(Oh, the Blog of Gloom and Doom has gone on a cheery roll right  now. I probably should watch more comedy and take a pass on Nightmare on Elm Street next time.)

In my last post, I flashed to animal rights activist and scientist Temple Grandin and her serpentine ramp, designed to humanely lure cattle off to be slaughtered. Walking nose to tail, cow after cow will march down that ramp to the kill floor in semicircular turns, following curves that hide the abattoir and slaughterhouse workers.  

As groups of our high school population march off into student debt measured in chunks of thousands, I’d like to put those ramps front and center, perfect metaphors for the many college fairs, college lectures, and college field trips we offer students without regard for their financial circumstances or college readiness. How many students have signed on how many dotted lines, when every clue in their cumulative folders suggested we were sending them to the loan kill floor?

We talk about differentiation all the time. I’d like to suggest that differentiation is not just for class content. Students who can’t read or write beyond a fourth grade level? Who can’t do middle school math? If I were a counselor, I’d offer these students a realistic picture. I’d say, “Please don’t go to college unless you have a solid plan, at least not if you must take out loans to go to school. If you are determined and are willing to pay the community college for remediation classes, classes that will not count towards graduation, but will only prepare you to start actual college in a year or two, I am not saying don’t take your shot. But before you dig yourself into a hole, go on the internet and find out how much your remedial loans will cost you. How much will you have to pay over the next ten years? Plug in the numbers. Ask yourself if you are ready to pay those extra hundreds of dollars each month, year after year, for your community college classes. Will your plan take you to a place where your loan payments won’t be oppressive or even impossible to pay?”

I’d help the kid run those numbers, too — show my student exactly what sort of payments and obligations those remediation classes represented.

“Honestly, you could be better off using that money to buy a car to get to work instead,” I might end, depending on the plan and the kid.

If college were a free learning experience, college for all might be a great plan. Students could learn what they missed in middle school and high school, filling in gaps from earlier years if they were sufficiently motivated.  Students could find two-year programs that prepared them for the trades after they decided standard college coursework was not for them.

But the tab for tuition at many private four-year colleges now runs around $200,000 or more – a heap of debt for almost anyone. Tuition alone at a for-profit school costs about $15,000 for a year on average, and much more at some schools. Public schools are better, varying from state to state. Tuition and fees at a state community college can be brought in for under $5,000 in many states with the average running around $3,000.

The following chart is from http://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/average-published-undergraduate-charges-sector-2014-15. The first chart is for tuition and fees, the second for room and board, something that community college students and others may be able to avoid.

When I think about the current student debt crisis, I flash to animal rights activist and scientist Temple Grandin, who created the serpentine ramp to ensure the humane treatment of cattle going off to be slaughtered.  Grandin designed the ramp with curves so cattle cannot see the abattoir or slaughterhouse workers.  Semicircular turns take advantage of natural cattle movements, and walking nose to tail, cows march their way to the kill floor without panicking, just as groups of our high school population march off into their $349 per hour college classes, including groups such as functionally illiterate, bilingual students, students with ACT test scores in the teens (ACT itself estimates the low twenties to represent college readiness.), and students with histories of academic failures, sometimes punctuated by repeated disciplinary actions related to behavioral challenges.

We push college at students relentlessly, class by class, grade by grade, until they graduate. For many students, college is absolutely the right move, especially when family financial help is available. An enormous group of students graduates from college each year, gaining substantial earning power. For almost any student able to make the grade, going to college proves the best choice.

But we need to recognize that, for other students, college can be a slow, circuitous trip into crippling monthly debt, carrying little chance of a happy ending with a certificate or degree. Too few people charged with creating current educational policy appear to be thinking about the debt at the end of the chute. In the meantime, I guarantee that guy mopping floors for $9 an hour while carrying $26,000 of debt for the criminology program he failed to complete thinks about his monthly loan payment all the time. Quarter by quarter, semester by semester, some students dig themselves into deeper holes until they drop out or fail out because they have been sent to a place where they never belonged in the first place.

