Let us have some fun at the expense of the K to 12 educationalists and educational consultants with art degrees. As Tara Houle, stated in the comment section,  “I’m the worst kind: an informed, educated parent who’s not afraid to question the status quo when it’s not working.”

She responded to another comment by an educator that would described the prevalent attitude within the K to 12 education establishment across Canada.

“bahahahah you don’t even know the meaning of the word curriculum, you equate it with a text book or a single teaching strategy. So what do you know about Math instruction? You have a university degree in it? Who are you? You present yourself as an authority on the subject, and then cite one study, however I can give you a list of thousands of students who have all completed g12 math and another list of award winning Science /Math students who are graduates of my HS. Again, blame those teachers. However, you are wrong, we are producing some of the most prepared and competent students ever actually, Go do some reading as to how the BC students compare to other students in Math and LA. We are consistently in the top 5 or 6 in the world, not Canada, THE WORLD. Tutoring for a grade 2 student? You’re an expert, surely you can do what most parents do, and teach grade the grade 2 curriculum thereby supporting your child’s learning at home, What is the most difficult concept to teach there, regrouping? LMAO…........”

It is quite common and happens daily in our schools when school administrators will mock parents, question their intelligence, abilities and skills and dismissed the concerns of parents as being poppycock. I direct you to the last two sentences, and I went into a laughing fit, in fear of crying out a river of tears. So very sad, that the educationalists and consultants with education degrees have made such a mess in teaching basic arithmetic concepts. One of my biggest beef with the fuzzy math curriculum, has always been changing the terms of arithmetic to terms that are more in keeping with the discovery learning ideologies. Regrouping is one of the new terms.

I often had to go on the web, to find out what the new terms mean, because I often could not make sense of what I found in the awful math textbook. Only to discovered the new name and method is to have students and the public stopped using standard algorithms. One of my math sites I often used, was Cool Math - “Adding Two Digit Numbers with
Regrouping (Carrying)
  Learning how to regroup when adding two digit numbers (page 1 of 3)”  http://www.coolmath4kids.com/addition/05-addition-lesson-two-digit-numbers-01.html

Note the stacking of the numbers - the standard algorithm. Cool Math and other web math sites like Khan Academy - https://www.khanacademy.org/math/arithmetic/addition-subtraction/sub_borrowing/v/basic-regrouping-or-borrowing-when-subtracting-three-digit-numbers  - Will always have the new term and in brackets - the older terms associated with standard algorithms - for regrouping it would be carrying and borrowing.

How do the K to 12 educationalists make such a mess with the math curriculum on what should be relatively easy concepts for students to grasp using standard algorithms?  Well, just take a look at this math consultant with degrees in education, including a PHD.

“Regrouping is one of the hardest concepts for students to understand.  They struggle with it when it is introduced and often times even when they gain procedural fluency, they never get the conceptual understanding.  We have to give students many opportunities to see it in context.  Here are a few ideas.  I like to start out by acting out scenarios where the students get to make meaning of what it means to regroup.  Here is one I have been using lately.”
http://guidedmath.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/regrouping-making-math-make-sense-part-1/

No wonder by grade 5, the kids don’t have any sense of place value. They are still counting on their fingers to understand the elegant strategies and solutions of great complexity in the fuzzy math reform of the educators with education degrees.

I could used this profanity as the allege educator did in his comment - LMAO - Somehow seem so fitting, when informed educated parents take the the K to 12 education establishment to task. And more so in the math curriculum and instructional methods that really defies logic and common sense. but it is really serious because well over 50 % of the student population are coming out of grade 12, having low skills and abilities in numeracy.

What an excellent article.  The writer nailed everything down so well.  She also mentioned that these teachers who are writing texts and curricula are completely unqualified.  Taxpayers need to know that curricula and texts that they are handsomely paying for are very often written by educrats with absolutely no qualifications in the subject area.  It is unbelievable how unscurpulous these educators are.  All of this needs to be exposed, and the public needs to begin pushing back enforce.

The good news is that some B. C. schools are adopting ‘Jump Math’. 

