve math. That's where we are really falling behind. And they're making it worse. In other countries, they don't put educators in charge of education policy. That's nuts. You don't put a math teacher in charge of math policy. You want somebody with a longer view. Somebody who knows the entire breadth of the field. One thing I got out of that meeting with the Common Core flunky, though: The idea for Common Core came because people who moved from state to state complained that there was a difference in curriculum. So, yes, upper-middle-class people (probably our political "betters") who move their kids around for better jobs are the whole reason this ridiculous exercise is being undertaken.

Posted by: AmishDude at April 10, 2014 02:32 PM (T0NGe)

208 Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 06:31 PM (oMKp3) Nifty trick, Education research is exempt from the Common Rule which usually requires consent. Specifically exempted!

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:32 PM (HDwDg)

209 Full disclosure: I started my school daze in a tiny private school that used a fairly advanced math curriculum. We were doing basic algebra in third grade--but looking back, the majority of us were Gifted to begin with. And it's not like the concepts were dropped on us out of nowhere; we did start with the basics and with rote memorization. We just didn't spend nearly as long on useless repetition as public school did. Ace has a good point, though, and it finally helped me make the connection to what all this Common Core nonsense reminds me of. I once had a chemistry prof who thought he had hit on ways to make concepts simpler to understand but had actually made them about ten times harder than they had to be. The piece de resistance was his method of balancing oxidation-reduction reactions... with linear algebra, a process that usually involved something like eight different equations instead of the tried-and-true half-reaction method's maximum of three. Fortunately, he didn't count off if we did it the old way. This prof was strictly into theoretical chemistry--and not entirely by choice. IIRC, he wasn't allowed to set foot in the lab. If that's the kind of Sooper Geenyus we've got designing our curricula these days, I'm glad I'm out of school.

Posted by: Elisabeth G. Wolfe at April 10, 2014 02:32 PM (Aiwi+)

210 Posted by: DaveA at April 10, 2014 06:30 PM (DL2i+)

I struggled through calculus, and when we arrived at differential equations my only thought was: "Excuse me, but what the fuck are you talking about?"

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 10, 2014 02:32 PM (QFxY5)

211 I find it fascinating that we have been educating kids in america for 380 years and apparently do not know how to educate them at all.

Posted by: Kreplach at April 10, 2014 02:33 PM (Xkr8I)

212 So educators said, "Hey, let's stop teaching this stodgy Phonics stuff, and start teaching Whole Word reading, like the proficient readers employ!!!" **** My daughter was victim to this teaching and hated to read because it didn't make sense to her. She would, for instance, read aloud a magazine cover in the checkout line and would say words that looked the same as the actual word. She is now a prolific reader, but it came about through her family teaching her the basics. I've grown to hate the education system.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at April 10, 2014 02:33 PM (DmNpO)

213 Posted by: Mr. Moo Moo at April 10, 2014 06:29 PM (0LHZx) Both are true.... at higher levels its dumbing it down... At lower levels they did not bother to talk to developmental experts to figure out whether the content is age appropriate... They also do not understand that fact that boys and girls both think, and learn, differently.

Posted by: Romeo13 at April 10, 2014 02:33 PM (84gbM)

214 68 obama: History is an acrobat. Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 06:03 PM (O96tM) Oh the irony considering Acrobat was used to fabricate documents from his history

Posted by: Bob at April 10, 2014 02:33 PM (mhetq)

215 Posted by: AmishDude at April 10, 2014 06:32 PM (T0NGe) A transcript error had someone I know taking college algebra. She spent the entire semester going "How do people no know this." She basically showed up, took the tests, collected her A.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:34 PM (HDwDg)

216 "We should always trust our government" Except when repeatedly proven to be untrustworthy.

Posted by: navybrat at April 10, 2014 02:34 PM (JgC5a)

217 Don't know much about it but Common Core seems like a politician/teacher bandwagon that's profiting somebody somewhere with kickbacks a comin'


Posted by: Sphynx at April 10, 2014 02:34 PM (OZmbA)

218
I like decimals.
I really good at making dots.

Posted by: Joe Biden at April 10, 2014 02:34 PM (mETGQ)

219

To quote Homer:

 

"Kids, you tried and you failed.  The lesson here is: never try." 

Posted by: Minuteman at April 10, 2014 02:34 PM (SS7Gu)

220

That was two bits

don't spread that slander. Two bits is $.25

Posted by: dudenolongerinsantacruz at April 10, 2014 02:35 PM (68Zyy)

221 Oh yes do not get me started on the evils of the Gates Foundation when it comes to education. By the way those of you thinking private schools will escape this, nice try but within 5 years all textbooks will be common core compliant because the SAT test will be. As well as state high school proficiency exams.

Posted by: Paranoidgirlinseattle at April 10, 2014 02:35 PM (eiJIn)

222 But only some tiny percentage of the people who understand binary realize that since an array starts with '0' they therefore only have 9 fingers. You still have ten fingers. Your first finger is the 0th and your last finger is the 9th.

Posted by: Bevel Lemelisk at April 10, 2014 02:35 PM (uhAkr)

223 Ace, we joke about your commenters, but your headline skills put every other fucker to shame. 
Next best is probably Ann Coulter, but she only has to headline her opinions, where you have to deal with the news.

Posted by: The Mega Independent at April 10, 2014 02:35 PM (QCo5R)

224 Posted by: no good deed at April 10, 2014 06:30 PM (ILBCY) I have advanced engineering degrees but to this day think the most complex task I ever tried to do was laying out a staircase. If I ever did it again, I would be much more capable and get it right the second or third time.

Posted by: Hrothgar at April 10, 2014 02:35 PM (o3MSL)

225 I think Pre Calc is the required one year of math that everyone must have. Loaded with useless matrixes and stuff.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:35 PM (bitz6)

226 206 Sheeit! You can't get an EdD by saying "The way it's been done the last 100 years works well enough". And that, in a nutshell, is it.

Posted by: AmishDude at April 10, 2014 02:35 PM (T0NGe)

227 13 - 7
= (10 + 3) - 7
= (10 - 7) + (3 - 7)
= 3 + (-4)
= 1!

Easy peasy!

Posted by: Common Core Curriculum Writer at April 10, 2014 02:36 PM (dBV5N)

228 Public school is child abuse.

Posted by: rickl at April 10, 2014 02:36 PM (sdi6R)

229 Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 10, 2014 06:32 PM (QFxY I stopped at Calc2, even though people tell me calc 3 is actually easier. One of my problems is I'm miserable at shortcuts, so I basic have to do every problem from scratch, which meant I could never finish the tests. I got a reasonable enough grade (B I think) but hated it. Oh and our teacher had a habit of testing on the stuff he forgot to cover in class (or spent little time on.) So I'd come prepped for A and the test would be on Not A.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:36 PM (HDwDg)

230 Hahahahaha.... Sebelius is resigning

Posted by: Rachel Corrie at April 10, 2014 02:36 PM (jucos)

231 Two bits is a quarter of a Spanish Dollar. (or piece of eight)

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Waiting For SMODOT) at April 10, 2014 02:36 PM (JS0vr)

232 Posted by: AmishDude at April 10, 2014 06:32 PM (T0NGe)
Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 06:34 PM (HDwDg)

"College Algebra."

I took algebra in 8th grade.

What the fuck is so hard about algebra that it cannot be taught in high school?

We are fucked. Totally and completely fucked.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 10, 2014 02:36 PM (QFxY5)

233 Fox reporting Sebelius is going to resign. Her damage is done.

Posted by: Adam at April 10, 2014 02:36 PM (Aif/5)

234 Drudge siren - Sebelius to resign

Posted by: weew at April 10, 2014 02:37 PM (0tmLY)

235 209 They were at that time heavily communist-influenced. A lot of educational theory came out of the U of I. Li'l Billy Ayres comes to mind... Posted by: OregonMuse at April 10, 2014 06:31 PM (I8YZX) Bingo.

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 02:37 PM (oMKp3)

236 Sebelius is out? Sebelius is out?

Posted by: Albie Damned at April 10, 2014 02:37 PM (cGaCp)

237

Sebelius out at HHS?

Posted by: rich@gmu at April 10, 2014 02:37 PM (RhQvZ)

238 My parents basically gave me permission to give up on math when I was in Junior High, because they thought I sucked at it. Nope, I was on top of the math but I was also on top of writing notes to girls, and once my parents gave me the excuse of "Math's not his thing", I rode it as long as I could. Then I saw a C- on my report card and decided I didn't need my parents yelling at me to improve, I just didn't want to be like all the C- students around me.

Posted by: Lincolntf at April 10, 2014 02:37 PM (ZshNr)

239 Don't know much about it but Common Core seems like a politician/teacher bandwagon that's profiting somebody somewhere with kickbacks a comin'

Posted by: Sphynx

Textbook companies, testing companies, and IT companies like Microsoft.

15 yr old Connects the Dots
youtube.com/watch?v=xxoopxbaIA0

35 min

Posted by: weft cut-loop [/i] [/b] at April 10, 2014 02:37 PM (m58Tu)

240 From Fox: Sebelius is resigning. Yay! Now we can get someone even worse.

Posted by: L, elle at April 10, 2014 02:37 PM (D1Gfs)

241

6 and 3 is 9.

9 and 9 is 18.

Look there brother baby, and

You'll see what I've seen.

 

I knew leaving the sock from this morning would come in handy.

Posted by: Elwood Blues at April 10, 2014 02:37 PM (o44nj)

242 = 1! One factorial? Sorry, wrong answer - the correct answer was '1'

Posted by: BumperStickerist at April 10, 2014 02:37 PM (4CVLy)

243 Somebody still needs to explain to me how 0! equals one. I know it makes the math work but what is the justification?

Posted by: eleven at April 10, 2014 02:37 PM (fsLdt)

244 The bus needed to be fed.

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Waiting For SMODOT) at April 10, 2014 02:37 PM (JS0vr)

245 No way she's resigning. That would be admitting failure, and Obamacare is a a fabulous success, right? That's what the media keeps telling us.