Idealism must be tempered with realism. Exceptional students sometimes succeed despite abysmal high school records, but we should not be basing our recommendations on exceptional students. That counselor who put Rip into my Spanish class a few years ago because he needed a foreign language for college? He did Rip no favor. Rip failed out midyear, but not before disrupting class, week after week. His overall high school average was hovering between an “F” and a “D,” with frequent trips throughout the day to the Dean’s office for disciplinary infractions. (He’s the only student I ever had who pulled his pants down in class. Thank goodness for the plaid boxers that covered the ass he decided to wiggle at the class.)

Too many educational administrators tell students they must go on to college. That’s what the counselor told Rip, who then told me he planned to go to a prominent Illinois university. He intended to major in business, and then enter the NFL.

Eduhonesty: I was sitting on a hallway floor talking to this student as he refused to do a classroom art project. The art teacher had the rest of my students. I looked at this short, bearded boy and I ducked the controversy, I’ll admit. I had no idea what to say. A kid who is failing more than half his classes should never be told to go to college.

Certain counselors need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid and come down to Earth.

I sat in that hallway looking at a young man who was living a lie. He had no idea what the world expected or demanded. And the last thing on Earth he needed was to begin taking out student loans.

Just an observation from my musings today:

Let’s be clear. By middle school, kids have heard about bullying nonstop for at least six years. Most of them know exactly what bullying is. They know when they are making another kid feel bad. The odds are excellent that they are trying to make that kid feel bad.

By thirteen or fourteen years of age, a bully seldom benefits from, “Now, “Javier,” how do you think that makes “Ignacio” feel?” Some kids can spin out repentant and even eloquent answers, as they talk their way out of trouble. “I am sure he feels bad. I was not thinking when I said that about his nose. I am really sorry. Etc. Etc.” Some of our misbehavers genuinely feel sorry. Kids blurt disparaging comments without thinking. But others are simply manipulating their latest trip to the Dean’s office, spouting versions of the same lines that worked the last twenty-five times. Like hell those kids are sorry. Sometimes they are proud of themselves for how effectively they are playing the Dean.

Even the repentant get a wrong message when we let them repeatedly talk their way out of trouble, though. By thirteen or fourteen years of age, we should be suspending bullies or at least making them do homework during silent lunch. We should be punishing them. When we don’t punish kids, we prepare them for a world that does not exist, the world where misbehavior has few or no consequences.

When we blame parents, administrators, teachers and society for Javier’s behavior in middle school and high school, we are setting up Javier for a long, miserable life. I’m not saying that parents and other adults may not carry some responsibility for Javier’s bullying or other misbehavior. But at some point, Javier must cross the line where he is held personally accountable.

If Javier never gets held responsible for his own behavior, what will happen when he turns eighteen? When he is tossed out into the world? The world will not talk to Javier about his feelings — not often anyway. What will happen when Javier tries to explain his way out of his assault arrest and finds that the system has decided to take away five years of his life?

We talk too much. Our words sometimes flow in one ear and out the other, at least where our repeat offenders are concerned — and less than 10% of students referred for disciplinary reasons may easily cause over 75% of the disciplinary incidents in a school. Our “high fliers” or repeat offenders? They are often silently laughing at the administrator who is trying to talk about feelings with them.

Real deeds should result in real consequences, not lecture #237, piled on top of last week’s lecture.

Coming from Illinois and from teaching, I have a natural pro-union bias. I think people SHOULD have a say in their working conditions and protection from arbitrary administrative decisions designed to cut costs rather than educate children, I even believe in a decent retirement. I remain baffled that more Americans don’t put energy into ensuring that they can go fishing when they reach 70 years of age, instead of passing out shopping carts.

The prevailing wisdom seems to be that The Democratic Party is the party of unions. But I believe we are living in the past when we assert this “truth.” If the democrats are your friends, guys, I’d hate to meet your enemies. Where are the unions now? The democratic candidate essentially threatened to eliminate the whole coal industry– Yes, I understand the environmental forces in play — and I never heard a true pro-union word during that whole election. Maybe I missed that tiny offer of support, but my husband had political news on in the background for most of the election cycle.

