Herb and Jamaal by Stephen Bentley for May 04, 2015

Common Core math.

That can’t be right. That was the same answer for the second problem, too!

I see that verbatim copying of Facebook memes is OK these days instead of actual inspiration.

The first thing that came to my mind when I heard about “Common Core” math was the song “New Math” by Tom Lehrer.

You are driving a car at 49 miles per hour and your right front tire goes flat 100 miles from Cleveland. Explain why bananas have no antlers.

I teach math at a community college. Often my students try to read the “story problems”, but cannot because they see only their fears — not the words. Also they often do not know HOW to read a word problem — they either “skim it” as they would a newspaper article, or they try to harvest numbers out without getting the meaning. For many of them, at no point do they seek understanding of: 1) what is happening, 2) who is involved, 3) what data is given, 4) what should they already know, 5) what are they supposed to figure out, and 6) what are the relationships.

I am not a smart man (My wife will remind me of that everyday!) I cannot memorize worth beans. But I do possess a curiosity and a love of puzzles. Too often my students want answers handed to them. They have no curiosity beyond what a friend is eating at a local restaurant or who is going out with whom. Sad.

Looks like the kid has accidentally used the word “math” where he meant to use “creationist”.

Math is a language. If you don’t learn the basics of spelling, grammar, and punctuation, it’s all gonna look foreign.