Posted by: Lauren at April 10, 2014 02:37 PM (hFL/3)

246 hmm didn't see Sebilius resigned good been making dinner

Posted by: artisanal 'ette: The Green Jacket at April 10, 2014 02:38 PM (IXrOn)

247 If you want to have a little fun with today's "math whizz's" just use roam numerals for everything.

Filled up my Jeep the other night and mentioned to the cashier that it cost me almost a c-note. She had no clue what a c-note was and asked me.

With the straightest face I could use I told her her it was 10 times an X-note.

The look of bewilderment was priceless.

Posted by: GMB (et al) at April 10, 2014 02:38 PM (nkPV9)

248 is it time to light the skull?

Posted by: weew at April 10, 2014 02:38 PM (0tmLY)

249

From Fox:

 

Sebelius is resigning. Yay! Now we can get someone even worse.

 

Posted by: L, elle at April 10, 2014 06:37 PM (D1Gfs)

 

You rang?

Posted by: Kermit Gosnell at April 10, 2014 02:38 PM (o44nj)

250 CBSNews just reported that the HHS Secretary is resigning

Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at April 10, 2014 02:38 PM (e8kgV)

251 Most people want "reform," because some *other* type of Central Planning will work *this time!* No, no it won't. It is depressing to watch.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i] [/b] [/s] [/u] at April 10, 2014 02:38 PM (qyfb5)

252 Darth Sebelius is resigning?

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:38 PM (bitz6)

253 Hey ace... are you going to cover Hank Aaron comparing repubs that oppose Bambi to the KKK?
http://tinyurl.com/lu3agby

Posted by: The Mega Independent at April 10, 2014 02:38 PM (QCo5R)

254

dang it ...

 

fire up the bus, it is going to get crowed in the undercarriage

Posted by: rich@gmu at April 10, 2014 02:38 PM (RhQvZ)

255 Posted by: Sphynx at April 10, 2014 06:34 PM (OZmbA) My Lady works in Administration for a Calif School district... They get 4 Million from the State for common core math.... they have had to hire 7 new Senior people (avg salary in the 75K range)... and the Text books alone are 5 Million... Talk about failing at MATH....

Posted by: Romeo13 at April 10, 2014 02:38 PM (84gbM)

256 Posted by: Hrothgar at April 10, 2014 06:35 PM (o3MSL)

You probably confused an Up staircase with a Down staircase.

Rookie mistake.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 10, 2014 02:38 PM (QFxY5)

257
New Math? You've heard of it. I *lived* through that shit.
Posted by: Dave in Texas



In retrospect, I think it actually worked in part.  By introducing more advanced concepts like bases and set theory early, it helped smart students progress more rapidly thru more advanced math and related subjects.

But for the average student just trying to learn basic cyphering?  It was a disaster.  Just like CC.

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at April 10, 2014 02:38 PM (kdS6q)

258 Nub nub?

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:39 PM (bitz6)

259

I denounce myself for that last sock.

 

On second thought, given he's on the short list,....

Posted by: steveegg at April 10, 2014 02:39 PM (o44nj)

260 Dr Mengele will obama's new HHS Sec. And Republicans will approve unanimously.

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:39 PM (O96tM)

261
Common Core at its most basic is Collectivism.  That is the purpose.  It does not want individuality.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at April 10, 2014 02:39 PM (hUf/y)

262 ha! and Hillary had a shoe thrown at her I missed a lot while I was away probably missed some good comments too

Posted by: artisanal 'ette: The Green Jacket at April 10, 2014 02:39 PM (IXrOn)

263 This fad thing is true in libraries as well. That whole dewey decimal thing? It's so COMPLICATED. Let's just make libraries like book stores, because: NEW.

Posted by: Max Power at April 10, 2014 02:39 PM (q177U)

264

Ace-

Everybody knows that x(13+14)/x -20 = 7.  That's how I figure out sums, duh!

Posted by: Minuteman at April 10, 2014 02:39 PM (SS7Gu)

265 Moar from duh anals of government stupidity:

"French bar workers from using phones, reading work-email after 6 p.m."

Posted by: weft cut-loop [/i] [/b] at April 10, 2014 02:40 PM (m58Tu)

266 My son's fourth grade teacher would work out problems on the board many different ways for the kids until each kid "got it". That's diversity!

Posted by: Justamom at April 10, 2014 02:40 PM (Sptt8)

267 Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 10, 2014 06:36 PM (QFxY5) Dunno. Said person had taken it, it was either a transcript error or an enrollment error in college (I don't remember what.) For whatever reason they just finished the class rather than fight the bureaucracy.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:40 PM (HDwDg)

268

So who will replace Sebelius?

 

I'm sure Ezekial Emanuel would take the job.

Posted by: wheatie at April 10, 2014 02:40 PM (FWbLS)

269 Teachers continually change things so they can justify getting a paycheck,  spending more on books,  equipment,  supplies,  etc.

Idiots come up with this crap "new" teaching to get another degree or thesis or whatever trinkets the universities are handing out this week.

I'm sure the clowns who came up with common core are rock stars in the idiot-farm education bubble.  They get fame by coming up with something "new" in academia,  not something "better".  Because "better" would be all judgy and shit.

And my conspiracy theory?  They also do this to disgust parents so they'll be unable to help their kids with homework and thus cause a wedge between parent and child.  The parents unplug from the whole mess and the kids are now easier to indoctrinate.

Posted by: Dang at April 10, 2014 02:40 PM (MNq6o)

270 you miss the point: if we can graduate the kids from high school as uneducated idiots, we can then justify whole new, union staffed, programs to remedye the issue...

or at least collect lots of union dues while nothing changes.

after all, it's for the chilren! so only a H8r would object.


Posted by: redc1c4 at April 10, 2014 02:40 PM (q+fqH)

271 >>>Sebelius out at HHS?<<<



Obviously it's just "so she can spend more time with her family"

Posted by: Hate Miser at April 10, 2014 02:41 PM (08jH8)

272 Bloomberg is saying that Sililius, the other really bad thing to come from Cincinatti, is resigning. She issued a statement, apparently saying "you won't have Kathleen Sibilius to kick around anymore". And then she kicked a dog walking nearby.

Posted by: MTF at April 10, 2014 02:41 PM (1Boes)

273 233 Hahahahaha.... Sebelius is resigning
Posted by: Rachel Corrie at April 10, 2014 06:36 PM (jucos)
Mission accomplished.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot Jr. at April 10, 2014 02:41 PM (74gkr)

274 "but Jeb Bush loves it"

And we love El Gobernador!

Posted by: National Council of La Raza at April 10, 2014 02:41 PM (noWW6)

275
Sebelius is resigning. Yay! Now we can get someone even worse.
Posted by: L, elle




Tanned, ready and rested!  Where do I sign?

Posted by: Mitt "Tweaks" Romney

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at April 10, 2014 02:42 PM (kdS6q)

276 You have failed me for the last time Sebelius.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:42 PM (bitz6)

277 News breaking now that Sebilius is resigning from HHS.

Posted by: ManWithNoParty at April 10, 2014 02:42 PM (ojnk6)

278 btw - as I deal with this crap all the time (helping parents get kids subject-accelerated - usually math) There are only two maths in school. Pre-Algebra and Algebra. The goal is to have the kid develop all the skills they'll need for algebra at the time they are developmentally able to handle higher-order concepts involved in algebra - and -beyond. This is where the distinction between high-achieving students and gifted students comes into play. But those are fish of a different feather. -

Posted by: BumperStickerist at April 10, 2014 02:42 PM (4CVLy)

279 Posted by: Kreplach at April 10, 2014 06:33 PM (Xkr8I) Amazing to think that a century ago, most schools were able to find teachers that were competent to teach Latin. Now we are lucky to find a teacher that can teach English!

Posted by: Hrothgar at April 10, 2014 02:42 PM (o3MSL)

280 Posted by: wheatie at April 10, 2014 06:40 PM (FWbLS) Quite scarily, I could see that happen. Except I fully expect my entire field to turn on him and tank him though. But it'd be worth it.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:42 PM (HDwDg)

281 Lois Lerner is looking for work.

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:42 PM (O96tM)

282 Geometry was the best thing that ever happened to my teenage love life. I was in an all boys high school. My sister was a year behind me in an all girls school. I was the go-to geometry tutor for a large portion of the Our Lady of the Elms sophomores. Good times.

Posted by: bergerbilder at April 10, 2014 02:42 PM (8MjqI)

283 Hahahahaha.... Sebelius is resigning


Shouldn't she have to work first before she resigns?

Posted by: Dang at April 10, 2014 02:43 PM (MNq6o)

284 40 min documentary on Common Core http://commoncoremovie.com/

Posted by: ghost of hallelujah at April 10, 2014 02:43 PM (XvrTA)

285 Whatever......

Posted by: Decidedly Indifferent at April 10, 2014 02:43 PM (jucos)

286 Big Brother is right.  2 + 2 = 5.  I love Big Brother.   If he had only had common core Julia and I could have avoided a lot of trouble.

Posted by: Winston Smith at April 10, 2014 02:43 PM (SS7Gu)

287 Reports are coming in that Nurse Ratched has accepted the offer to be our next HHS sec. Medication time, gentlemen...

Posted by: weew at April 10, 2014 02:43 PM (0tmLY)

288 Sebelius quit? nobody quits this administration Holder hasn't quit she is about to be a huge fall guy everything wrong with JEFcare will be blamed on her its for the elections

Posted by: thunderb at April 10, 2014 02:43 PM (zOTsN)

289 Sebelius announced her resignation date effective on May 1...but that's likley to be extended

Hey-oh!

