@Cruiser Yeah, I don’t think the original post was very clear. What you wrote originally suggests the complete opposite of your clarification. Specifically, saying “the past system was even worse” seems to imply that you think the previous way of teaching math was bad. But now your clarification seems to imply that you think it is just Common Core that is bad. As I have stated several times on Fluther, I think that Common Core is a terrible approach to education.
@JLeslie I wasn’t making any sort of comparison between teachers and other professions, so your response is entirely irrelevant. It was also about lengthening the school day, so the bit about how many weeks they work is irrelevant as well. But not only is it irrelevant, it’s false. Teachers work over summer break. They take recertification classes, acquaint themselves with new textbooks, attend administrative meetings, and so on. They also do work on holidays (such as grading).
Most of my family members are teachers. I grew up watching how they work and learning their schedules. I’m not saying there weren’t vacation days, and sometimes even vacation weeks. No one ever came to Thanksgiving or Christmas with papers to grade. But the idea that teachers aren’t working when they aren’t physically in school is ludicrous, which is the only way one could arrive at the numbers you have presented.
@fluthernutter Of course it is possible to learn both things concurrently, but that’s not what Common Core does. And some aspects of the theory are beyond the grasp of eight-year-olds (remember, we’re talking about elementary school here; the best high school programs do include theory along with practice, as mine did). If your calculus teacher didn’t explain why you were doing the exercises you were doing, that’s definitely a failure. But I don’t think second graders need to understand number theory.
I don’t teach math, but I do teach writing. I also sometimes teach logic, which bears some striking similarities to math. In both cases, I teach the principles first and pull the curtains back to show the working parts second. Pedagogically, it is far more effective than doing things the other way around: you get them to do something the right way, and then you show them how it makes later steps easier. This also makes it easier for all types of learners to assimilate the theory because the students are then both learning by doing and receiving a verbal explanation.
Indeed, the writing program at my university has been carefully crafted with the input of both professors and educational psychologists specifically to get this effect. Teaching the practice first, then, has nothing to do with teaching kids to follow blindly. It has to do with figuring out the most effective way of getting students to fully assimilate the skills they are being taught (which makes the knowledge more likely to stick with them over time).
@jca That’s because you are in New York, which is one of the better states for teachers. And as @Dutchess_III points out, by your own admission those are work periods and not down time. As for teacher salaries, I haven’t claimed that they are underpaid (especially not in New York). I was simply pointing out that teachers have a good reason for not wanting to extend their work day—especially if it’s to accommodate a disaster like Common Core. (And since you seem to have missed it, I’ll be explicit here: I also think Common Core is terrible. I was not defending it in any way.)
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