Middle school is much harder than the 1950s

 
I picked this title up at Barnes & Noble a few days ago.  I made it to page 4.  Middle school is a lot harder than I remember.

Learning math

I’m only on page 13 of my new math book, “Math on Call,” and the reason it is going slowly is that it isn’t review, it’s new concepts, and although older people can learn new things, it takes longer.  Here’s a new one on me.  Using, or not using, the word and.

“When you read a number, do NOT say AND in any old place.  If you do, you’ll have trouble when you need to read the decimal point as “and.” Sometimes pretty funny misunderstandings can happen. 

Two hundred and twenty-five thousandths is 200.025

Two hundred twenty-five thousandths is 0.225

[Cartoon of an elephant and a hamster on a teeter-totter]

If I keep going I might be able to do Common Core Math!

Now I can review my math

This week someone posted on Facebook about reviewing insanely simple 9th grade math problems and I mentioned I'd been looking for something for review, but couldn't go higher than 5th grade because the material was too difficult.

Yesterday at Volunteers of America for 90 cents I found the neatest book, "Math on Call," Houghton Mifflin, 2004. It's attractive, nicely arranged, color coded with clear explanations that are somewhat below my reading level, even if the math isn't. So I went online to check out the grade level and found it is "sixth to eighth." It includes number theory, computation (which is about all I can do), algebra, graphs and statistics, geometry, ratio/proportion/percent, probability and odds, then study tips, test taking tips, tables, patterns (like Fibonacci) and systems (Roman numerals, Mayan, etc.) This is a terrific "review," and if elementary kids are doing this, God bless'em.   Also, the used ones I saw on-line were about $40--I may be bad at math, but that's more than 90 cents.

Common Core Math and me

Math has always been my weak point. But I've noticed something reading some of these Common Core math problems that people ridicule. They do represent how I do some math problems, and believe me, that just isn't going to work.

Kitchen conversions—we learned in elementary school

Math refresher.

I don’t see any kitchen conversions in this Basic Match Refresher, but it does look useful without all the kiddy stuff you see on some math sites.

Confused, bothered and befuddled — Everyday Math

Since I don't have grandchildren, I'm not really up on what children are learning in school these days. The closest I came to any gossip was several years ago when my husband complained about an elementary science/math class in which he volunteered on the Hilltop (low income). Even the teacher couldn't figure out the problems and asked him for help. It was his last year to volunteer--it was like watch child cruelty. Then a few weeks ago I was in the middle of a discussion (I was just listening) of a mom, a teen-ager, and a software writer who were discussing something called "spiraling" and "Chicago Math" aka "Everyday math." The 10th grader was obviously a bright young lady, but she had decided to avoid all routes to what might have been a promising career in science, which she loved, because of the way math was taught. She never could get that "a-ha" feeling of accomplishment and feel comfortable moving to the next concept. She was planning on a career in literature, she told me. So I looked it up--Chicago Math (University of Chicago) or EM, Everyday Math. As one who was never really strong in math, but have found it useful to know the multiplication tables, how to divide, know what a percentage means and calculate my grocery bill as things pass through the clerks hands, I think this sounds absolutely awful. Sort of like those awful story problems in third grade--if a train is going 15 mph, and a donkey runs along side, how long before it gets to Chicago. Sounds like some egg heads have hijacked our math classes so the Japanese, Chinese and Indians can get hired on emergency visas 10 years from now.

Confused, bothered and befuddled — Joanne Jacobs

If you've never heard of EM or Chicago Math, view this YouTube, and you be. . . stunned.