Posted by: Albie Damned at April 10, 2014 02:43 PM (cGaCp)

290 Just substitute Sebelius" photo for that of Obama. http://tinyurl.com/k4vkuns His work isn't done yet.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at April 10, 2014 02:44 PM (XyM/Y)

291 It is as if they think that it is too difficult for kids to remember that "1 + 1 = 2", but that knowing how to rigorously demonstrate it (like in the link below) is simple: http://tinyurl.com/48593

Posted by: The Political Hat at April 10, 2014 02:44 PM (CTCNK)

292 Oh God, do you know what this means???

Jamie Gorelick is now gonna run HHS.

Posted by: Hate Miser at April 10, 2014 02:44 PM (08jH8)

293 Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 10, 2014 06:38 PM (QFxY5) So that's why I kept tripping and falling up stairs!

Posted by: Hrothgar at April 10, 2014 02:44 PM (o3MSL)

294 Maybe she can get a waiver until the end of Jugears McFuckstick's regime.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:45 PM (bitz6)

295 No flaming skull for Darth Sibelius resigning?

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Waiting For SMODOT) at April 10, 2014 02:45 PM (JS0vr)

296

Sebelius' replacement? ...Some blonde woman named Burwell.

According to Fox.

 

Burwell is currently with the OMB.

Posted by: wheatie at April 10, 2014 02:45 PM (FWbLS)

297 You still have ten fingers. Your first finger is the 0th and your last finger is the 9th. No, you have eleven fingers. Everybody knows that.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit [/i][/s][/b][/u] at April 10, 2014 02:45 PM (0HooB)

298 @sunnyright OMB Director to replace Sebelius

Posted by: Retread at April 10, 2014 02:46 PM (cHwk5)

299 In high school in Arkansas we had algebra I in 9th grade. You could elect to take Algebra II in 10th along with the required Plane Geometry, then elect to take Trig and Analytic Geometry in 11th and if you were good enough, beginning Calculus (derivative mostly) in 12th.

This was in the 70s

Posted by: Sphynx at April 10, 2014 02:46 PM (OZmbA)

300
So who will replace Sebelius?
I'm sure Ezekiel Emanuel would take the job.
Posted by: wheatie at April 10, 2014 06:40 PM (FWbLS)


As in you don't need a doctor, Obamacare author, bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel brother of Rham?

Posted by: YIKES! at April 10, 2014 02:46 PM (mETGQ)

301

Fresh off the Fox News Alert gong - OMB Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell will be replacing Nurse Ratched.

Posted by: steveegg at April 10, 2014 02:46 PM (o44nj)

302 So shop math is taught by people with 9 fingers?

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:46 PM (bitz6)

303 she is about to be the biggest speed bump under the bus

Posted by: thunderb at April 10, 2014 02:46 PM (zOTsN)

304 Well, I'd solve "13-7" by utilising arcsine functions and an expanding Rieman Zeta functionÂ… *ducks and hides*

Posted by: The Political Hat at April 10, 2014 02:47 PM (CTCNK)

305 What's OMB?

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at April 10, 2014 02:47 PM (XyM/Y)

306 205 I'd love to see one of these Common Core Champs layout a stairway. Posted by: no good deed Arrgh, Trade School commercial art class taught me how to correctly DRAW stairs in perspective for illustrations, and that, while hard enough, got to feel natural. Of course I have not been called upon to do so much in the last 20 years and have lost it. BECUZ BUSH!!11!

Posted by: OK, thanks, bye at April 10, 2014 02:47 PM (uopHF)

307 Posted by: The Political Hat at April 10, 2014 06:44 PM (CTCNK) Bridge 1 is 650 feet, bridge two is 750. Which is longer. why It's that last one that confuses the hell out of me. "Because that's the definition of Longer."

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:47 PM (HDwDg)

308 Actually, you have 8 fingers and 2 thumbs.

Well, most people do.

You cousin f**kers out there might have more or less. And webbed.

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Waiting For SMODOT) at April 10, 2014 02:47 PM (JS0vr)

309 New HHS chick: She was president of the Walmart Foundation, having assumed that post in January 2012,[1] and was previously the president of the Global Development Program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Posted by: Lauren at April 10, 2014 02:47 PM (hFL/3)

310 Office of Management and Budget I think.

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:48 PM (O96tM)

311

Silvia Burwell...director of Office of Management and Budget.

 

This is who will be nominated for Sebelius' replacement.

According to Bret Baer.

Posted by: wheatie at April 10, 2014 02:48 PM (FWbLS)

312 Sylvia Mary Mathews Burwell (born June 1965) is the Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. She has been in that position since April 2013. Prior to that, she was president of the Walmart Foundation, having assumed that post in January 2012,[1] and was previously the president of the Global Development Program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. While at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, her program focused on combating world poverty through agricultural development, financial services for the poor, and global libraries. She was Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director of the Foundation prior to its reorganization in 2006. She came to the Foundation in 2001, after serving as Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget in Washington, D.C., since 1998. On April 10, 2014, she was nominated by President Obama to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services after the resignation of Kathleen Sebelius.

Posted by: thunderb at April 10, 2014 02:48 PM (zOTsN)

313 220 Don't know much about it but Common Core seems like a politician/teacher bandwagon that's profiting somebody somewhere with kickbacks a comin' Posted by: Sphynx at April 10, 2014 06:34 PM (OZmbA) ________ 2 areas of profit 1. Companies that create the tests 2. Companies that create the textbooks And I'll bet mucho dinero that the owners of said companies are almost all Democrats

Posted by: Mr. Moo Moo at April 10, 2014 02:48 PM (0LHZx)

314 This is just part of the war on women

Posted by: Albie Damned at April 10, 2014 02:48 PM (cGaCp)

315 /tinfoil hat on Are they using Common Core in elite private schools like Sidwell Friends, where all of the top politicians send their children? Because if not, then it sounds like this is an attempt to dumb down "the masses" so they can never challenge the hereditary elites for power. /tinfoil hat off

Posted by: rickl at April 10, 2014 02:48 PM (sdi6R)

316
What's OMB?

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at April 10, 2014 06:47 PM (XyM/Y)


Office of Management and Budget.

Bean counters to you.

Posted by: YIKES! at April 10, 2014 02:48 PM (mETGQ)

317 They should reboot Euclid's math primer.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:49 PM (bitz6)

318 OMB are obama's accounting in-house accounting firm that always fudges the numbers for obama's policies.

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:49 PM (O96tM)

319

Well of course she's  leaving May 1 . . .

 

 

comrade.

Posted by: Count de Monet at April 10, 2014 02:49 PM (BAS5M)

320 The Dewey Decimal System is a Jooooo plot. I can't find shit when I go into the library, and I think that was the entire plan.

Posted by: RoN PaUl!!!!!!!!! at April 10, 2014 02:50 PM (8ZskC)

321 Sebelius resigns.

Posted by: Spring Fever at April 10, 2014 02:50 PM (i7KmQ)

322 OT: Scientists Implant Lab-Grown Vaginas in Humans http://tinyurl.com/mezn2tg

Posted by: The Political Hat at April 10, 2014 02:50 PM (CTCNK)

323 Ok.....If a thumb ain't a finger what is it? A toe? Thumbs are fingers!

Posted by: eleven at April 10, 2014 02:50 PM (fsLdt)

324 Major Garrett has a preview of the talking points re Sebelius' resignation:

@MajorCBS Sebelius leaves after turn-around of botched healthcare.gov and w/7.5 M enrolles. Qs on who paid, ages, uninsured persist.

Posted by: Retread at April 10, 2014 02:50 PM (cHwk5)

325 So she's totes qualified? Totes.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at April 10, 2014 02:50 PM (XyM/Y)

326
OMB are obama's accounting in-house accounting firm that always fudges the numbers for obama's policies.

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 06:49 PM (O96tM)


So it's the Obama Management and Budget.

Posted by: YIKES! at April 10, 2014 02:50 PM (mETGQ)

327 They're also teaching kids high level American politics

Not a joke at all. They started doing this with the conceptual processes that come under "Philosophy" a while back, and left us with a couple of generations of moral midgets. Ethics, aesthetics, and epistemology are not cocktail-party chat for the over-entitled. They are subject to logical constructs. It's a science, which is why all the other sciences grew out of it.

The person who says "Philosophy, who needs it?" is just another version of "I was told there would be no math." That's what a half-century of irrational discourse will do to a study. Once they're done with language and math, your "hard sciences" are next up. 

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 10, 2014 02:51 PM (xq1UY)

328 So now...they're bringing in a Pro at fudging numbers, to fudge the numbers on Ocare.

Posted by: wheatie at April 10, 2014 02:51 PM (FWbLS)

329 "She was president of the Walmart Foundation"

And for those of you who haven't figured it out yet, the Walmart Foundation went batshit crazy moonbat lefty in their activities a while back, after Sam the patriarch finally kicked the bucket.

Posted by: torquewrench at April 10, 2014 02:51 PM (noWW6)

330 Not to be confused with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO ) that is supposed to be a nonpartisan accounting division for the federal govt working under the House, I believe.

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:51 PM (O96tM)

331 OT: Scientists Implant Lab-Grown Vaginas in Humans I'd like one in my right hand please.

Posted by: Joe Biden at April 10, 2014 02:52 PM (8ZskC)

332 Why not put Ben Carson in there? He's qualified.

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 02:52 PM (oMKp3)

333 327 Ok.....If a thumb ain't a finger what is it?

A toe?

Thumbs are fingers!

Posted by: eleven at April 10, 2014 06:50 PM (fsLdt)



Check this out [ziiip]  Finger? or Toe?

Posted by: Horny Bill Clinton at April 10, 2014 02:52 PM (OZmbA)

334 Bridge 1 is 650 feet, bridge two is 750. Which is longer. why It's that last one that confuses the hell out of me. "Because that's the definition of Longer." Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 06:47 PM (HDwDg) That can't be determined because they didn't say what unit of measurement times 750 the second bridge was.

