A video entitled ”s been making the rounds as an example of what’s wrong with Common Core, a curriculum developed by the National Governors Association now adopted by almost every state. Here’s the transcript from the group that posted the video:
But even under the new common core if even if they said 3 * 4 was 11, if they were able to explain their reasoning and explain how they came up with there answer. Really in words and aural explanation [sic] and they showed it in a picture but they just got the final answer wrong. We’re more focused on the how and the why.
But as Media Matters rightly (typing that painfully) points out, the video was selectively edited to make it sound a lot worse that it was:
AUGUST: Even if they said, ‘3 x 4 was 11,’ if they were able to explain their reasoning and explain how they came up with their answer really in words and ion oral explanations, and they showed it in the picture but they just got the final number wrong, we’re really more focusing on the how.
OFF-SCREEN: You’re going to be correcting them, right?
AUGUST: Absolutely, absolutely. We want our students to compute correctly. But the emphasis is really moving more towards the explanation, and the how, and the why, and ‘can I really talk through the procedures that I went through to get this answer, and not just knowing that it’s 12, but why is it 12? How do I know that?
Meaning it’s better for a student to know why “3 x 4 = 12″ than to simply memorize the answer. That’s nothing revolutionary.
We should be having a debate on Common Core, but using bogus video clips hardly helps.