Teacher readers, under the last administration, charter school numbers have exploded. I stand against the crowd in having less trouble with that fact than many public school teachers. If the public schools in my district were abysmally awful — as is the case in some areas — I’d elect to home school or find a charter or private school. Our children deserve the best education we can offer them. But again, where was that democratic support for improving public schools? How much of that support was channeled to the Charter Movement instead? Why? I believe our public officials decided that supporting charters looked to be cheaper than upgrading public schools.

So now we have President Trump. I recommend trying to communicate with his administration. Yes, he’s pro-charter. But the other guys were also pro-charter. Yes, the democrats were familiar and the familiar feels safe. But did education improve during President Obama’s time in office? Honestly? I watched my district foundering during that time, saw the state effectively take us over and ended up forced to regularly give the Yellow Tests of Doom because they matched the Common Core, rather than my poor, lost, bilingual students.

(Click on pic for a better view.)

Eduhonesty: Kirk/Spock in 2020? I don’t know where we are going and some portents seem alarming. But if Trump attacks state and federal oversight, not to mention the army of employees hired under No Child Left Behind who have to justify their existence, we may end up considerably ahead. We need to return to local control of our classrooms. So let’s hope for the best.

(And the Educational Razzie Mummified Banana Statuette goes to….)

A post to start the New Year:

Here’s the thing: You can’t just grab any kid off the desert sands, throw him in the pod racer, and say, “Fly!!”

You can feed a third-grader nuclear physics all day long. You can throw in a dose of calculus for engineers. Perhaps a soupçon de Mandarin Chinese? Whatever. I return to a favorite saying: There is no teaching without learning.

From  http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/1/introduction/, I offer the Common Core math standards for the first grade. Feel free to mostly skim these. I recommend looking at mathematical practices, though.

Grade 1 » Introduction

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Grade 1 Overview

Operations and Algebraic Thinking

• Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction.
• Understand and apply properties of operations and the relationship between addition and subtraction.
• Add and subtract within 20.
• Work with addition and subtraction equations.

Number and Operations in Base Ten

• Extend the counting sequence.
• Understand place value.
• Use place value understanding and properties of operations to add and subtract.

Measurement and Data

• Measure lengths indirectly and by iterating length units.
• Tell and write time.
• Represent and interpret data.

Geometry

• Reason with shapes and their attributes.

Mathematical Practices

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4. Model with mathematics.
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

The site https://www.ixl.com/standards/common-core/math/grade-1 expands on these expectations. This is an example of the curriculum expected to proceed from the Common Core standards — a mostly rational curriculum that I also recommend skimming, keeping in mind that this is for a six-year-old in 180 days of school. You might pause and read place value, data interpretation and geometry more slowly.

1.OA Operations and Algebraic Thinking

• 1.OA.A Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction.

  • 1.OA.A.1 Use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.

    • Add with pictures – sums up to 10 (1-B.1)
    • Addition sentences – sums up to 10 (1-B.2)
    • Complete the addition sentence – sums up to 10 (1-D.3)
    • Addition word problems – sums up to 10 (1-D.5)
    • Addition sentences for word problems – sums up to 10 (1-D.6)
    • Addition word problems – sums up to 18 (1-D.9)
    • Addition sentences for word problems – sums up to 18 (1-D.10)
    • Addition sentences for word problems – sums up to 20 (1-D.13)
    • Subtract with pictures – numbers up to 10 (1-F.1)
    • Subtraction sentences – numbers up to 10 (1-F.2)
    • Complete the subtraction sentence (1-H.5)
    • Subtraction word problems – numbers up to 10 (1-H.6)
    • Subtraction sentences for word problems – numbers up to 10 (1-H.7)
    • Subtraction word problems – numbers up to 18 (1-H.10)
    • Subtraction sentences for word problems – numbers up to 18 (1-H.11)
    • Addition and subtraction word problems (1-J.6)
    • Comparison word problems (1-K.4)
    • Customary units of length: word problems (1-P.6)
    • Metric units of length: word problems (1-P.11)

  • 1.OA.A.2 Solve word problems that call for addition of three whole numbers whose sum is less than or equal to 20, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.