Posted by: The Political Hat at April 10, 2014 02:52 PM (CTCNK)

335

What's OMB?

 

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at April 10, 2014 06:47 PM (XyM/Y)

 

The White House Office of Management and Budget, which runs the administrative functions of the executive branch and produces the President's budget.

 

I seem to recall reading the 2015 version, which if adopted would increase spending by roughly $500 billion over both 2014 and the previously-agreed Budget Deal From Hell, actually got 2 votes, which is 2 more than the previous 3 President's budgets combined.

Posted by: steveegg at April 10, 2014 02:53 PM (o44nj)

336 I saw the Lab Grown Vaginas on the second stage at the first Lilith Fair!

Posted by: garrett at April 10, 2014 02:53 PM (DCl/+)

337 @282 I would have figured that after about 250 years we would have learned what works and what doesn't work.

Posted by: Kreplach at April 10, 2014 02:53 PM (Xkr8I)

338 335 OT: Scientists Implant Lab-Grown Vaginas in Humans


I'd like one in my right hand please.

Posted by: Joe Biden at April 10, 2014 06:52 PM (8ZskC)




For some reason that made me laugh, a lot.

Posted by: Sphynx at April 10, 2014 02:53 PM (OZmbA)

339 Oh heaven help us another Gates minion in charge of something government related.

Posted by: Paranoidgirlinseattle at April 10, 2014 02:53 PM (74T7W)

340 I prefer my vaginas right where Mother Nature put them.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at April 10, 2014 02:54 PM (8ZskC)

341 Fox: Sebelius has resigned. Pres. to nominate Burwell

Posted by: Tami [/i][/b][/u][/s] at April 10, 2014 02:54 PM (bCEmE)

342

336
Why not put Ben Carson in there? He's qualified.

 

They don't want someone who is qualified.

They want someone who won't tell the truth.

Posted by: wheatie at April 10, 2014 02:54 PM (FWbLS)

343 That can't be determined because they didn't say what unit of measurement times 750 the second bridge was. Billions of dollars?

Posted by: eleven at April 10, 2014 02:54 PM (fsLdt)

344 We may be screwed, but at least the next generation will have the skills to enjoy it. None.

Posted by: LoneStarHeeb at April 10, 2014 02:54 PM (BZAd3)

345 And I was 'sposed to have a 168 IQ back then, the public schools (and legal-diet-pill-asthma-amphetimine-meds-tweaking-when-not-absent-1960s-parents) sure cured that for me. Had a little talk with a Harvey Mudd College prof (private liberal-arts college focusing on mathematics) describing the way I did numbers in elementary school, he said "you were Factoring and that's college level math!". Thanks again, L A Unified School District!

Posted by: OK, thanks, bye at April 10, 2014 02:54 PM (uopHF)

346 I'd like one in my right hand please. Posted by: Joe Biden at April 10, 2014 06:52 PM (8ZskC) Pardon my clammy hand...

Posted by: garrett at April 10, 2014 02:54 PM (DCl/+)

347 Does the new one have to be confirmed, or are they just given a free chair at the table?

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 02:54 PM (oMKp3)

348
Thumbs are fingers!

Posted by: eleven at April 10, 2014 06:50 PM (fsLdt)


It's the small finger, ring finger, middle finger, index finger and thumb.

Not thumb finger.


Posted by: YIKES! at April 10, 2014 02:54 PM (mETGQ)

349 "Qs on who paid, ages, uninsured persist."

Also "Qs" on precisely how many goddamned _illegal aliens_ they stuffed into the enrollment queue to make their target figure.

The L.A. Times had a photo accompanying a story on Obamacare, showing a long line of people in downtown L.A. waiting to talk to a "navigator" to get signed up. If even half of them were citizens, I would eat a parking stop.

Posted by: torquewrench at April 10, 2014 02:55 PM (noWW6)

350 Posted by: The Political Hat at April 10, 2014 06:52 PM (CTCNK) Yeah that was my lazy typing. So, and OMB hack, with no experience running anything related to health I see.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:55 PM (HDwDg)

351 Actually, you have 8 fingers and 2 thumbs. No, no, no, no, no. No. Hold up both your hands and count down from 10 on one of them: ten, nine, eight, seven, six. And five on your other hand makes 11. Sheesh.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit [/i][/s][/b][/u] at April 10, 2014 02:55 PM (0HooB)

352
Don't you fools get it?, this new HHS hiring shows that obamacare is a charity.

A charity baby!  and you thought it was something bad.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at April 10, 2014 02:55 PM (hUf/y)

353 >>>Why not put Ben Carson in there? He's qualified.

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 06:52 PM (oMKp3)<<<


**in the voice of a hayseed mechanic**  Well, see, that's you're problem right there.

Posted by: Hate Miser at April 10, 2014 02:55 PM (08jH8)

354 According the The Blaze, HHS Sec Sibelius is resigning g

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars™ [/i] [/s] [/u] at April 10, 2014 02:56 PM (HsTG8)

355 You'll get my thumbfingers when you pry them from my cold dead hands.

Posted by: eleven at April 10, 2014 02:56 PM (fsLdt)

356 351 They have to be confirmed. A smart partt would use said hearings to their advantage, so nobody will do this.

Posted by: ManWithNoParty at April 10, 2014 02:56 PM (ojnk6)

357 308 Well, I'd solve "13-7" by utilising arcsine functions and an expanding Rieman Zeta functionÂ… Silly - that's what La Place Transforms are for.

Posted by: bergerbilder at April 10, 2014 02:56 PM (8MjqI)

358 62 I do. The cashier even with a cash register doesn't know. They just do what the machine tells them to do. Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 06:04 PM (bitz6) You should see the panic in their eyes when my total is something like $4.18 and I give them $10.28 because I don't have a dime and a nickel in my pocket.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop at April 10, 2014 02:57 PM (1htQa)

359 62 I do. The cashier even with a cash register doesn't know. They just do what the machine tells them to do. Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 06:04 PM (bitz6) You should see the panic in their eyes when my total is something like $4.18 and I give them $10.28 because I don't have a dime and a nickel in my pocket.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop at April 10, 2014 02:57 PM (1htQa)

360 Does anyone remember the Greek word for fingers?

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:57 PM (O96tM)

361 Does anyone remember the Greek word for fingers?

Posted by: Soothsayer the Unstompable at April 10, 2014 02:57 PM (O96tM)

362 So, and OMB hack, with no experience running anything related to health I see.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 06:55 PM (HDwDg)


She knows how to fudge the numbers, and that's all SCOAMF really care about.

Posted by: Retread at April 10, 2014 02:57 PM (cHwk5)

363 So, and OMB hack, with no experience running anything related to health I see.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 06:55 PM (HDwDg)


She knows how to fudge the numbers, and that's all SCOAMF really care about.

Posted by: Retread at April 10, 2014 02:57 PM (cHwk5)

364 Are they still trying to push the measuring system of the bastard people on our kids?

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:57 PM (bitz6)

365 Are they still trying to push the measuring system of the bastard people on our kids?

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 02:57 PM (bitz6)

366 Ok.....If a thumb ain't a finger what is it? A toe? Thumbs are fingers! Posted by: eleven at April 10, 2014 06:50 PM (fsLdt) Check this out [ziiip] Finger? or Toe? Posted by: Horny Bill Clinton at April 10, 2014 06:52 PM (OZmbA) Body parts are just social constructs! Just like Vaginas and Penises! There's not difference at all except for gender roles imposed on us by the Kyriarchy!!1!

Posted by: Critical Sexuality Studies with a minor in trannyism (and a tranny in a minor) at April 10, 2014 02:58 PM (CTCNK)

367 Ok.....If a thumb ain't a finger what is it? A toe? Thumbs are fingers! Posted by: eleven at April 10, 2014 06:50 PM (fsLdt) Check this out [ziiip] Finger? or Toe? Posted by: Horny Bill Clinton at April 10, 2014 06:52 PM (OZmbA) Body parts are just social constructs! Just like Vaginas and Penises! There's not difference at all except for gender roles imposed on us by the Kyriarchy!!1!

Posted by: Critical Sexuality Studies with a minor in trannyism (and a tranny in a minor) at April 10, 2014 02:58 PM (CTCNK)

368 I'm sure many of us were subjected to the "child genius" treatment in the 70's and 80's. It was a thing. Don't think it hurt me any, but I would've been fine without it.

Posted by: Lincolntf at April 10, 2014 02:58 PM (ZshNr)

369 I'm sure many of us were subjected to the "child genius" treatment in the 70's and 80's. It was a thing. Don't think it hurt me any, but I would've been fine without it.

Posted by: Lincolntf at April 10, 2014 02:58 PM (ZshNr)

370

Does the new one have to be confirmed, or are they just given a free chair at the table?

 

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 06:54 PM (oMKp3)

 

HHS is a Cabinet position, so it supposedly requires Senate Approval. However, Dingy Harry will be certain to not have pro-forma sessions during the Easter recess so Teh SCOAMT can recess-appoint Number Muncher.

Posted by: steveegg at April 10, 2014 02:58 PM (o44nj)

371

Does the new one have to be confirmed, or are they just given a free chair at the table?

 

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 06:54 PM (oMKp3)

 

HHS is a Cabinet position, so it supposedly requires Senate Approval. However, Dingy Harry will be certain to not have pro-forma sessions during the Easter recess so Teh SCOAMT can recess-appoint Number Muncher.

Posted by: steveegg at April 10, 2014 02:58 PM (o44nj)

372 Posted by: Retread at April 10, 2014 06:57 PM (cHwk5) Given what we know about the way NIH, Medicare and Medicaid make payments, you could do a lot of damage to what I think is the largest single department in the government with some basic accounting skills. So..yeah..bad.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:58 PM (HDwDg)

373 Posted by: Retread at April 10, 2014 06:57 PM (cHwk5) Given what we know about the way NIH, Medicare and Medicaid make payments, you could do a lot of damage to what I think is the largest single department in the government with some basic accounting skills. So..yeah..bad.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 02:58 PM (HDwDg)

374 Hate to break it to you, Ace:

My 10-year old, in 4th grade, has been doing basic algebraic manipulation for over a year now - even before he started doing long division. And this is in a parochial, non Common Core school. In essence he's doing:

24
+x
--
41

Solve for x.

