aofradkin1

In our school we actually go by first names and they call me Miss Sasha.

One of the most satisfying aspects of my job is continuously learning new things and new ways of presenting even the most basic material. People don't realize how much room there is for creativity in teaching math at all levels. The curriculum that I teach is quite broad and includes topics such as logic, geometry, combinatorics, and other areas of math. One of my favorite things to do is to take an "advanced" math topic and to come up with ways to give glimpses of it to young children.

I will give you an example. The triangle inequality is something that isn't typically covered in most math classes until high school geometry. I created an activity for 2nd and 3rd graders, in which they were able to not only explore but actually discover this "theorem" for themselves by playing with sticks of many different lengths and seeing which combinations of them can make a triangle and which ones cannot.

Here are the few main reasons: 1) I saw as a big area of opportunity. 2) I felt like I could make a bigger difference here than doing research at a university. 3) It is important to me personally because I am raising two daughters. 4) I realized I really enjoy doing it!

First, what most people don’t realize is that the Common Core is not a curriculum but rather a set of standards of goals and expectations for the knowledge and skills that a student should obtain. These standards are quite reasonable, but how they’re implemented is another story. The content actually is very similar to what was there before .

And the main problem I believe is with the assessments. For example, the common core may list multiple ways to do simple addition or subtraction. Administrators see this and say, oh we must not only teach all 5 ways, but we must also test all 5 ways, and for that, we also need to give the ways names.

That is not the goal of the 5 ways though. The goal is to give children a choice and flexibility. The main failure of the common core, in my opinion is not giving support to administrators, teachers, and parents for implementing the standards.

This is going to sound blasphemous, but I was a Wawa girl.