    • Add three numbers – use doubles (1-E.6)
    • Add three numbers – make ten (1-E.8)
    • Add three numbers (1-E.11)
    • Add three numbers – word problems (1-E.12)

• 1.OA.B Understand and apply properties of operations and the relationship between addition and subtraction.

  • 1.OA.B.3 Apply properties of operations as strategies to add and subtract.

    • Related addition facts (1-D.14)
    • Add three numbers (1-E.11)
    • Add three numbers – word problems (1-E.12)
    • Related subtraction facts (1-H.13)
    • Fact families (1-J.3)

  • 1.OA.B.4 Understand subtraction as an unknown-addend problem.

    • Complete the addition sentence – sums up to 10 (1-D.3)
    • Fact families (1-J.3)

• 1.OA.C Add and subtract within 20.

  • 1.OA.C.5 Relate counting to addition and subtraction (e.g., by counting on 2 to add 2).

    • Counting forward and backward (1-A.11)
    • Skip-counting patterns – with tables (1-A.19)
    • Sequences – count up and down by 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10 (1-A.20)
    • Addition sentences using number lines – sums up to 10 (1-B.3)
    • Subtraction sentences using number lines – numbers up to 10 (1-F.3)

  • 1.OA.C.6 Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. Use strategies such as counting on; making ten (e.g., 8 + 6 = 8 + 2 + 4 = 10 + 4 = 14); decomposing a number leading to a ten (e.g., 13 – 4 = 13 – 3 – 1 = 10 – 1 = 9); using the relationship between addition and subtraction (e.g., knowing that 8 + 4 = 12, one knows 12 – 8 = 4); and creating equivalent but easier or known sums (e.g., adding 6 + 7 by creating the known equivalent 6 + 6 + 1 = 12 + 1 = 13).

    • Adding zero (1-B.4)
    • Adding 1 (1-C.1)
    • Adding 2 (1-C.2)
    • Adding 3 (1-C.3)
    • Adding 4 (1-C.4)
    • Adding 5 (1-C.5)
    • Adding 6 (1-C.6)
    • Adding 7 (1-C.7)
    • Adding 8 (1-C.8)
    • Adding 9 (1-C.9)
    • Adding 0 (1-C.10)
    • Addition facts – sums up to 10 (1-D.1)
    • Make a number using addition – sums up to 10 (1-D.2)
    • Ways to make a number – addition sentences (1-D.4)
    • Addition sentences using number lines – sums up to 18 (1-D.7)
    • Addition facts – sums up to 18 (1-D.8)
    • Addition facts – sums up to 20 (1-D.11)
    • Make a number using addition – sums up to 20 (1-D.12)
    • Add doubles (1-E.2)
    • Add using doubles plus one (1-E.4)
    • Add using doubles minus one (1-E.5)
    • Complete the addition sentence – make ten (1-E.7)
    • Subtract zero and all (1-F.4)
    • Subtracting 1 (1-G.1)
    • Subtracting 2 (1-G.2)
    • Subtracting 3 (1-G.3)
    • Subtracting 4 (1-G.4)
    • Subtracting 5 (1-G.5)
    • Subtracting 6 (1-G.6)
    • Subtracting 7 (1-G.7)
    • Subtracting 8 (1-G.8)
    • Subtracting 9 (1-G.9)
    • Subtracting 0 (1-G.10)
    • Subtraction facts – numbers up to 10 (1-H.1)
    • Make a number using subtraction – numbers up to 10 (1-H.2)
    • Ways to make a number – subtraction sentences (1-H.3)
    • Ways to subtract from a number – subtraction sentences (1-H.4)
    • Subtraction sentences using number lines – numbers up to 18 (1-H.8)
    • Subtraction facts – numbers up to 18 (1-H.9)
    • Make a number using subtraction – numbers up to 20 (1-H.12)
    • Subtract one-digit numbers from two-digit numbers (1-H.15)
    • Relate addition and subtraction sentences (1-I.1)
    • Subtract doubles (1-I.2)
    • Addition and subtraction – ways to make a number (1-J.1)
    • Addition and subtraction facts – numbers up to 10 (1-J.4)
    • Addition and subtraction facts – numbers up to 18 (1-J.5)

• 1.OA.D Work with addition and subtraction equations.

