The first thing that came to mind was this.

Seriously, this doesn't sound all that different from the way I learned math in grade school.

There are good reasons to fight to stop Common Core any way we can, but this math problem doesn't sound like one of them to me.

The problem is not the math problem.
If you watch the video, someone did come up with the right answer. She asked, how did you get it, he replied "I divided". Obviously.

But the problem is, if a child divides, which is logical, it will be counted wrong. Because they didn't do it with the "right" methodology. They are taught multiple ways to do math (in the hope that one will stick? Is my only guess as to why). But if one sticks, they STILL have to do it all the other ways, too. Each day, same problems, different method.

Division was a nightmare - they used the normal symbols, but then used a count off to the side. e.g.
___
18)90
18 (count one here)
--
72
18 (count two now)
etc etc
then the final count gets written at the top.
Confused the *heck* out of her (and me too). Eventually they got to the logical way of solving it, but it took a teacher conference to keep me sane until that happened.

This is what is turning my kid off of math. She "gets it" - the light bulb goes off. Then they beat on it and beat on it, different ways, until all she is, is confused. It is very frustrating to see.

I'm an engineer, she's smart - it's not that math is not her "thing" - it is a real problem with the way they are taught.

Want to learn math? Pick up a textbook from before 1940. It will be self explanatory.

At some point after World War II in order to generate jobs for both match teachers, and profits for text book companies, instruction was twisted, to make it almost impossible to understand without instruction from a professional.

My first year in college, my school had decided to cut through the bullshit, and write their own spiral bound Algebra workbook.

You could either go it alone, and take and pass a series of multiple choice tests, or you could attend a lecture and ask questions, and then take the tests. It was the easiest and best math class I ever took.

I don't object to story problems. They test real life applicable skills, but they are not designed to test pure math concepts or understanding.

I'm with Amy. I don't know what they are asking either. The problem is the wording "counts around by a number." That's not correct, clear wording. Counting implies addition and wtf is "counting around" anyway? The problem is morons without proper grasp of the English language writing the curriculum.

I read it and was like "what the fuck are they asking?" Then I finally caught on it was a division problem.

I haven't really been in school in thirty years. But in my programming stuff I have had to break out much more complex problems. But that still is a the kind of question that seems to be missing a context.

That is like "A train leaves Wichita at 8AM at 40MPH. Another train leaves Dallas at 60 MPH at 9AM. When will they meet?" Without distances and directions, none of it can be answered.

Assumption means that you are figuring out intent.

I understand what they are asking for, but jebus, what a horrible way to put that.

Okay class, count off:

Amy 1
Bob 2
Carl 3
Dave 4
...
Roger 18

Okay class, count off by 5:

Amy 5
Bob 10
Carl 15
Dave 20
...
Roger 90

It's a horribly written problem, to be sure. The problems with Common Core are deeper than that, alas. The math teacher and blogger Education Realist has been on a tear about Common Core lately.

Oh my god people.

18 people in class. They count around to get 90.

18 times x =90

Divide both sides of the equation by 18.

That means that x is equal to 90 divided by 18.

x =5

This (is) fourth grade math.

We have some really big problems.

Simple math problem, but in a very ass backward way of turning it into a word problem, probably with an embedded hint on the way they wanted it solved.

Word problems can be good IF they use language people use and situations which people might encounter. ( who counts off by fives? no one)
So a better way to word this could have been: Mr. Yamato's class has 18 students. Mr. Yamato bought each a notebook. The total bill for the notebooks was 90. How much did each notebook cost?

Same math problem, but much better/clearer wording. As to how to solve it there are various ways: could divide 90/18 and get 5. or use this counting around method, ( if I understand it right is kind of like dealing out cards) keep on dealing out the 90 cards to all 18 until you are out then see how many each kid got. Which may be ok when initially talking about division or getting across what division is, but is not what you want them to eventually be doing.

This (is) fourth grade math. We have some really big problems. -- JoeD at January 1, 2014 5:27 PM

While I agree that it is a fourth grade math level, there is a assumption that you are doing division. Without that information you have to figure out the idea behind the question is division.

Figuring that out is a different question.

I'm with those who scratched their heads and then figured out it was one of the most poorly worded division problems in history.

