this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2025
1072 points (99.2% liked)
Microblog Memes
9353 readers
1990 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
- Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
- Be nice.
- No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
- Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.
Related communities:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
My daughter was doing math, basic second grade math, but the way they teach kids to solved math problems now is just not how we did it 30 years ago, and so when she has a problem, 9+8, and she's supposed to show her work, I have no idea the methods or anything that she's using and I am zero help to her.
Definitely not going to ask an AI though, that's silly.
That 9+8 thing holds true even when helping kindergarteners.
By "show your work" they mean "draw 9 blue pens and 8 red pens and then say you counted 17."
Teacher do it that way during class and wants everyone to do same but we don't have the context so us adults overthink it.
another option would be to prove it from first principles using Peano arithmetic. the teacher would probably love that.
Yeah, this is some method of turning the 9 into 10, because it's easier to add 10 and 7 than it is 9 and 8, but I don't have enough info to help, because I just get told I'm doing it wrong by my kid. I was never into it either as a kid, but mental math would end up failing me later in life, so I'd like to help her, I just need more info!
It's funny because when I was in school I use to get lectured for not showing my work the way it was taught, but I didn't like the way it was taught so I came up with my own method. Turns out my method is now what they teach in school (basically, and obviously completely a coincidence).
If you'd like more research and context, the term to search for is "common core math".
Based on your other comments though, you've mostly got it down already though, but for the exact steps you'll be able to find pretty easily.
Rough example (don't quote me on it though, not a teacher): 12 x 7 isn't as "intuitive" as 10 x 7 or 12 x 5. So you do (10 x 7) + (2 x 7) = 70 + 14 = 84. You find the "common" "core" to make it easier, kind of like how we handled multipling fractions. The over all objective is to make it easier to do math quickly in your head, but since they are teaching it to kids, you have to prove you understand the thought process, which makes it seem like it's just over complicating things.
Either way though, kudos to you for trying to learn the new way and helping your kid with their homework in general. No matter what your kid will turn out great with a parent who shows they care like you do.
Oh I've seen that described years ago in reddit. It surprised me back then but when I think about it, all my adult life I'll do that, by now, instinctively.
I think I also saw to break down e.g. 7+8 into 5+2+5+3.