Truth in American Education

Fighting to stop the Common Core State Standards, their Assessments and Student Data Mining.

Common Core Math Anxiety Personified in a 2nd Grader

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A single mother in Louisiana gave me permission to share the video below of her child expressing frustration over her new Common Core-aligned homework.  She told me, “I hate sharing the video of my baby crying, but we’ve got to get this out of our schools.”  She has four children and they all are having similar struggles.

Have kids expressed frustration over homework in the past?  Sure.  This second grader is symbolic of what Common Core is doing to kids who had a love for school go sour this school year.

Everyone from this mother, to Gov. Bobby Jindal telling me he and his kids experience frustration over the math being sent home.  I’m this scene is repeated in thousand of homes and kitchen tables across the country.

 

This mother has to deal with the anxiety this child feels about going to school every evening, and again, this child, last year, loved school.  What are we doing to our kids?

This is a great example of why child psychologists, child development experts and social workers have shown concern about the developmental appropriateness of the standards.

Comments

  2. Why would the kid know to say she hated CC if it weren’t for her influences? I have a 2nd grader and homework is nothing like this – even if it isn’t always easy. This is simply ridiculous. You are getting what you are putting out, mom.

    • I don’t know… could it be from the “Common Core-Aligned” label plastered all over her books?

      I’m glad you are not having experiences like this. What state are you in?

    • you don’t have a clue what you are talking about. when your child cries like this and does not understand any of it and parents cannot explain it to them, it is horrible. She is not getting what she puts out. It is ridiculous that you would even say something so stupid.
      .

      • Reply as a guest and put this:
        I find your harsh attack in the mother not only insensitive but foolish to assume that you have any idea the parenting style this mother processes. I know her personally and not only is she a loving hands on mother but extremely dedicated to the needs of all of her children. She has spent long hours, days, nights educating herself on these new standards. She spends several hours each evening working with each of her children in efforts to help them overcome the struggles put upon them. After working all day, taking each of her babies to after school activities, hours of intense homework, she begins her homework In which she is just a few semesters away from becoming a teacher herself. Once all is complete in the late hours of the night she returns to her children’s assignments with hopes of finding a possible way/ method to better help them understand. Her children know the word Common Core because it’s imbedded in their heads daily at school and hours following with this new ” rigorous” homework that is required. Has CC been implemented in your children’s school? Are you involved? If you were you’d be fully aware of the new standards, terminology being used with in the classrooms. This child’s mother is very positive force in her children’s life. After hours of relentless homework, comforting, praying with her child she is often in tears when they are off to bed! For you to attack a mother when you know nothing about what kind of mother she is only speaks volumes of your character & makes me very concerned what kind of mother you are! I’ll pray for you as I’m praying for these wonderful children!

        • Thank you for sharing the video! I teach my daughter the simple way, even though it’s taught the common core way in class, and with the homework she gets sent home, I teach her the simple way, which gets the same answer the common core way, but with less frustration, I write in her planner to her teacher, ” in no way will my daughter be frustrated coming to school, because of her schoolwork, she worked the problem, with the way I showed her, and came up with the correct answer, the same way you want the common core to show” end of story.

    • When they begin CC lessons in school, the teachers generally say something like, “Ok, we’re going to do our Common Core math now.” Also, as Shane says, it’s all over the material the kids are using.

      And for the record, I am the social worker whose testimony is tagged here. The children started coming to me complaining about Common Core long before the parents even heard of it.

    • Reply as a guest and put this:
      I find your harsh attack in the mother not only insensitive but foolish to assume that you have any idea the parenting style this mother processes. I know her personally and not only is she a loving hands on mother but extremely dedicated to the needs of all of her children. She has spent long hours, days, nights educating herself on these new standards. She spends several hours each evening working with each of her children in efforts to help them overcome the struggles put upon them. After working all day, taking each of her babies to after school activities, hours of intense homework, she begins her homework In which she is just a few semesters away from becoming a teacher herself. Once all is complete in the late hours of the night she returns to her children’s assignments with hopes of finding a possible way/ method to better help them understand. Her children know the word Common Core because it’s imbedded in their heads daily at school and hours following with this new ” rigorous” homework that is required. Has CC been implemented in your children’s school? Are you involved? If you were you’d be fully aware of the new standards, terminology being used with in the classrooms. This child’s mother is very positive force in her children’s life. After hours of relentless homework, comforting, praying with her child she is often in tears when they are off to bed! For you to attack a mother when you know nothing about what kind of mother she is only speaks volumes of your character & makes me very concerned what kind of mother you are! I’ll pray for you as I’m praying for these wonderful children!

