Yep, about pretty much anything in life - not just religion. And it manifests itself in so many different crazy-making ways.
I guess I got super lucky. My ex MIL (who I got to keep in the divorce) literally told me 'I know you're sick of people telling you what to do with your baby. If you want my input, ask for it, otherwise I'll keep my 2 cents to myself.' And she stood by it. On an unrelated note, 2 weeks till we move into the new house, and I'm already sick of this moving shit. Relocating a family of 5 sucks balls.
Oh, I was lucky too! Except I didn't get to keep my ex MIL. Both my ex in laws were very chill. But the stories I hear on the regular from other people makes my skin crawl. My husband was complaining the other day about how messed up his family is and he wishes they could just be normal. I told him that I am realizing over the years that "normal" isn't normal at all and what we think of as normal is actually the ideal.
I just want to say math is a little intimidating when you haven't taken it in 19 years. At least as an adult you appreciate it's values (and how NOBODY argues it in class thank you) when as a kid you thought it was torment.
I'm currently in a math class and my 16 year old self would be ashamed at how bad I'm struggling with it right now. I remember doing all this stuff and it was no problem at all, now though it's like I'm the Hulk being told to calm down, just does not compute.
Just the new set of math standards that's being instituted (not sure if it's country wide or what). I think the basic concept behind it seems alright, teach kids at a younger age some underlying math concepts. Some of it just makes simple math overly complicated others make it easier. Unfortunately the whole issue has been co-opted by the fox news type and it's now just another way 'Obama is turning America into socialism'. This is the picture that's been doing the rounds:
You're right. The table is great for introductions, but for a simple problem Christ that's a lot of writing. Right now I'm doing computations for scientific notation, something I don't remember doing, which is also a giant pain-in-the-ass write-up to basically answer the simple question asked in the first place.
To some extent I've been using that second method for years. At the end of the day each kid is going to find a method that works best for them and stick to it no matter what the teacher says.
There is nothing insightful, clever, ameliorating, simplistic, or helpful about that method. It is stupid, obscene, and overtly complicated. Anyone that disagrees with me can get fist fucked. I hate you, I hope you get fucked to death by a whale. I am not exaggerating. Hopefully this is only an example and not required method. Hopefully this is only a very small sample instead of a widespread implementation. Otherwise, we are once again fucking our kids in the butthole. Everyone in this country is fucking stupid. I disagree. Any kid that needs a roundabout way to figure simplistic sums, etc, has been done a disservice by a fucking stupid teacher.
Parents used to ask their kids why their grades are bad. Now they ask the teachers. There's something wrong with that. From weaning away script writing to banning red pens because a big mean ol' red X is too much for Skylar's precious psyche, there is some screwy, lazy shit going on in the education system. And they wonder why private schools now overflow. We need to go back to how it was when I went to school. They couldn't beat you with sticks anymore, but might toss a blackboard eraser at your head for being a moron.
As someone who is better at math than all of you, I agree with black Jesus. That method is fucked. Similarly our math education in general is fucked, and we as a country are largely innumerate. Considering that numeracy is even more important than literacy, it's kind of shocking how ok we are with a "war torn third world country" level of numeracy in this country. But then, what do we expect. Teaching is a humanities degree and getting into teaching from another profession is by and large more trouble than its worth, so the vast majority of math teachers in this country don't themselves know how to do math. Math, more than any other subject, is a skill more than a block of knowledge, and trying to learn that skill from someone that doesn't have it is a task far beyond most children.
I'm looking at the second method, and I have two thoughts. The first of which is, I don't get it. I can kind of see how some of the process works, but I couldn't figure out how to do a problem on my own using that method. The second thought is that anybody who needs to use a method like that likely has a very poor grasp of numbers. It might be a neat trick to get you an answer, but the long and convoluted process you use to get there completely decouples math from numeracy. EDIT: Wait, I think I understand how it works. And now that I do, oh my god, anyone who would teach a kid to use a method like that is doing them a great disservice.
I am by no means a math whiz. It makes zero sense to me. It looks like random association of numbers instead of finite computations. Whoever came up with this should be eaten dick first by a hyena.
The only piece I've read that made any sense of that picture was relating it to counting back change. Stores use computers now that gives the correct response, so it's really not a big deal. I teach all four maths (alg 1/2, geometry, adv math) in High School and the number of students that make it to their freshman/sophomore year still using a calculator for adding two 1 digit numbers is pretty sad. *I use a red pen to grade and haven't had any complaints yet
My kid is in 5th grade and she hasn't been taught anything like that. They do teach it differently than when I was a kid, but the stuff I've seen has been good. Like the concept of breaking it up a number into parts. Say you have 37 - 9. You'd break the 9 into two parts - 7 and 2. Subtract the 7, you get 30, then the 2 and you have 28. That was a very simple example, but you get the idea.
Spoiler for huge ass picture. That explains that method a little bit. Spoiler The P.s. part in that picture is the most important part, and it is something that the majority of Common Core critics don't understand. Beyond that, I'm not a math teacher so I won't weigh in on the specific method. As a high school English teacher, the standards are a good thing. It doesn't matter though as they will all be pulled when state tests scores keep dropping and people who think it is the government trying to water down education as a ploy to steal their students sensitive data or whatever (those are the criticisms coming out of Kansas anyway). I'm curious as to what your ideal math education looks like though. I had Saxon math and Accelerated math and both of those were mediocre at best and total disasters at worst. Can we clone Jaime Escalante? That's my only suggestion. Here is a good vid explaining the standards: <a class="postlink" href="http://vimeo.com/51933492" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://vimeo.com/51933492</a> And really, if you're curious just go to corestandards and look at them yourself.