I have nothing against the math or the concept (I have a 2nd grade son and I now know that teaching "skip counting" is how they start to introduce multiplication - and I like it). But "count around" isn't anything anybody uses regularly or with any standard meaning... unless that is a phrase they are using in Common Core. If my son had said that but used "skip count" instead, I would have gotten it (but only because he's told me).

Mind, my first reaction was, "how many times did they go around the circle counting... and did they make a complete loop?"

Of course, my calculus teacher in high school was careful to make sure to write things like, "ignoring friction" or "infinitely small pulley" on his questions so they were precise and didn't ignore little things like reality. He might have been OCD, but I did better at physics in college because of it.

I actually thought this question was very simple and straight forward.

That being said I am probably younger than most of the folks here and hence my education incorporated a large degree of what could be described as "abstract thinking".

The point of questions such as these are to engage higher learning functions.

Asking a student to offer the answer to 90 divided by 18 is very base level because it specifically tells the student how the problem is to be solved

This type of question is slightly more sophisticated precisely because it first requires the student to identify how to approach the problem before solving it.

True mastery of mathematics is only achieved when one knows how to identify the path to a solution without requiring someone to suggest a method to you first.

I didn't get at all what was being asked for either. This appears to just be a problem of assume the reader knows the terms used. If you were in the class this very well may be true (or should be). It says they stopped at 90 which implies to me that 90 caused the stoppage.

A similar thing happened on facebook for me. A friend posted a picture of one of her kids math problems asking what was expected. I had no idea. Another mother explained what was being looked for. They want the kid to think of breaking up subtraction to make it easier to do in head.
e.g. 57 - 17
(57 - 7) - 10
50 - 10
It was written something like this
57 - 17
/ \
57 - __ - __
\ / /
__ - __
\ /
__
hopefully my spacing holds

That didn't work
so it is supposed to be problems with diagonal lines between them to show some flow.
First flow: the diagonal lines are supposed to go from 17 to the two blanks.
Second: the first to diagonals are supposed to go from 57 and the blank and the last diagonal from he second blank to the second blank
Third: the two blanks to the end

The wording is terrible. This is about the 20-zillionth example of it. The problem with common core is really simple: They are trying to teach math while avoiding mathematical operators (like division) and any sort of equation.

Operators and equations have been developed and refined over hundreds of years because they are the most efficient way to explain, understand and perform mathetical operations. Trying to replacing them with vague, everyday words just leads to confusion. The teacher will use his or her own words when introducing and explaining new concepts. The concepts themselves should, indeed must be in the language of mathematics.

What this really shows - yet again - is that subject matter should be developed by people whose core degrees and core competence lies in those fields. Education majors are not qualified to do much of anything...

Five. Each kid counts off, there are 18 kids 18x5=90.

This question makes a lot of sense to me, it is a word problem, which have existed at least since I was in grade school.

Word problems are ALWAYS the hardest kind of problem. This is because you have to figure out how to solve the problem, not just solve it. The human brain has a difficult time with this sort of task. Research even shows that if you present a similar word problem with the same type of solution, but with a different context, people have a hard time applying figuring out the next problem even after they've just done a similar problem, unless you specifically tell them that they are similar problems.

That's why it is useful to have different word problems worded in different ways. They exercise your brain in different ways than straightforward equations do. It's important to drill equations, but people also need to learn when to apply them to real-world situations. The more you see different problems in different contexts, the more familiar they become.

I'm sure if you think about it you'll remember elementary school, where you counted by 10s, or 5s, or what not "5 10 15 20" or "10 20 30 40" etc. If you were a kid, these sorts of things would be fresh in your mind and the wording would make more sense.

Word problems suck, I agree, because they're hard. They're meant to be.

There is only one way to learn arithmetic, damnit: memorize your plus and times tables. That's why we use a place-value system for numbers, so you can memorize a couple of tables and then work any problem from there. Everything else is glorified counting-on-fingers.

Artemis, nope we oldsters had plenty of abstract thinking. It has more to do with in 40 years had never heard anyone every use the term, counts around by a number.

I wonder if the question would have been easier to parse if there was some context behind it. Either other questions about division during the same class or some discussion about counting by numbers. Something like 2, 4, 6, 8...36, now if the class gets up to 90 what were they counting by.

Not a hard math problem. My ability to do math in my head is rusty, but as soon as I saw the problem, I grabbed my phone and divided 90 by 18.

Common core has its issues ... but this is just a word problem (nothing new to see here), and the way it's worded would be recognizable to any grade-school student because, as Shannon M. points out ...

