When I was a child I was placed in a class at the age of eleven that was an experimental class for students who were high achievers. One of the things that operated differently in the class, was how we were taught math. We were taught the same math that you know now as “common core”, however, we were taught in a way that actually made sense, and it was actually a good thing.

The problems with common core. First, common core math has become a moral issue. It’s all in the wording. Teaching a child from a young age that two numbers equal a number that they don’t equal is in fact a grim moral failure. Instead of being asked if 6 plus 8 equals 10. Then informing the child that they are incorrect when they answer no. The teacher lies to the student and makes them question everything that makes sense in their brain, invoking hopelessness in the child. It is nothing other then a lie. Teaching children to lie at such a young age is a tragedy that I am amazed to see it happening in our public school system to such a serious degree. When we were taught common core so many years ago in that experimental class, we were taught, how to make the magic number with the other two numbers, then told what numbers do we need to add to the soup to find the desired number. This approach is truthful, logical, and helpful. If the approach is good, then it can actually be used to get students to think outside the box and use a part of their brains that they otherwise wouldn’t. If the wording that is being used to teach common core was used in a court of law within the USA, it would have no ground to stand on. However, teaching our children, particularly from such a young age, to accept this type of wording, well it sets our future generation up for failure. It destines them for failure from a moral standpoint, because when these same students grow up to be employed as things such as lawyers and judges, they will have already learned to accept false statements as the norm. Anyone who knows anything about the courtroom, knows that everything in the courtroom falls on the weight of the law and its interpretation. I hate to think of the kind of interpretations of the law a judge who was taught from such a young age that lies are truth. It may sound extreme to the parent or even the teacher who is using it every day in their classroom, but when you cut through the crap, the truth is the truth. Our country is stabilized by our legal system. If it falls, we fall.

The second problem with common core. I find it interesting to see how concerned people are with the education quality of home school students, when the most uneducated people I have met attended public school their entire life. Many high school students who have never known anything but a public school still can barely read, if they can read at all, they struggle to perform basic long division and the list goes on. While it is going to take everything in me not to become distracted with the topic of public school failures, please keep it in mind while I bring the topic back to focus of the second problem with common core math. Students need to be set up for success in every school setting. Common core being forced on children that are not ready to learn math in a way that makes their brain do backflips will make these students more likely to give up. Students who feel it is too tough, or like they are just not smart enough to learn a concept just find other ways to get by in school. They cheat, and fail and even learn a little here and there just enough to pass a test, but many were made to feel so negatively about it, they are doomed to never retain what is being taught. As someone who has a history as a college student in early childhood brain development I can say it is proven that patterns taught to children at young ages, usually stick. So what will our society look like after this generation grows up and so many students were taught from such a young age that they aren’t going to bother try because they will fail? A lot of people who can only work in jobs where thinking is minimal if any job at all. If common core continues to dominate our schools then America’s future is going to be grim.

It is unprecedented how many parents and even teachers feel negative about common core math and the ways it is being presented to our children. Children are sensitive to the adults in their environment. They know how negative all the adults feel about it, yet they are being forced to do it by those same adults because our leaders in our country require it. This is another concept that goes against what America stands for. We stand for freedom, life and liberty. This in no way promotes or teaches freedom, life or liberty.

I presume that the “experimental” class that I was put in as a child was received well by our leaders. Sadly, it seems that this good thing is being input into our society in ways that not only negate anything positive that may come from it, but also promote failure of our country as a result of its use.