That said, It's still a hell of a lot better on this parent - a PhD in the sciences, mind you - than the "forget about remembering basic facts, let's solve it in a way that a computer never would" way Common Core suggests.

Posted by: Kevin in ABQ at April 10, 2014 02:59 PM (XrGnJ)

375 Hate to break it to you, Ace:

My 10-year old, in 4th grade, has been doing basic algebraic manipulation for over a year now - even before he started doing long division. And this is in a parochial, non Common Core school. In essence he's doing:

24
+x
--
41

Solve for x.

That said, It's still a hell of a lot better on this parent - a PhD in the sciences, mind you - than the "forget about remembering basic facts, let's solve it in a way that a computer never would" way Common Core suggests.

Posted by: Kevin in ABQ at April 10, 2014 02:59 PM (XrGnJ)

376 LOL:

@sunnyright Error 404. HHS Secretary Not Found.

Posted by: Retread at April 10, 2014 02:59 PM (cHwk5)

377 NEWS FLASH: Sebelius out. That is all.

Posted by: Beyond Disgusted at April 10, 2014 02:59 PM (thLL8)

378 LOL:

@sunnyright Error 404. HHS Secretary Not Found.

Posted by: Retread at April 10, 2014 02:59 PM (cHwk5)

379 NEWS FLASH: Sebelius out. That is all.

Posted by: Beyond Disgusted at April 10, 2014 02:59 PM (thLL8)

380 I'm not sure this is actually Common Core. Common Core is just a list of what kids should know. Then states make their own curriculum to do that. This is the curriculum we are complaining about. Also, if these are isolated questions, which are designed to show "the parts under the hood" of the conceptual math, then that is fine. California has some questions like this in teaching a unit, but most of the math is not done that way. I find it to be a good idea rather than just rote learning (you do need rote for speed, but its good to know the logic behind it.)

Posted by: sexypig at April 10, 2014 03:00 PM (dZQh7)

381 Sounds like Sebelius' replacement is perfect. She is already \ used to giving away other peoples money.

Posted by: The Jackhole at April 10, 2014 03:00 PM (nTgAI)

382 Yes, I endured New Math in the 60s. Base 7. Set theory Venn Diagrams in 3rd or 4th grade.

Posted by: Comrade Arthur at April 10, 2014 03:00 PM (h53OH)

383 Posted by: steveegg at April 10, 2014 06:58 PM (o44nj) Could he get away with that? I mean it's one thing to appoint some NLRB members, or even a CFPB head, LIVs know shit about that. But we're talking about the Secretary that oversees the department that handles Medicare.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) (No Really!) at April 10, 2014 03:00 PM (HDwDg)

384 Infinite page loads. Not comment related.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 03:00 PM (bitz6)

385 I just controlled demolitioned Juan Williams hand.

Posted by: Judge Nepolitano at April 10, 2014 03:00 PM (Aif/5)

386 Apparently Sebelius has resigned.

Posted by: eleven at April 10, 2014 03:01 PM (fsLdt)

387 >>>HHS is a Cabinet position, so it supposedly requires Senate Approval. However, Dingy Harry will be certain to not have pro-forma sessions during the Easter recess so Teh SCOAMT can recess-appoint Number Muncher.

Posted by: steveegg at April 10, 2014 06:58 PM (o44nj)<<<



No need. All they need now for appointees is 51, and I'm quite certain this will not be a hill to die on.

Posted by: Turtle McConnell at April 10, 2014 03:01 PM (08jH8)

388 Trade School commercial art class taught me how to correctly DRAW stairs in perspective for illustrations, and that, while hard enough, got to feel natural.
Posted by: OK, thanks, bye at April 10, 2014 06:47 PM (uopHF)
Draw them Escher style.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot Jr. at April 10, 2014 03:01 PM (74gkr)

389 If kids "aren't getting math," it seems to me the wrong way to go is to go higher concept on them. I have a similar recurring argument with a buddy of mine about the proper way to teach noobs to shoot pistols. I'm all about the fundamentals of marksmanship, he keeps saying that the most important thing is to teach them how to adjust fire via "Kentucky windage". Which is just nuts, because you can't accurately adjust fire unless you are shooting consistently already, and you can't shoot consistently without the fundamentals of marksmanship.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at April 10, 2014 03:01 PM (TIIx5)

390
If you think about it though, the new hhs chick is perfectly representative of the oblather administration, someone who knows how to give away and spend gobs of money.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at April 10, 2014 03:01 PM (hUf/y)

391 Juan Williams should go back to fisting Elmo for a living.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 03:02 PM (bitz6)

392 I want a flaming skull over Sibelius' resigning.

We haven't had a flaming skull in like forever.

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Waiting For SMODOT) at April 10, 2014 03:02 PM (JS0vr)

393 slow news day... Sebelius resigns Lerner in contempt Cummings is a lying asshole Cliven Bundy, ranch standoff yeah, not much happening.

Posted by: spypeach at April 10, 2014 03:02 PM (10H0T)

394 Sebelius out ha ha

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at April 10, 2014 03:02 PM (HVff2)

395 they are saying this new gal comes form the business world, but all she has ever done is work for non-profits and government IOW, all she has ever done is spend other people's money

Posted by: thunderb at April 10, 2014 03:02 PM (zOTsN)

396 My geometry teacher was old school. Line by line proofs. " Wait, they don't do proofs anymore? What do they do now? Posted by: Lauren at April 10, 2014 06:21 PM (hFL/3) Spend hours teaching students how to condom a cucumber.

Posted by: Jen at April 10, 2014 03:02 PM (Mt+Yq)

397 Actually, you have 8 fingers and 2 thumbs. /looks at servo arms wired to flippers Sigh. I knew I was doing something wrong.

Posted by: Brother Cavil, Cylon/Cetacian hybrid at April 10, 2014 03:03 PM (m9V0o)

398 Remember orchestral (or classical) music? Remember how it used to be enjoyable or exciting or some recognizable human emotion besides boredom and disgust to listen to it? Remember how all that changed in the 20th century? Remember how modal or tonal music turned everything into a big ball of crap? Remember how the elites loved that crap? Especially because the average joes couldn't appreciate it? Remember how that happened to jazz? Sure you do. That's Common Core Math. Dissonance for the sake of doing something different that the average joe finds useless. Evil, of course, because math is the most important subject to learn to flourish in the modern world. This is your educational establishment crapping out Pierrot Lunaire and call it mathematics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsIATAaR-X0

Posted by: naturalfake at April 10, 2014 03:03 PM (0cMkb)

399 Cucumbers really don't need condoms anyway.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 03:03 PM (bitz6)

400 So who does the Chicago Crook put up as Sebelius' replacement?

Posted by: JEM at April 10, 2014 03:03 PM (o+SC1)

401 I expect she will get a tongue bath from congress

Posted by: thunderb at April 10, 2014 03:04 PM (zOTsN)

402 Sebelius resigns? What difference does it make now?

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at April 10, 2014 03:04 PM (oFCZn)

403 Does anyone remember the Greek word for fingers? *waves wing* I do, I do!

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit [/i][/s][/b][/u] at April 10, 2014 03:04 PM (0HooB)

404 388 Sebelius out ha ha Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at April 10, 2014 07:02 PM (HVff2) And bringing in some gal from OMB, who knows dick about the health care industry. But, it will be War on Wimminz to point out that she's completely unqualified for the job, because vagina.

Posted by: Insomniac at April 10, 2014 03:04 PM (NtHdR)

405 Government Plan:
1. Sub Par Education
2. Accept them all into college
3. All are in massive debt
4. Pile on the gubbermint handouts
5. Democrats and Democrat Lights (aka RINOS) in office forever!

Posted by: shibumi who is exceptionally cynical today at April 10, 2014 03:04 PM (25HWz)

406 395 So who does the Chicago Crook put up as Sebelius' replacement? Posted by: JEM at April 10, 2014 07:03 PM (o+SC1) Burwell from OMB.

Posted by: Insomniac at April 10, 2014 03:05 PM (NtHdR)

407 Digit?

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 03:05 PM (bitz6)

408 Look, there were absolutely no problems when Obama appointed someone who couldn't even figure out how to do their own taxes to lead Treasury, so this will be fine...

Posted by: 'Turbo Tax" Tim Geithner at April 10, 2014 03:05 PM (08jH8)

409 I developed these completely simple and logical methods and I have to say you're all just a bunch of whiners.  What's so difficult about converting the numbers to base-9, subtracting them, and then converting them back to base-10?

Posted by: Common Core's 9-fingered Mathematician at April 10, 2014 03:05 PM (i9vov)

410 I would caution conservatives who listen to too many pundits who gin up issues...common core is also being ginned up on the left as a big evil corporate thing, too. So, its either the end of the world, or both sides like it to demonize the other.

Posted by: sexypig at April 10, 2014 03:05 PM (dZQh7)

411 I hope the reason that she is resigning is because she is fed up. It would be delicious if Senilious wrote a tell all book on behind the scenes at the Obamacare Wars.

Posted by: grammie winger at April 10, 2014 03:06 PM (oMKp3)

412 @363 Retired Buckeye Cop Did that with a C note and change once and slided the extra $20 she miss counted back to her. Told them I didn't want her to get canned when she came up short after her shift.

Posted by: John Boehner at April 10, 2014 03:06 PM (/h+xv)

413 402 Digit? Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 07:05 PM (bitz6) Yeah, I can digit.

