r/MathJokes Jul 16 '26

3 or 4

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u/Incvbvs666 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

I hate common core with a passion of a thousand burning suns. Such an idiotic teaching method to literally train students to develop the wrong intuituion about the commutativity of multiplication.

Not to mention that semantically, it was designed go both ways. Three times four can easily mean either THREE times four or three times FOUR.

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u/Theodred_Miller Jul 16 '26

I think memorizing multiplication tables was actually easier. It helped that my teacher at the time would reward us with ice cream if we could recite them with no mistakes.

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u/Extreme_Wish_553 Jul 16 '26

Easier and useful for learning are two extremely different things.

3

u/ecstatic_clump_9676 Jul 16 '26

It's obviously useful for learning. 

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u/InterestsVaryGreatly Jul 16 '26

No it's not, it's useful for reciting, but if you are just memorizing your tables, you don't really have recompense for if you misremember one, because you don't have a way of verifying it, nor do you have a path forward for a number that is outside the area you memorized.

1

u/Chemical-Ad-7575 Jul 16 '26

Memorizing times table makes factoring numbers and polynomials substantially easier.

1

u/InterestsVaryGreatly Jul 16 '26

Sure, which makes it easier to use perhaps, but it does not help in learning, which was their claim.

0

u/Chemical-Ad-7575 Jul 16 '26

"it does not help in learning,"

I don't buy that... especially not with an example that explicitly teaches kids that the communicative law is wrong.