    • Yes guest blame the parents. Our school district had common core two years before the parents were told that there had been any change in the schools standards and curriculum. But we had the over stressed kids, insane math, and many problems along with over testing. Parents thought they were doing something wrong, normal kids hating school, having melt downs, acting out, getting sick, lots of stress related things happening and no one knew why, then last year at open house the principal tells parents we have Common core, and tells us NOT to believe anything we read about it on the internet. Well from what I could see none of the parents had heard of common core. So the investigating started parents began to understand why their children were sick, why they were stressed, and hating school. So please “Guest” don’t blame the parents, blame those who slipped cc in the door behind the backs of parents.

  3. dont make her do it the common core way momma, let her do it the right way.
    My child will not be doing common core math. NO Matter what.

  4. I’ve seen this too, or just a blank look at the insane math. The common core pushers have a video out showing how to do a math problem. First you have to “decompose” to make a “friendly” number, so the child will be “comfortable” with the problem then you have to “anchor” it. My God in heaven, they make simple math so complicated the kids are not learning at all. And for the “guest” below, what you saw is a child under stress, needless stress, from people who should not be in education and have no right to push this crap on our kids, namely Bill Gates. Also to the guest, most of the papers coming home have “Common core curriculum” written on them. Remember the big lie, “Common core is just a set of standards”. So sorry for the little one and the thousands of other going through this for no reason. We must stop common core.

  5. I am trying to save monies for homeschool material. This is something the school and I will be fighting over. I will teach it my way, the old way, the way it should be.

    • You don’t need expensive curriculum to homeschool. There are lots of free and inexpensive resources on the internet. if your child/children are suffering and you are able to homeschool then go ahead and pull them. There are lots of homeschool support groups on FB that can point you in the direction of affordable curriculum. I pulled my daughter last year in October, and it took all of last year to undo her hatred of math and the lack of self confidence that was instilled by just a few months of common core even though she had all A’s when I pulled her. So far this year math is much less of a struggle, and my daughter is beginning to love learning again.

  6. This is child abuse by our government. We must stop sending them to schools hoping “little Johnnie” will come home smarter and better off. It isn’t happening! They are brainwashing and crushing the potential of our kids and it MUST be stopped! Join us at http://www.facebook.com/stopcommoncorefl

  7. I wasn’t sure about common core math at first. My daughter is in the second grade and when she first came home with the homework I was clueless… I googled it, and figured it out, and realized it’s how I learned math when I was a kid. I mean, it’s how I taught myself math when I was a kid. I was taught to memorize that 9+8=17… tables, memorization… I figured out in my head that 9+8 is the same as 10+8-1… so anytime I see 9+X the answer is 10+X-1… that’s super easy, and way more intuitive than memorizing everything.
    I rocked math in school, went on to get an engineering degree and have excelled ever since. If common core teaches my daugher math the way I taught it to myself, then I’m on board… and you know what… you people should do the same b/c it’s not going away. Stick you head in the sand and refuse to teach your kids and they will be left behind… or worse, they will get it and you won’t have any idea how to help them get it. Take some time, learn the concept, and help them. Quit spending your energy fighting the inevitable and spend it learning the stuff so you can help your kids! Change sucks, nobody likes it, it’s confusing and it’s definitely harder than teaches what you learned.
    Get over it… hard heads.
    And… talk to yourselves for feedback, I ran across this from facebook so won’t see your rants about how ignorant I am…

    • I’m an engineer too and I knew that 9 times 8 is 10 times 8 minus 8 but I memorized it and don’t use that anymore. If you are having problems then use whatever you want but you shouldn’t force this down everyone else’s throat and bore them to tears. 7 divided by 25 is .28 because 7 times 4 is 28 and 28 divided by 100 is .28. Teach them a few tricks to use if needed and make things faster.

      This will be an utter fail, just like every other public school experiment.

  8. it’s simple math – teach her that way to do it – what will they do if she turns it in with the simple answer? If the answer is CORRECT there would be fireworks if she were graded down on it…….