Posted by: Insomniac at April 10, 2014 03:06 PM (NtHdR)

414 off sock

Posted by: Buckeye Abroad at April 10, 2014 03:06 PM (/h+xv)

415 I want a flaming skull over Sibelius' resigning. We haven't had a flaming skull in like forever. Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Waiting For SMODOT) at April 10, 2014 07:02 PM (JS0vr) Flaming Skull? Meh. BlagoSkull? Almost as much fun a barrel full of double-jointed cheerleaders.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at April 10, 2014 03:07 PM (TIIx5)

416 Well at least the new scrunt is easier on the eyes than old pinched face scold.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at April 10, 2014 03:07 PM (oFCZn)

417

So who does the Chicago Crook put up as Sebelius' replacement?

 

Posted by: JEM at April 10, 2014 07:03 PM (o+SC1)

 

The $4,100,000,000,000 woman.

 

Get ready for a massive increase in the cost of PlaceboCare.

Posted by: steveegg at April 10, 2014 03:07 PM (o44nj)

418 Dissonance for the sake of doing something different that the average joe finds useless. Standard Tuning was once A=432 Hz, not 440 Hz. My guitar playing buddy and I have played around with that tuning. 432 sounds much better. Rumor has it that it was changed in Germany in the 1930's.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit [/i][/s][/b][/u] at April 10, 2014 03:07 PM (0HooB)

419 no flaming skull we didn't take her hide she is sacrificing herself for "The One" she has volunteered to be the scapegoat for JEFCare for the elections

Posted by: thunderb at April 10, 2014 03:08 PM (zOTsN)

420 2 areas of profit 1. Companies that create the tests 2. Companies that create the textbooks And I'll bet mucho dinero that the owners of said companies are almost all Democrats Posted by: Mr. Moo Moo at April 10, 2014 06:48 PM (0LHZx) You are forgetting all the admin staff and 'experts' who will be hired to train teachers and implement this...

Posted by: Romeo13 at April 10, 2014 03:08 PM (84gbM)

421 411 Well at least the new scrunt is easier on the eyes than old pinched face scold. Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at April 10, 2014 07:07 PM (oFCZn) Every bit as corrupt and incompetent, I expect.

Posted by: Insomniac at April 10, 2014 03:08 PM (NtHdR)

422 So in the run-up to a midterm election where disgust towards Obamacare is the major issue, Obama is serving up the Senate GOP a chance to demagogue for months over the confirmation? What a gift, you know the donks would be relentless if given the same opportunity. I'm guessing the GOP rushes it right through though, can't waste time on this shit when they're drafting up amnesty.

Posted by: mugiwara at April 10, 2014 03:09 PM (3a584)

423 Every bit as corrupt and incompetent, I expect. Posted by: Insomniac at April 10, 2014 07:08 PM (NtHdR) Oh sure but there was something about Sebelius that made me go into a rage every time I saw that toilet faced shrew.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at April 10, 2014 03:10 PM (oFCZn)

424 Nood. Gabe on contempt.

Posted by: torquewrench at April 10, 2014 03:10 PM (noWW6)

425 Nood

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at April 10, 2014 03:10 PM (HVff2)

426 Web sites for dummies.

Posted by: Boss Moss at April 10, 2014 03:11 PM (bitz6)

427 "If kids "aren't getting math," it seems to me the wrong way to go is to go higher concept on them." 1) And that would be wrong, because some children will "get" it more easily if its explained. Other kids may not, but they still have the rote sections to "learn by yourself." 2) Smarter kids can be exposed to the concept and do better later on. This is why I think the conceptual explanations work best. You need to realize we are competing with Asia, where kids learn much faster. Actually, my kid is at roughly the same pace now in Cali as our stepston was in Taiwan, so I think the school curriculum is doing well. What we see here is cherry picking parts of the curriculum, and then triumphant shouting of "Aha! Look how dumb this is!" I will say that my daughter's school has one weakness: no one is willing to push the parents to make the kids memorize their times tables. For some reason, they decide to let the parents allow the kids to meander down 1975 speeds for this stuff.

Posted by: sexypig at April 10, 2014 03:11 PM (dZQh7)

428 This actually isn't new, way back when i was in school and dinosaurs roamed the earth (teh 80's) our school had a week long seminar, 2 hours a day, where we were taught the most convoluted ways possible to memorize the simplest things. It was clear to every kid in class that we were intentionally being taught to do things the hard way which i guess was supposed to exercise our brain or make us think more or something, but when the seminar was over we just went right back to doing things as straight forward and easily as possible because that's how human brains function, it seeks the fastest path from point a to point b.

Posted by: booger at April 10, 2014 03:13 PM (xRDdL)

429 Hold up both your hands and count down from 10 on one of them: ten, nine, eight, seven, six. And five on your other hand makes 11. Sheesh. Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit at April 10, 2014 06:55 PM (0HooB) Aye.... but a Scottish Mathematician is a Scot who can count to 21 without liftin his Kilt....

Posted by: Romeo13 at April 10, 2014 03:14 PM (84gbM)

430 And bringing in some gal from OMB, who knows dick about the health care industry. But, it will be War on Wimminz to point out that she's completely unqualified for the job, because vagina. Posted by: Insomniac at April 10, 2014 07:04 PM (NtHdR) And the BLM had to hire cowboys from UT to steal cattle beacause not a damn person in the whole of BLM knows shit about animals.

Posted by: RWC at April 10, 2014 03:14 PM (QeH9j)

431 Ace, your Kaboom post was The. Best. Ever. I laughed until I cried. I look forward to the day you can top it but in the meantime thanks for the link and letting me laugh uncontrollably with tears streaming once again. Some things are funny, your Kaboom post redefined FUNNY! Thanks again.

Posted by: Alf767 at April 10, 2014 03:16 PM (H24g2)

432 differential equations my only thought was: "Excuse me, but what the fuck are you talking about?"

There are rote methods to DiffEq.  Partial DiffEq kind of wings it.  The prof I mentioned would start from nothing, fill a blackboard and a half, say Ooops, erase it and start over.  This did not fit in with the Moron Lifestyle.  These days I'm lucky to do basic math.

Posted by: DaveA[/i][/b][/s] at April 10, 2014 03:19 PM (DL2i+)

433 Every bad "Common Core" example I've seen comes from the NY curriculum, they are just using the CC change as cover to implement more progressive NY math nonsense. Private schools in NY are no escape, they all have to teach the NY State math because the Regents are written that way, and that is the measuring stick they all use

Posted by: Captain Atom at April 10, 2014 03:24 PM (yxXcN)

434 Every single day we are reminded how poorly government does things it shouldn't be doing. We know that even the things government should be doing it generally does inefficiently and almost always, poorly. Yet the answer seems always to be: More government. That is such a huge disconnect and the irrationality of it is so astonishing that one has to wonder what in the hell just happened? Constantly. It isn't only the politicians either. If it were the answer would be easy. But for a minimum of at least half of voters that alos seems to be not only the best, but the only answer. There is no bright future in this. Barring some new miracle technology that makes it possible for stupid people to predominate and do nothing of value with their lives, the country that we believed at one time would be great forever, will not be anything even resembling great. And if the stupid and the lazy and the unproductive become the predominant class (we're not far from it now), what point will anyone else have to excel at anything? And then what will this society look like? Virtually everything that is happening today in this society is a crime against the dream that was once this country.

Posted by: LoneStarHeeb at April 10, 2014 03:25 PM (BZAd3)

435 Well I think we know who is going to be sucking Jeb bush's cock when the 2016 presidential primaries begin.

Posted by: Buzzion at April 10, 2014 03:26 PM (wfmui)

436 No need. All they need now for appointees is 51, and I'm quite certain this will not be a hill to die on.
Posted by: Turtle McConnell

It's a ????

Posted by: McSquidHead[/i][/b][/s] at April 10, 2014 03:31 PM (DL2i+)

437 If you really want to help your kids get through algebra in the easiest way possible teach them the squares and cubes of 1-25. When they can automatically recognize the powers the problems become simple. No math teacher, even at the college level will tell your kid that.

Posted by: Harland at April 10, 2014 03:32 PM (OPKdd)

438 Back in my day, we had to stand in a row at the front of the classroom while the teacher held up flash cards. If you got it right you returned to your seat, if wrong you stayed up front for another go around. It was no fun being the last one standing, that made for some less than gentle ribbing on the playground.

Posted by: bitter nostalgia at April 10, 2014 03:34 PM (3MNCs)

439 Posted by: bitter nostalgia at April 10, 2014 07:34 PM (3MNCs) Performance based activities are racis and make the studunce fel bod abut theirselves!

Posted by: Hrothgar at April 10, 2014 03:35 PM (o3MSL)

440 Thank you, Ace. This math dummassitude is exactly the same conceptual mistake they made to screw up kids learning to read. There are basic steps that you learn. THEN you figure out the fancy shortcuts, if you feel like it. Yup. They think they are smarter than 2000 years of human history.

Posted by: Emily at April 10, 2014 03:51 PM (7Rn+/)

441 too many comments to peruse so I'm probably re-stating. CC is SO much scarier than originally thought. It's not just a poor method of teaching, it's a comprehensive database of every child's detail, right down to their posture response when stressed. Following a child from Pre-K through college. It will track and guide your child into the proper field so as to fully assist with society as a whole. one site I found to be helpful with CC info: https://www.facebook.com/NorthvilleMIParentsforEducationalExcellence

Posted by: Ruth at April 10, 2014 03:57 PM (XDMAg)

442 @430 Buzzion "Well I think we know who is going to be sucking Jeb bush's cock when the 2016 presidential primaries begin." You too? It's ok. I think I will bed him first though.

Posted by: Andrew Sullivan at April 10, 2014 04:15 PM (/h+xv)

443 What's so special about 10+3?
Bitch!!!
:=(

Posted by: 10 + 3 at April 10, 2014 04:19 PM (hn5v5)

444 IIRC it's how they do it in Singapore or one of those places that has world-leading scores in primary-school maths and takes the pedagogy very seriously, so I'm not too worried about it.