I have a 2nd grade son and I now know that teaching "skip counting" is how they start to introduce multiplication - and I like it

I'm 30, and we did this too. It was how we learned to count by 2's, 3's, 5's, 10's, etc. The teacher would usually announce a goal: "OK, class, counting off by 5s, let's see if we can reach 500 in one minute!" To mix things up, she'd sometimes switch in the middle to tell us to "count by 3's," and we'd have to go faster to reach 500 in a minute. It was a good way to get kids to do simple math in their heads quickly. My sister and I did it on car trips, too.

Ok. I have seen the video and the point isn't just the poorly worded problem, it is how you get the answer. If your child just does the straight up division, the answer is wrong. What CC wants is for kid to draw a series a hash marks on the paper and then group them. That is insanity! Here is the link, I encourage all of ou to view it even if you don't have school aged children.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wZEGijN_8R0

Meh. The term "count around" would be confusing for someone who has never heard it before, but that's not a big deal. The kids who will have this question will have been taught to multiply by "counting around" so it's fine. We called it counting by twos/fives/whatever, they call it counting around by twos/fives/whatever. Potato, po-tah-to. Also, they don't tell the kids to sit Indian-style on the carpet anymore. It's criss-cross. Terms change.

Wow, if you think the way CC teaches math is bad, check out this video which details the privacy violations written into the system. Apparently, CC creates a true permanent record which follows you for your whole life. Here's another video which explains the potential privacy violations included in CC.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lX7ddVUuf-E

I didn't pay too much attention to this before now bc I don't live in a CC state and it doesn't affect my child, but if it did I would make defeating it my full time job.

Apparently, CC creates a true permanent record which follows you for your whole life.

My friend is a 2nd-grade teacher, and she hates it because she thinks it makes schools less likely to suspend kids. The parents make a stink about the fact that the suspension will end up on the kid's permanent record -- so schools avoid suspending.

A student punched my friend (hard) in the lower back last year, and the child was not suspended for it. Instead, the child was made to stay in for recess for a week (meaning my friend had to babysit the very child who punched her). In the past, physically assaulting a teacher meant suspension -- and forced the parents to at least come to terms with their kids' problems.

"If your child just does the straight up division, the answer is wrong. What CC wants is for kid to draw a series a hash marks on the paper and then group them. "

In other words, they're being encouraged to use a counting-on-fingers method. Which is what most of those boil down to.

I am a Professor of Mathematics. I did not understand this question at first because of the English usage. The first step is to teach standard English to the writers of these questions.

Once understood it is fairly good question. But unfortunately vast swathes of utter nonsense has entered elementary Math education from academics in university education departments. Commonly the metaphor and notation used to teach a topic is more complex than idea itself, and also of no further utility.

If parents don't understand what their kids are doing, don't worry very often neither do I at first and sometimes ever. I can't be bull shitted on this issues, and neither can my colleagues. I understand the base motivations behind much of the 'New Math' and frankly I question it's worth, sometimes it's wrong and more often or not it's badly presented. They are trying to teach a level of abstraction that is age inappropriate; you have to understand a subject before you can abstract.

The level of numeracy of of entering university students has reached a level of absurdity. Universities in my Province (Manitoba) banded together to exert pressure on the Government to change the curriculum. A new well thought out back to basics curriculum has now been introduced.

If even educated parents don`t understand what their kids are doing then their are problems. Lobby your governement.

It's a dreadfully written problem, but I'm curious as to how it relates directly to Common Core. Every few years it seems that schools try new ways to teach mathematics.

I was in the unfortunate age cohort that had "New Math" foisted upon us. Base eight! Base six! And, yes, we got points for "reasoning" and missed points when we got the correct answer but didn't "show your work." It made no sense to little me at the time. Nor to my parents.

It's not a "dreadfully written problem" is your goal is to induce children to show their methodology in trying to solve it so you can give them credit and pass them along to the next grade without actually forcing them to learn math.

If your goal is to have them learn math so they can arrive at and provide you with the right answer, it's horribly written.

My perspective on "show your work" changed somewhat after a high-school math teacher told me the dreadful truth: it's mainly to discourage cheating. The reasoning goes that someone who wants to cheat isn't goint to be able, or willing, to copy a whole page of algebra onto the palm.

First I said, what?

Then I read the question again and obviously the answer was 5.

