On Math Common Core

Saw some griping about the "Common Core" in education on Facebook.

Rant in progress..... Common Core I HATE YOU and your dumb freakin rules! Thanks to the "brilliant" people who created this ridiculous curriculum my son has no idea what the heck he's doing! I'd love to see them work out these math problems they way our kids have to! Why isn't the way I was taught good anymore? How am I suppose to teach my son how to do word problems when they want the solutions to look so backwards! Example of math homework:

Since I do not know this gentleman I am not going to respond to him and all his friends.

Yes, this "new way" is ridiculous.

Oh here is one gentleman explaining just what this "new" way is doing:

The new way is demonstrating how to add from 12 to 32 by easily understandable smaller steps which are either to next 5s or 10s and lastly to the destination number. Then the added numbers are finally added to get the answer. The way makes sense, isn't it? At least it shows how to get from 12 to 32 by smaller steps

Look folks, math is timeless. There is no "new" or "old" way to do any problem. The goal is to solve the problem, and get the answer.

To the gentleman who tries to explain the "new way", thank you. But these aren't "easily understanding smaller steps". Line up the digits, subtract: 3 - 1 = 2. What smaller steps do you need? And if I ask you to subtract 1000 - 10 are you going to add up your intermediate "easily understandable smaller steps" of 5's and 10's?

In math, we prefer quick method when possible, and the "old fashioned" way is quick.

To the parent: If I were you I'll go challenge the teacher to give me some merit of the "new way". Otherwise the student should just use whatever ways to get the answer. The student should be able to remain using the "old fashioned" way. If the teacher do not agree I'll go to challenge the principal.

To the student: I would pull out the good old number line and explain: subtraction means how many steps you need to jump from 32 to reach 12. You can jump one long jump of 20, or jump little jumps like the "new way" is doing. The idea is to find out how many jumps was needed. Nothing beats the number line in explaining addition/subtraction.