Posted by: anonymous irishman at April 10, 2014 04:25 PM (DJgfL)

445 "439 IIRC it's how they do it in Singapore or one of those places that has world-leading scores in primary-school maths and takes the pedagogy very seriously, so I'm not too worried about it." by whose standards? One major problem is the natural competition from district to district is eliminated; an education monopoly has been created and if you understand monopolies you realize the quality of education falls and there's nothing you can do about it. In the past you'd go to your school board if something wasn't working, now you have no recourse.

Posted by: Ruth at April 10, 2014 04:31 PM (XDMAg)

446 "the algebra level, 8th grade at the earliest"

My 8th grade daughter is in geometry. She's getting an "A" too. I was teaching her algebra at home when she was in 3rd grade. It seems to have paid off! </brag>


Posted by: Chris M at April 10, 2014 04:31 PM (4lyMJ)

447 Since Ace possesses the most influential comments section in the land, I'm honored to tell my common core story here. This past year we had a foster child in our home and tried mightily to help her catch up on what amounted to a lost year of school because the foster system is awesome. In addition to putting her in a private school we used Florida Virtual School (FLVS) to play catch-up. My wife and I were essentially tutors to help her with the FLVS (which has a common core curriculum) side of things. My wife, who has an MSW, helped her with English and biology, and I, a West Point grad and JD and general history buff, walked her through American history. I read the lessons alongside our foster child and took the same tests that she did. And I failed them, badly, until I cracked the code. Question after question about which I knew that I'd been educated well at West Point I would get the answers wrong. Questions about which I had personal knowledge since I'd been a personal witness to some of the history being taught I would get the answers wrong. Before I tell you the secret to passing common core American history (I went from an F to an A after I figured out what the course wanted from me), I have to relate one test question that I'm pretty sure I remember the answer to nearly verbatim, that is only one example of the "come on here, really?" response one who hopes that school is not indoctrination would have. The question was why the Reagan administration supported the Contras in Nicaragua. It was multiple choice and there was no selection for containment theory, extension of the Monroe Doctrine, general national policy opposing dictatorships or communism, or anything else that made any sense. There were three nonsensical answer choices, and then this, the "correct" answer: "Ronald Reagan wanted to overthrow a democratically elected government". Nuance. President Reagan woke up one day and had a hankering for smacking down democracy somewhere, anywhere. Got it. With that example out of the way (I really didn't make that up), what got me from an F to an A when I took the tests side-by-side with my foster child was to read each question and then ask myself first, "which answer makes me the most stupid?" and if that didn't make the "correct" answer obvious I would then ask myself "what would Karl Marx say?" which would always lead me to the "correct" answer. I'm almost sorry for invoking Marx, but that's the truth of how I got my proxy high school American history grade from an F to an A. Beside the quite obvious indoctrination, the history curriculum seems designed to confuse and, frankly, to make one stupid and uncertain. I'm glad you're on this, Ace. Thank you.

Posted by: ArrMatey at April 10, 2014 04:31 PM (3NOVJ)

448 Also, who is writing our curriculum? The couple of teachers who were on the committee quit after seeing what CC was becoming. NO teachers helped write the CC standards.

Posted by: Ruth at April 10, 2014 04:32 PM (XDMAg)

449 Hey ace... are you going to cover Hank Aaron comparing repubs that oppose Bambi to the KKK?

He's probably just repeating what he heard on ESPN.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 10, 2014 04:34 PM (I8YZX)

450 What ArrMatey said!! (& so much more!!!!)

Posted by: Ruth at April 10, 2014 04:35 PM (XDMAg)

451 @445. Thank you, Ruth.

Posted by: ArrMatey at April 10, 2014 04:41 PM (3NOVJ)

452 And the BLM had to hire cowboys from UT to steal cattle beacause not a damn person in the whole of BLM knows shit about animals. Posted by: RWC at April 10, 2014 07:14 PM (QeH9j) The BLM hires the cowboys that can't get jobs on ranches. Considering that good cowboys/stockman are becoming harder to find, including losing them to the oil industry in the western states, being available to the BLM means you are absolutely bottom of the barrel. The BLM created a huge protest/firestorm the past two years when in it's infinite wisdom, it decided that the Pryor Mountain Range Mustangs had too high of numbers and needed to be rounded up and sent to the BLM mustang holding pens-basically a hideous outdoor warehouse where masses of wild mustangs are held sometimes for years until they are shipped to Canada for slaughter(oh, the Feds will say they don't do that, but those of us in the horse industry know better). The Pryor Mustangs were unique in that they were a closed herd with little outside influence and generations were available for study, etc. NPR did a documentary about the herd stallion, Cloud. The BLM and their professional losers used helicopters, four wheelers, etc. to run bands of mustangs miles in a panic, including one and two day old foals trying to follow their mothers. Some were trampled to death, others fell or were crippled when they reached the pens. Most of the professional horse people who were observing the BLM's reported back at the obvious lack of any horse experience that most of the "cowboys" had . The following link describes what the BLM is currently engaged in doing. I personally know people who have adopted younger mustangs out of the BLM holding pens and what this group is saying is not hyperbole, nor liberal greenies-save the snail- stuff. http://tinyurl.com/kn5oows

Posted by: Jen at April 10, 2014 04:41 PM (Mt+Yq)

453 I'll tell you what's wrong with this method. Ace, you nailed it, but here's a perspective from a former math major. Math dudes don't add and subtract like normal people. We see patterns and groups and work from there. In some ways, it's a sloppy way of calculating, but it usually works -- for us, at least. Add 8 + 9 + 4 + 7. A normal person says, well, that's 17 plus 4, is 21, plus 7, is 28. A math major says, well, there's an 8 and a 9 and a 7. Those average out to 8, times 3, is 24, plus 4 is 28. It's insane, but it works if you're a math kind of guy. I haven't done math in over 30 years, but I still do it that way.

Posted by: Attila (Pillage Idiot) at April 10, 2014 04:43 PM (PQt9W)

454 Sorry, Ace, you got it wrong. According to the picture at the link, the "Common Core" compliant curriculum would have you do the problem this way. 13 - 7 = ? (Fill in the boxes to show a block of 10 with three boxes in another block to count up to 13 boxes, OK?) 13 - 3 = 10 (Here, you want to get to 10, a "friendly" number, see it smiling at you? Cross out the three boxes in that other block to get to the block of 10 left over) 7 - 3 = 4 (You used 3 out of the 7 to get down to 10, remember? You can start at the three you already crossed out and then cross out boxes in the block until you get to 7 boxes total marked out) 10 - 4 = 6 (So start with your 10 and mark out what was left of the 7 and viola! You now have 6 boxes that are left not crossed out.) So, 13 - 3 = 10 - 4 = 6 (Because you always knew that 13 - 3 - 4 was 6, and that was the same as 13 - 7 = 6, right? In first grade, that is. Right?) And that's how you "make a ten to solve 13 - 7". As I understand it, Common Core is "basically standards" required to access more educational funding, and the curriculum chosen by any district adopting Common Core in order to get more money must be Common Core "compliant" and only certain companies had access to the information so they could mark their textbooks with the required notations saying what standard each question addressed, so although technically Common Core isn't supposed to "force" a curriculum, it does. So, kiddies, can you show me how to make a box to show "Common Core" = "curriculum" = "every choice is wrong (except the one we're going to insist on)" = "groupthink"?

Posted by: Watcher at April 10, 2014 04:56 PM (Mu1Tl)

455 There's a book called Calculus Made Easy, by Silvanus Thompson. Math professors hate it.  Students love it.  It teaches calculus using the idea of the infinitessimal -- the smallest (theoretical) quantity. 

Infinitessimals are a bit conceptual, but once you get your mind around the concept, it's not that difficult.  It's x+delta.  It's The Interval That Can't Get Any Smaller.  It's one iota bigger (or smaller) than whatever number you are starting with. 

It can't exist, really, but as an idea, it's manageable.

When you're comparing two quantities (let's say x and y) that change with each other, because one number depends on the other in some complex way, then you can ask: What if I increase x by a smidge?  What happens to y? 

How big of a smidge?  Well, small.  No, smaller.  Let's just see what happens when you change x by SMALLEST FUCKING AMOUNT YOU CAN IMAGINE, ok? 

That's it.  That's all calculus is.  It's algebra, but incorporates the infinitessimal quantity as one of the operative elements. 

That's how calculus was invented.  But then, some egghead fucksticks came along later and decided that the Infinitessimal was not a solid basis to build a whole branch of math on, so they came up with the idea of the Limit, which is 10x harder to understand, and is the point in math education where everyone founders. 

Posted by: Phinn at April 10, 2014 05:22 PM (i5GO4)

456 "Ronald Reagan wanted to overthrow a democratically elected government". Nuance.


It's sort of insanely fucking creepy when you see Soviet-grade indoctrination going out in the open like that, huh?

Posted by: Phinn at April 10, 2014 05:25 PM (i5GO4)

457 Congrats on being 30, Ace. I'm sure there are many in the military who will love a 25 year old mocking what a 25 year old did (a 25 year old with no other accomplishments than running a blog), and who was a smartass 18/19 year old kinda making fun of the post-9/11 thing, like right after the tragedy. I think it is something they will get fully behind.

Posted by: Don't Tread on Me at April 10, 2014 05:34 PM (iv9m1)

458 The sole purpose of Common Core is to be another postponement of the final reckoning, another phony "reform" that has no chance of working on a large scale.  It will take a few years to prove it isn't working, as with No Child Left Behind before it, and by then the educrat establishment will have come up with another bogus "reform" plan to buy a few more years.

Get government out of public schools, now.  If taxpayers must fund education, let it be done through vouchers ONLY. 