Math Is The RED FLAG We Need To Wrestle With — Part 1

If government can screw up Math so badly — a subject that should be relatively tamper proof — what else are they screwing up? Let’s not consider Social Studies or Reading or Science for now — Math is scary enough.

It’s been determined that curriculum responsibility rests with the applicable Ministry — NOT the teacher union, NOT the text book publishers, NOT the itinerant consultants pushing their agendas.  That is why the Petitions now circulating for improved Math are directed, appropriately, straight at the Minister of Education in charge.

Pushback is directed to where it might work, that is, if you still believe in government schools doing the education job.  We’re told that parents are leaving for independent schools or home education.

Even students are asking: “Why should I go to school if they don’t teach?”

One parent comment I read on this issue said her child is taught Math at home but is sent to school for “socialization.”  Well, dear parent, this may be your biggest mistake. I say that because that is what has happened — incrementally over time. THE MISSION of the public schools seems to have become “socialization”.  Socialization in all three meanings of the term:  1) to place under government control; 2) to make sociable; and 3) to convert to the needs of society.

Right now this is part of the BIG CONTROVERSY in America against the Common Core Curriculum that aims to put all students in public schools under the control of the central federal government. And this nervousness is starting to emerge in Canada because of the “transformations” being imposed under terms as “personalized learning” or 21st Century skills.

Math Is The RED FLAG We Need To Wrestle With — Part 2

This is about a BIG SHIFT — away from knowledge to competencies.
.
Knowledge and skills can be measured and Ministries are being convinced to move away from these accountability means.  As a replacement, they are buying into competencies such as problem solving and collaboration and creativity.  And that’s where “discovery” Math comes in.  Part of the Big Shift.

This is not proven good pedagogy.  But, it is a good umbrella for ideological agendas as social justice, social responsibility, global stewardship.  In our BC curriculum one of the Resources (“Making Space” pg24) says:

• Ensure that diverse examples are included when conducting number operations and statistics activities (e.g., representing diverse cultures, family structures, socioeconomic levels, etc.)

• . . . students can look at numbers that reflect inequalities of income or resource distribution . . . to speculate about possible reasons for some of the disparities identified

NOTE: This is for MATH in Kindergarten to Grade 3, ages 6 - 9 !

Part of the Big Shift is that “over-arching themes” are to be embedded, across the curriculum, into all subjects.  Sustainability and global citizenship are two such themes.  Social justice and diversity are two more.

In Australia, for 6 years a New National Curriculum was being developed under the Labor government.  The New Curriculum became a contentious issue in the latest Federal election and the new conservative government has just announced a Review.  A Report is due in 6 months time and its task is to determine what parents and public want from their schools as well as nail down whether there was a left worldview shift stemming from curriculum changes.  These three overarching themes were to be embedded into all subjects — Aboriginal culture, sustainability and global citizenship. 

Now, my conclusion about a BC Math Petition. We were told before our Election in May 2013 that “regardless of who wins” the election, the new BC Ed Plan curriculum goes ahead, because “It’s international!”  Now, isn’t that so very different from Australia?  There the government runs public education.  Here in BC, and probably Ontario*, there’s some international mandate at play (?)

Good Luck with a desired result to your petition.

[*Is it a coincidence that a day after Al Gore came to Toronto Nov 21, 2013, Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario, announced: “We need to find space to focus on higher-order skills like creativity, collaboration, community and critical thinking . . .  Quite frankly, I know that many of you have been pushing for this for some time and fostering this learning in your own schools and boards.” ? Not saying that Gore is an outrider for the socialist Fabians but he has a connection.  The Deputy Gen Secretary of UK Fabians worked on Gore’s presidential campaign.  Fabian Motto — Educate, Agitate, Organize. ]

My question:  how can the BC Ed plan curricula be called ‘international’.  Is is something like the ISO’s (an industrial fad that is losing ground)?  It makes no sense, as Asia and Europe are generally way ahead of North America academically.  Does the BC Ministry of Education have a website explaining this ‘international certification’.  I suspect it’s simply another way to not answer to parents and taxpayers’ concerns about how their money is being spent, and how well their children aren’t doing.