But I'm an engineer and I can't see 18 and 90 together and NOT see 5.

It does seem more like an English lesson than a math lesson.

Mr. Yamato's class has 18 students. He asks his students to count off by a number we'll call X. The first student counts X, the second student counts 2X, and so on. The last student counts 90. What is X?

There. Fixed it for ya. :)

My perspective on "show your work" changed somewhat after a high-school math teacher told me the dreadful truth: it's mainly to discourage cheating. The reasoning goes that someone who wants to cheat isn't goint to be able, or willing, to copy a whole page of algebra onto the palm.

Posted by: Cousin Dave at January 2, 2014 11:38 AM

Yes, but it also teaches order of operations which becomes important when you get into complex problems.

Also, if you set up the equation correctly, but then have an arithmatic error, the grader can give you partial credit.

ZZ Says:

"I am a Professor of Mathematics. I did not understand this question at first because of the English usage. The first step is to teach standard English to the writers of these questions."

You are a professor of mathematics and yet you are taking issue with this question because it isn't written in "standard english"?

Oh come on... advanced mathematics questions often look something like the following:

"Let n be a positive integer. Suppose n chords are drawn in a circle in such a way that each chord intersects every other, but no three intersects at one point. Prove that the chords cut the circle into (n^2+n+2)/2 regions."

The above problem would not be considered to be written in "standard english" by the average reader. In fact, most people who read such a problem will not immediately know what to make of it let alone know how to go about solving it.

Mathematics problems are not generally written in "standard english", and the more advanced one gets the less "standard" the language tends to be.

Mathematics problems need only be precise and accurately described, not "standard".

"Once understood it is fairly good question."

Correct, and what students need to learn is how to properly identify the mathematical meaning contained within the problem. If a student fails to understand a mathematics problem that is suitably precise to be unambiguous to a competent reader then they have not yet mastered the subject material.

The only valid criticism I have read here so far is that the question as presented does not explicitly stipulate that the counting ceases after every student has counted off once.

Correct, and what students need to learn is how to properly identify the mathematical meaning contained within the problem. If a student fails to understand a mathematics problem that is suitably precise to be unambiguous to a competent reader then they have not yet mastered the subject material.

The only valid criticism I have read here so far is that the question as presented does not explicitly stipulate that the counting ceases after every student has counted off once.

Posted by: Artemis at January 2, 2014 7:38 PM

A true math problem, as opposed to analytical problem, can be solved by anyone fluent in math symbols, and needs no understanding of English at all.

You certainly can write a valid problem in English, but you need to define your terms, in such a way so the non English speaker can determine what the frack you are talking about.

The answer came instantaneously as soon as I realized what "counts around by a number" means.

I'm not a math teacher. But, I train on software and have taught ESL for a while as well. Both require me to explain questions/answers well. (okay, maybe my comments here don't always show that; but, believe me I can)

I'm with Amy and others who have said: What are they asking?

It really isn't that clear as to what the "problem" is so how on earth is one suppose to know the answer?

Also, for whatever it is worth; I hated it when we had to explain how we got the answer in math class, especially when I got the right answer! I got it right - why are you taking points off for me not explaining how I got it right when I didn't just guess!?

Charles Says:

"I hated it when we had to explain how we got the answer in math class, especially when I got the right answer!"

What do you mean by "especially"???

You hated it when you were expected to explain your reasoning when you obtained the incorrect answer, but "especially" hated it when you got the answer correct?

The primary reason you are expected to be able to explain your reasoning is so that you can demonstrate that you actually understand the correct methodology.

In math, using the correct method is just as important (if not more important) than the answer.

This is because it is possible to get the wrong answer with the correct method simply due to human error.

By contrast, any correct error obtained by a faulty method is simply a matter of coincidence.

For example, if I ask you what the answer is to 2 x 2 and you offer the answer of 4 but use the same method to obtain that answer as you would 2 + 2 (which coincidentally is also 4), that would not demonstrate that you understand the multiplicative operation.

Only by looking at your specific method can one ascertain if you understand what it is you are doing when manipulating the numbers or variables or operators etc...

Just a quick question for you. Would you trust an accountant who told you how much tax you owed but was incapable of explaining to you or the government how they arrived at that quantity?

Someone who has mastered any form of mathematics should have the capability of explaining in detail how they arrived at their answer. If they are incapable of doing so then they have not mastered that particular skill.