Technically yes, it's common core math, but common core math isn't what people think it is. It's really not a way of teaching at all. Common core is a set of standards that students are supposed to meet before the end of each grade level. The standards do not prescribe a specific way you have to teach. They were created so that every grade level has the same expectations, regardless of where you go to school. Different states use different things, but the majority of states use something very common. There might just be a tweak in language.
I'm sorry you had that experience. There are bad apples no matter what the profession. That's inevitable. In cases like that, it's justifiable.
Teaching is a unique profession. There isn't another profession that is entrusted with your children's futures as much as educators are. I welcome support from parents. I can't do the job on my own. Kids don't just learn from me. But I also need parents to trust me that I'm doing what's right for their child. And not just me, but the school in general. I know it can be hard because those are their babies, but I have never met a teacher that doesn't go out of their way for the betterment of their students.
I think the examples that I've heard here tend to fall more in the upper grades like middle and high school. I don't have experience with that, do I can't speak specifically to that. But I know it's my job to develop a deep understanding of the foundational skills of math. I am teaching the base for everything that they will learn in their futures. I'm not saying I teach one way. That's so far from the truth of how math is taught these days, or at least how it should be taught. If a kid is struggling one way, it's okay because there are so many ways it can be done. But if they don't understand what is happening in the problem, no strategy is going to make sense. That's what I'm trying to say.
Yeah, and those few bad apples make it harder for parents to trust the good teachers. If you've had a bad experience, it's like a sunburn....you're going to be sensitive for a while. My 6th grade teacher was just all-around awful. The very first day of school, we came into the classroom and she told us to find the desk with our name on it. We're all looking, and this one boy couldn't find his desk, so he went to the teacher to ask, and she says "Oh yeah. I heard about YOU. I have a special place for you. Over there!" and she pointed to a desk all the way across the room, facing a wall, with at least 15 feet between him and the closest desk. He had some behavioral issues because he had a horrible home life. His dad was an alcoholic and abusive, his mom had been in prison for dealing drugs (she wasn't DOING drugs, but she was trying desperately to support the family while the alcoholic dad was wasting the money on booze)...it was no wonder he had issues. But she hadn't even met him and she was punishing him before he even did anything. Not to mention she did this in front of the whole class, which had to be humiliating. She was just a real piece of work. And I've had a few really bad teachers like that. And those are the ones that make it hard for the good ones.
E has one now for Biology who has no business being a teacher. They were learning about....I want to say maybe DNA Sequencing? And she didn't understand it, so she asked, and he said he didn't understand it either, and he didn't like that unit. He didn't think it was important. And yeah, they would probably get questions on their final exams for graduation, but they'd just have to miss those questions, because he didn't think it was important enough for him to figure it out to teach the kids. E went in search of videos and resources and she figured it out for herself without him, taught all her friends how to do it, and now they are prepared if they get those questions on the exams. But he's done this several times with different subjects, where he tells the kids he thinks this unit is stupid, or that unit goes too in depth and they shouldn't really have to know it, or HE doesn't know how it works either, so he's just skipping that unit. Then there was a concept that the kids were struggling with, and he chewed them out for not paying attention, because they should have known how to do it from a previous chapter! It was a chapter he had skipped because he didn't think it was important. And one day in the beginning of the year, the bell hadn't rung, and the kids were all chatting. The bell rang, and the teacher just sat there. Never got up from his desk or anything. He waited until the end of the period and then told them they had wasted his time because they never stopped chatting, and he wasn't going to talk over them, etc. He never even tried to get their attention. Just expected that they would suddenly be silent and attentive without any sign that he was about to start teaching. But there's nothing they can do, because their school is closing and the majority of teachers have already moved on to new schools, and the school isn't bothering to replace the ones who left, because the school closes after next school year. So this is the teacher they are left with for Biology. I'll be so glad when she graduates this year and is done with this school!!
That's interesting about Common Core. The way people talked about it, it sounded like a particular method, but if it's just a standard to make education consistent across the board in the US, that explains why we don't have it here. Our system over here is a lot different. We do have national standards, and they take tests a few times a year that are standardized across all of the Netherlands, but it's not used the way standardized tests are used in the US. It's just to see where the kids are and what areas they need to work on with each student, so if there are learning disabilities or whatever, they catch them sooner (hopefully). It's more to look at patterns to identify strengths and weaknesses. And then students who have consistently performed above the national average, particularly in math and reading, will be placed in a more advanced program for high school. Students who consistently perform below the national average will be placed in a more practical high school, learning a trade rather than doing more theoretical classroom learning. And then once they complete that, they can stream through to the next level if they want to, or go on to a trade school for their chosen profession.
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