A frustrated parent responds on a Common Core assignment. Looks like it's back to the old New Math.

[MineralMan]

46. Absolutely.

I gave the daughter of a good friend of mine clarinet lessons, starting at age 10 when the school band experience began at her elementary school. In the process, she and I became friends, and she made much more rapid progress in playing the clarinet than her peers who were just getting the typical school instruction.

I often asked her how she was doing in her other classes. One day, she complained about learning fractions. She was having difficulty, as many kids do, with understanding how to work with them and how to think about them. So, I said, "Do you have a ruler?" She said yes, and I asked her to get it.

We skipped the clarinet lesson, and I used the ruler as a number line, since it had the fractional measurements all neatly place on it already. We also had a pad of paper. An hour later, she understood the basics of adding and subtracting fractions, common denominators, and more in her head. Now, I don't know how her teacher was teaching those concepts, but sitting there with her and looking at those fractional divisions and creating her own on a sheet of paper, we got the job done. She never needed any further help with fractions, once she understood clearly what they represented and how the numbers were used.

ETA: We also used the centimeter side of the ruler to learn about decimal fractions. Her comment: "Whoa. That's a lot easier. How come we make it so complicated?" I had no good answer for her question, since she wasn't really ready for a powers of 2 discussion, and told her that it was all based on history and that it was unfortunate that kids in the US had to learn a non-decimal fraction system. But, she got it that she'd still have to learn it.

One on one. Sadly, there are too many kids in each class and such instruction isn't really feasible. Parents often help, if they understand the concepts themselves. But, schools have a very tough job, since every kid learns differently. I do not have a solution for that. I could teach one child to understand fractions, but am not sure how to make sure a class of 30 can all learn fractions.