The Challenges That Our Children Need

I’ve just read a recent article – a brief interview – about the changes parents may expect to see in their child’s math homework next year with the new Common Core Standards.  While I did not think the article was particularly informative, I did learn from the comments (as is often the case).  Below is one of those comments (bold at the end is mine).

“(Common Core)… is definitely not dumbing down the math, it’s ramping it up. Someone who is (justifiably) concerned about US kids falling behind worldwide should be very glad to see changes like this one, because too many kids know *what* to do in math problems, but not *why* they’re doing those things or *how* those things work. A deeper understanding of numbers and their manipulation leads to smarter kids who can use math better, rather than just memorizing what steps to take for which math problems.
 
Kids absolutely DO need to be challenged in school. The more challenge the better! Facing educational challenges leads to more learning, more confidence, and more flexibility with knowledge. Remaining unchallenged leads to indifference, under-achievement, and less learning. “Learning what works” implies that only one thing works for a given situation, and that memorizing that thing is the answer. This leads to adults who can’t solve problems for themselves. Many different solutions may “work” to solve a particular problem; a child who can generate, evaluate, and apply a solution, then assess its efficacy, is more likely to succeed.

The challenge kids need, though, is not exposure to (and memorization of) a bunch of facts. Rather, kids need to be challenged to learn how to acquire the information they need, how to synthesize and apply information, how to predict and adapt to outcomes, how to generate and evaluate ideas, etc. If, in the midst of all that, they never learned fact X or fact Y, it will be a piece of cake for them to pick those facts up when they need them.