  • 1.OA.D.7 Understand the meaning of the equal sign, and determine if equations involving addition and subtraction are true or false.

    • Addition sentences: true or false? (1-D.15)
    • Subtraction sentences: true or false? (1-H.14)
    • Which sign makes the number sentence true? (1-J.2)
    • Addition and subtraction sentences: true or false? (1-J.7)

  • 1.OA.D.8 Determine the unknown whole number in an addition or subtraction equation relating three whole numbers.

    • Complete the addition sentence – sums up to 10 (1-D.3)
    • Complete the subtraction sentence (1-H.5)

1.NBT Number and Operations in Base Ten

• 1.NBT.A Extend the counting sequence.

  • 1.NBT.A.1 Count to 120, starting at any number less than 120. In this range, read and write numerals and represent a number of objects with a written numeral.

    • Counting review – up to 10 (1-A.1)
    • Counting review – up to 20 (1-A.3)
    • Counting – up to 30 (1-A.5)
    • Counting – up to 100 (1-A.7)
    • Counting on the hundred chart (1-A.13)
    • Writing numbers in words (1-A.22)

• 1.NBT.B Understand place value.

  • 1.NBT.B.2 Understand that the two digits of a two-digit number represent amounts of tens and ones. Understand the following as special cases:

    • Counting tens and ones – up to 99 (1-A.8)
    • Hundred chart (1-A.14)

    • 1.NBT.B.2a 10 can be thought of as a bundle of ten ones – called a “ten.”

      • Counting tens and ones – up to 20 (1-A.4)
      • Convert between tens and ones (1-M.4)

    • 1.NBT.B.2b The numbers from 11 to 19 are composed of a ten and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine ones.

      • Counting review – up to 20 (1-A.3)
      • Counting tens and ones – up to 20 (1-A.4)
      • Place value models up to 20 (1-M.1)
      • Write numbers as tens and ones up to 20 (1-M.2)

    • 1.NBT.B.2c The numbers 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 refer to one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine tens (and 0 ones).

      • Counting by tens – up to 100 (1-A.6)

  • 1.NBT.B.3 Compare two two-digit numbers based on meanings of the tens and ones digits, recording the results of comparisons with the symbols >, =, and <.

    • Comparing numbers up to 100 (1-K.3)
    • Put numbers in order (1-T.3)

• 1.NBT.C Use place value understanding and properties of operations to add and subtract.

  • 1.NBT.C.4 Add within 100, including adding a two-digit number and a one-digit number, and adding a two-digit number and a multiple of 10, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used. Understand that in adding two-digit numbers, one adds tens and tens, ones and ones; and sometimes it is necessary to compose a ten.

    • Add a one-digit number to a two-digit number – without regrouping (1-D.16)
    • Regroup tens and ones – ways to make a number (1-D.17)
    • Regroup tens and ones (1-D.18)
    • Add a one-digit number to a two-digit number – with regrouping (1-D.19)
    • Add two multiples of ten (1-E.9)
    • Add a multiple of ten (1-E.10)
    • Add and subtract tens (1-J.9)

  • 1.NBT.C.5 Given a two-digit number, mentally find 10 more or 10 less than the number, without having to count; explain the reasoning used.

    • Ten more or less (1-J.8)

  • 1.NBT.C.6 Subtract multiples of 10 in the range 10-90 from multiples of 10 in the range 10-90 (positive or zero differences), using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used.

    • Subtract multiples of 10 (1-I.3)
    • Add and subtract tens (1-J.9)

1.MD Measurement and Data

• 1.MD.A Measure lengths indirectly and by iterating length units.

  • 1.MD.A.1 Order three objects by length; compare the lengths of two objects indirectly by using a third object.

    • Compare objects: length and height (1-P.2)
    • Customary units of length: word problems (1-P.6)
    • Metric units of length: word problems (1-P.11)

  • 1.MD.A.2 Express the length of an object as a whole number of length units, by laying multiple copies of a shorter object (the length unit) end to end; understand that the length measurement of an object is the number of same-size length units that span it with no gaps or overlaps.

    • Measure using objects (1-P.3)

• 1.MD.B Tell and write time.

