Common Core Update: Feelings More Important Than Accuracy in Math Answers

The latest update to the Common Core education standards mandates that students may “answer mathematics problems by responding with whatever their feelings are telling them at the time,” according to sources familiar with the revised 2016-2017 iteration.

The Christian blog The Babylon Bee, citing unnamed sources, revealed the sentimental madness our nation’s children are being made to accept:

One example problem given to illustrate the updated standards asked students to figure out when a 6:00 a.m. train leaving Boston at thirty miles per hour and a 7:00 a.m. Milwaukee train headed the opposite direction at forty miles per hour will intersect. A list of possible solutions to the sample problem published in the Common Core standards obtained by reporters indicated that “Ugh,” “I’m offended,” “Triggered,” “Trains scare me,” “Boston scares me,” “Milwaukee scares me,” and “Kill yourself,” would all be scored as correct.

“Any emotion, feeling, statement, or catchphrase is an acceptable answer to most of the problems in the new mathematics standards,” a Common Core representative informed interested media outlets. “As long as students are being sincere, genuine, authentic, and true to themselves at the time they are answering the question, that’s all we can ask as educators.”

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“Who are we to tell anyone that their own mathematical truth is wrong?” the Common Core representative added.

The Babylon Bee reports that these same touch-feely standards will be added into the Common Core standards set for history, biology, and chemistry. English literature teachers apparently are already able to take the students’ feelings into account when it comes to filling out report cards.

In July, 2015, The New American’s Selwyn Duke reported on the adoption by schools in California of sensitivity-based grading:

The United States may be producing only one-tenth as many scientists as does China, but if California is any guide, Americans may soon excel in at least one area: “sensitivity.”

That is, as defined by modern educational overlords.

It’s all part of the new standards of Common Core, the controversial education program pushed by Barack Obama and the Department of Education. Writes the Sacramento Bee:

Across the state [of California], report cards are undergoing a sea change in how students are measured for academic performance. Where teachers once graded students on traditional math or English skills, they now judge attributes such as grit, gratitude or being sensitive to others.

Districts are changing their report cards to reflect the new Common Core State Standards, which are intended to move students away from rote learning and memorization. Rather, critical thinking and analysis geared toward deeper understanding of academic subjects are the goals.

… For … traditional academic subjects, teachers grade students on a 1-to-4 scale. But when it comes to attributes such as grit or being sensitive to others, they give students one of four marks: A for almost always, O for often, S for sometimes and R for rarely.

A report published by Berkely favorable to considering feelings in the grading of work demonstrates just how far the Progressive school statists have fallen:

Emotions can run high when students try to defend their point—which can all too often lead to hurt feelings. Educators need to teach students how to transform “you’re wrong!” or “that’s a stupid answer!” into “from my perspective” or “I respectfully disagree.” 

Creating a caring and safe classroom builds respect among students. They learn to understand and accept that other people have different perspectives than them. Educators who build students’ emotional literacy by teaching them how to identify emotions in themselves and others are giving students the tools to predict how others’ feel and then respond appropriately—all of which will lead to much more effective (not to mention fun and engaging) academic discussions.

In other words, if a student is asked on a math test to write the sum of two plus two, an answer of “five” won’t get marked red, it will be marked “from my perspective the answer is four.”

The ultimate purposes of the Common Core standards seem to be to numb the minds of children, to indoctrinate them to accept mediocrity, to erase from the collective memory of Americans all the greatness and goodness of our Founding Fathers, and to leave them completely unmoored from moral virtue and educational excellence.

Finally, if James Madison is any authority on the subject, the future of liberty in this country is dangerously close to being abolished by autocrats pushing these Progressive “educational” standards. 

In 1822, Madison wrote: “A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

In light of the proliferation of Common Core standards, it seems our republic is heading toward a tragic end, ruled over by tyrants who purposefully kept us ignorant.

The updated Common Core standards were published Monday, October 3.