Posted by: Adjoran at April 10, 2014 05:43 PM (QIQ6j)

459 "... a 25 year old with no other accomplishments than running a blog ..." Well, using only recent memory, there is the small issue of exposing one Anthony Weiner, or rather, revealing that Little Anthony was exposed, or e-mailed, or something ... thus eventually forcing the MSM to deal with the story, and torpedoing one of the more obnoxious (and least performing!) legislators ... what legislation DID Tony W ever propose? ... ... and then there's standing up to the nefarious litigating (and swatting) "King of Burgers", a 60-year-old loser and ex-con ...

Posted by: Arbalest at April 10, 2014 05:46 PM (FlRtG)

460 This thread is deader than a doornail, but I'd like to get in the last word and reminisce a little: When I was a kid lo these many centuries ago, I was subjected to what was perhaps the absolute worst phase in experimental "New Math" teaching in modern history. You think this Common Core stuff is bad? Well, you're right, but you haven't seen bad until you saw how I "learned" math. To wit: Some genius educator thought that "Base 10" (i.e. our counting system) was the main problem screwing up us kids, and that if we ever plan to free ourselves from oppression and the patriarchy etc., we have to start at the fundamentals and strip away the unnecessary and (when you get right down to it) irrational way we notate numbers. So, starting in kindergarten -- yes, kindergarten -- before we even learned the basics of arithmetic, before we knew what addition and subtraction were, before most of us could count, we had the few things we thought we knew ripped away and we were informed: Listen, children: The way you count now is called Base 10. But Base 10 is no better than any other base. So stop thinking in terms of "tens." Here, try "Base 7" for a while. In Base 7, you count like this: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20...etc. In Base 7, "10" is equal to what we now call "7." In Base 7, therefore, "12" represents what? That's right, it's actually what you used to call "9." What is 5 + 23 in Base 7? Well, yes, it would be 31 in Base 7, but what is that in Base 10? Why, it's 3 x 7 +1 = 22! So remember that: 5 + 23 = 31 = 22. And now, let us move on to Base 5. This went on for AN ENTIRE YEAR. At the end of that year, every single kid in the school was either certifiably insane, or had a morbid fear of numbers. But it didn't stop there. Because in first grade, they again felt that the "old ways" were evil and bad, so instead of teaching us stuff like "plus" and "minus" and "times" and "divided by," we instead were supposed to learn about "greater than" and "not included in" and "equal or less than" etc. Needless to say, this elicited more total confusion in us poor kids. And every year, another lunatic educational experiment. By the time we reached fourth grade, all math was a whirlwind of incomprehensible symbols and counting systems. Nothing made any sense, and we still didn't know the basics. And I suffer because of this, even to this day. Math was ruined for me and everyone of my generation in my school system. I am still confused and overwhelmed by math, because I was traumatized by "progressive" educators who were experimenting on us kids, with no real idea of what they were doing. I fear the Common Core is going to produce the same result -- but NATIONWIDE, on EVERY KID IN AMERICA, for YEARS -- not just in one hippie-dippie school district for a few years. If Common Core takes hold, we as a nation may very well be doomed.

Posted by: zombie at April 10, 2014 11:15 PM (mizYg)

461 They've got the shortcut wrong. If you want to simplify 13-7 you don't break up the 13 but break up the 7. That is, 13-7 becomes 13 - (3+4), so that you can first subtract the 3 from the 13 which is easily recognized to equal 10, from which you still have to subtract the 4. Who would do it the 10-7 way? Nobody. So in this way it is like "whole word" too. Advanced readers don't actually do "whole word." They just very quickly process the phonetics of letters and letter combinations they are already familiar with. Similarly, people who are familiar with numbers don't shortcut their calculations in the way these stupid educrats think either. Not only are they idiotically coaching struggling novices to use advanced instead of novice methods but the supposedly advanced methods that they are trying to get novice students to use are not the methods that actual advanced practitioners use.

Posted by: Alec Rawls at April 10, 2014 11:16 PM (kTTUz)

462 >>Here's the problem with this, and I've said this before, so I won't belabor it. You belabored it.

Posted by: Twang at April 11, 2014 01:33 AM (2+bRt)

463 Not like anyone's reading this thread now, but just in case...everyone, and I mean everyone is missing the point of all this... This system is entirely created for just one purpose...to demoralize an entire generation for, perhaps, the final nail in Americas coffin. Ace, do you really think liberals controlling our education are not aware of the insights you just made? Of course they are...but, that is not their goal so those points simply don't matter. Demoralization is the sinister goal behind this new method and it's downright evil.

Posted by: Alinsky at April 11, 2014 05:13 AM (bCjun)

464 @mrmoomoo Private schools can be equally math challenged, unfortunately. We sent daughter to private school. They were using something very similar to this method then (12 years ago) in the lower school. At the time, there was a small controversy here in NYC because the public schools were also using this method and the head of NYU's math department wrote a letter to the NY Times saying that the program was content-poor and that kids who were taught with it would not grow up to be doctors, scientists or mathematicians. I also found that the program had been tried and scrapped in California because it didn't work. We took daughter out and put her in a different school. It amazes me that people are still trying to shove this idiocy down our throats.

Posted by: Mrs. X at April 11, 2014 07:08 AM (ZZPs4)

465

" I don't want to walk 5 miles, but I know exactly how to do it. As a conceptual matter, it's as easy as putting one foot in front of the other. It'll take hours and hours, "

---------

Good Lord, Ace, how slow do you walk???

Posted by: Lea at April 11, 2014 07:27 AM (lIU4e)

466

Polish Graffiti: 2+2=4   The communists never figured it out.  Translation - there are some thing Fearless leader can not can.  I guess that leave Obama out.  Something an Executive order can not change!

 

Posted by: burt at April 11, 2014 09:43 AM (1+kJ5)

467 This is the problem w. common core math: it doesn't test knowledge of the subject, but rather it tests if kids know jargon associated with one particular learning style related to the subject. To see why this is stupid, think about a biology test in which kids are questioned about taxonomy. The test should have questions like "Which is a broader category, phylum or genus?". But what if instead the testers asked, "What did King Phillip Come Over For?" a) wonderful breakfast b)magificent lunch c) outstanding brunch d) great supper" Kids would only be taught jargon associated with 1 particular mnemonic that might not be helpful to them, instead of being tested on the actual subject itself.

Posted by: Bob at April 11, 2014 12:35 PM (xkSSa)

468 Good post. Just want to add one thing. Even those of us who routinely solve basic arithmetic problems in our heads by using these types of shortcuts (and for the record, Alec Rawls, 456, is right on the money when he says that breaking up the seven instead of the 13 is the way to go in that example), I think it is still vitally important to know every addition and subtraction combination from 1 through 20.

Everyone needs to know that 13-7 is 6 without even thinking about it, because that means that they can easily solve 23-6 or 63-6 or 123-6. In all of those examples, we know that the final number of the solution will be a 7 because we know without thinking that 13-6 is 7. Then, it's just a matter of taking 10 off so that we get the correct answer.

It is not that hard to memorize a few hundred basic addition and subtraction combinations that we will use basically every day for the rest of our lives. I'm curious to know how they're trying to "fix" basic multiplication and division (I feel just as strongly that people should memorize the multiplication tables up to 100 and consequently know the whole number answers to something like 72/8 or 99/9 or 32/8 or whatever). I'm sure they've come up with something just as asinine.

Posted by: John at April 11, 2014 01:24 PM (Ik4jv)

469 Whoops, I inadvertently changed the 13-7 example to 13-6. At any rate, my point is unchanged. Knowing that 13-7 is 6 makes it easy to know that 23-7 is 16 or that 63-7 is 56 or that 123-7 is 116.

Posted by: John at April 11, 2014 01:27 PM (Ik4jv)

470 You're right that this is an incredibly stupid way to do math, but it's got NOTHING to do with Common Core. It's just the same dumb shit school curriculum administrators have been pushing for years. If you're a curriculum administrator and you haven't changed your elementary math curriculum in 5 years, people are going to say "What are we doing to improve Math scores?" Doing nothing doesn't justify your $120k salary. So you find new fangled BS to push out to your teachers. I'm in Nebraska, which has opted out of Common Core and Race to the Top. My kid is being taught that same garbage about math. Oppose Common Core all you want. Just do it on its actual merits rather than blaming it for every stupid thing schools do. Because even if you defeat "Common Core", this math 'technique' is still going to be taught in the schools....until someone finds an even more asinine way to add and subtract that school districts will shell out cash for.

Posted by: Josh at April 11, 2014 02:10 PM (9taey)

471 The whole word reading method was originally used to teach deaf children how to read. I have nieces and nephews that could read by age 3 and 4 because their parents taught them phonics. They were able to read with perfect fluency words like extraordinary and exemplary. Yet there are kids that are in high school that will read out loud and say words incorrectly then correct themselves once they realize the word doesn't make sense in context. For example, a student could be reading and see the word thieves but instead read it as there. Once they get to through the sentence they realize it doesn't make sense as the word there, and then they go back and look and figure out it was thieves. This takes a lot more time, and it really slows the reader down. Now, what do you think a student making this kind of "whole word" mistake is going to get on an ACT test for the reading or English sections? Well, not a very good score. As a matter of fact, they probably won't even finish those sections. It's a damn shame to see kids crippled by trendy fads like this, and this dismissal of memorization as somehow inferior or lower level learning skill to be avoided at all costs is really horrible, too. If a kid hasn't memorized their times tables and adding and subtracting, they are also going to make little mistakes in their work and it also will slow them down when it comes to test taking time. I've seen high school kids counting on their fingers. It's a sad, sad thing to see. If aint broke don't fix it, and furthermore, if something once worked, then go back and do things the way they were done before. It seems simple to me. Classical pedagogy needs to be brought back in a major way.

Posted by: MistressOverdone at April 11, 2014 04:50 PM (2/oBD)

472 From a math major, you get an A+ with this commentary, Ace.

Posted by: OutspokenRed at April 12, 2014 06:47 PM (E3KWh)

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