International - another term for global education under the heading of 21st century learning.

A 1991 article entitle Global education for the 21st century -
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCkQFjAA&url=http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_199104_ramler.pdf&ei=rk3kUt6OAoiF2QWm1oHADg&usg=AFQjCNHTfBp_Nr-Z31CqliftYSDcg_rfhw&sig2=XpOQGVgXi3iGdSivs7bJAQ&bvm=bv.59930103,d.aWM

Since than, it was just gotten a little bit more twisted and strange as the years have rolled by.  From Cisco - Transforming Education Globally - http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/education/global_education/index.html

And a yearly conference called - Global Education Conference - http://www.globaleducationconference.com/page/2013-advisory
Has all the buzz words of Global Education and 21st century education. “The Global Education Conference is a collaborative, inclusive, world-wide community initiative involving students, educators, and organizations at all levels. It is designed to significantly increase opportunities for connecting classrooms while supporting cultural awareness and recognition of diversity and educational access for all. Last year’s conference featured 300 general sessions and 20 keynote addresses from all over the world with over 13,000 participant logins. Click here for more information.  http://www.globaleducationconference.com/

The aim from what I have read, is to have students across the globe learning the same curriculum, so every student will be on the same page, thinking the same ideologies to solved and learn about the problems of the world. Who cares if the local community is literally falling apart, or at any minute a bomb is about to pay a visit or a drive-by shooting. It is far more important to learn and think in global terms. The outcome would be, the kids will shrugged their shoulders about local conditions because there is always another part of the world that is far worse off.

The other week, I was in the UK pages where Math Makes Sense has now landed in the British classrooms. And they expect children to achieved in England?? Good luck on that one….....all part of the global education forces to which curriculum is playing a starring role for the 21st century educationalists.

I really appreciate Tunya’s comments on this issue.  She is spot on regarding the shift in education towards competencies and away from knowledge.  The latter is what an educated, informed citizenry needs to keep governmental tyranny of all sorts at bay.  A population raised on competencies is qualified to assume its place, probably in a centrally-planned economy.

As Tunya argues, there is a lot more at stake here than the botched up teaching of math.  It is an ideological collision between the individual versus the collective, between freedom of thought and speech versus state-approved political correctness.

A state monopoly on education leads to state-defined education, regardless of the number of petitions collected by concerned parents.  Remove the monopoly, and expose the various competing schools to the free and open marketplace of ideas. 

The 3Rs Meet The 4Cs

It’s a dead giveaway.  If you hear someone rhyme off the 4Cs without skipping a beat, you know you’ve got someone programmed to push “international “21st Century Learning.

Kathleen Wynne, Premier, ex-Ed Minister,  got it right — “creativity, collaboration, community and critical thinking.”  Usually, though it’s “communications” for her “community”, but anyway, you get the picture.

Look for concepts thrown around like “deep thinking”, “going deeper”  — remind you of Transcendental Meditation maybe?  NO, it’s the new “transformation”.  BTW, “transform” and “transformation” are frequently used words. 

Not “evolve’  mind you, where things happen by degrees and with considerable involvement and understanding.  “Transformation”, on the other hand is imposed and deliberately directed by “leaders” and guided through common documents, and really rather sneakily.  “Shady”, says Stotsky who was once on the CC Panel who broke away from sworn secrecy to raise an alarm. She’s not the only one from that group.

Please, just give Google a try.  Use these words — 4cs 21st Century Learning — and you’ll soon be on the track — the international trail.

Two key books on the topic of Common Core and international agendas are:

“Credentialed to Destroy – How and Why Education Became a Weapon” by Eubanks (see the reviews on Amazon.com but order from ca) and “The Story-Killers: A Common-Sense Case Against the Common Core”. 

Spend an hour to hear Dr. Moore about the curriculum expected if Common Core is adopted in the US — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2npftyFvkWo&feature=youtu.be&t=5m49s

[If you don’t understand parts of what Moore is referring to, please ask.]