  • 1.MD.B.3 Tell and write time in hours and half-hours using analog and digital clocks.

    • Match digital clocks and times (1-U.1)
    • Match analog clocks and times (1-U.2)
    • Match analog and digital clocks (1-U.3)
    • Read clocks and write times (1-U.4)
    • A.M. or P.M. (1-U.5)
    • Compare clocks (1-U.7)

• 1.MD.C Represent and interpret data.

  • 1.MD.C.4 Organize, represent, and interpret data with up to three categories; ask and answer questions about the total number of data points, how many in each category, and how many more or less are in one category than in another.

    • Comparing – review (1-K.1)
    • Record data with tally charts, picture graphs, tables (1-O.1)
    • Interpret data in tally charts, picture graphs, tables (1-O.2)
    • Interpret bar graphs (1-O.3)
    • Which bar graph is correct? (1-O.4)
    • Count shapes in a Venn diagram (1-T.1)
    • Sort shapes into a Venn diagram (1-T.2)

1.G Geometry

• 1.G.A Reason with shapes and their attributes.

  • 1.G.A.1 Distinguish between defining attributes (e.g., triangles are closed and three-sided) versus non-defining attributes (e.g., color, orientation, overall size); build and draw shapes to possess defining attributes.

    • Name the two-dimensional shape (1-V.1)
    • Select two-dimensional shapes (1-V.2)
    • Count sides and vertices (1-V.3)
    • Compare sides and vertices (1-V.4)
    • Open and closed shapes (1-V.5)
    • Two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes (1-W.1)
    • Cubes and rectangular prisms (1-W.3)
    • Select three-dimensional shapes (1-W.4)
    • Count vertices, edges, and faces (1-W.5)
    • Compare vertices, edges, and faces (1-W.6)
    • Identify faces of three-dimensional shapes (1-W.8)

  • 1.G.A.2 Compose two-dimensional shapes (rectangles, squares, trapezoids, triangles, half-circles, and quarter-circles) or three-dimensional shapes (cubes, right rectangular prisms, right circular cones, and right circular cylinders) to create a composite shape, and compose new shapes from the composite shape.

  • 1.G.A.3 Partition circles and rectangles into two and four equal shares, describe the shares using the words halves, fourths, and quarters, and use the phrases half of, fourth of, and quarter of. Describe the whole as two of, or four of the shares. Understand for these examples that decomposing into more equal shares creates smaller shares.

    • Equal parts (1-X.1)
    • Halves, thirds, and fourths (1-X.2)
    • Simple fractions: what fraction does the shape show? (1-X.3)
    • Simple fractions: which shape matches the fraction? (1-X.4)
    • Compare fractions (1-X.7)
    • Fraction models equivalent to whole numbers (1-X.8)

For kids with a stratospheric or even strong mathematical midichlorian count, these standards may make perfect sense. But the Common Core demands here represent no small mountain for an average six-year-old to climb. If the Force is strong in some kids, by implication that Force must be weaker in others.

If you grab random kids off the desert sands, throw them into pod racers, and yell, “Fly!!”, you will end up standing by a field littered with dead kids and wrecked pod racers.

If you force every child in school to tackle all these standards during their first formal school year, you will see a similar effect.

Eduhonesty and my take on these standards: Even when well-administered, I expect the above standards will lead many young children to decide they are “bad” at math. These kids won’t be clamoring to enter the pod race later. They will be trying to stay as far away from math as possible. Mostly, they will be trying to remain unnoticed as the teacher scans the room in search of raised hands that want to answer critical thinking questions. Some of these kids may be done with math — at six years of age. The right teacher may be able to pull these kids back into the game — but what if they never get that teacher? Children vary in their flexibility and malleability. Some kids decide at three years of age that they hate ketchup and never, ever change their mind.

I HATE MATH can become a mantra of sorts. When that mantra has been repeated too many times, I HATE MATH becomes a force in itself, a barrier a kid puts up for self-protection that teachers will be struggling to break through year by year, possibly for that kid’s entire school career.

If we had an educational Razzie awards category for “So Damn Dumb I Almost Can’t Believe It,” I would enter the early elementary Common Core math standards.