Over the past year or two, we have been introduced to a variety of learning sources to meet the California Common Core State Standards. Why couldn’t we have just used the textbooks from previous years? Although we could, as the years progress, we will begin to take a different route when it comes to the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, which these new books will help us prepare for. Not only will they help us prepare us for the new SATs, “[The new math books] help students develop a sense of responsibility to solve real life problems,” math teacher Mr. Bryan Chan said.

From many different resources teachers have used, they are learning new ways to teach the material as you all are learning from them. Chan started “tapping into the students’ background, using real world examples and realia to illustrate various concepts.” These problems contain more critical thinking, problem solving and student engagement.

When asked how teachers reacted to the new books, math teacher Mr. Joe Raco said, “We sat down with the book as Algebra teachers within the three high schools and said, ‘What are the key things that they [students] need to be successful in Geometry or Algebra 2 in the coming years and focusing on those standards?’” As mentioned above, these standards help prepare us for the SAT’s, as well as real life.

Sophomore Bianca Hernandez understands the math book this year better as opposed to last year when Carnegie was in place. “[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt] gives you examples, and they teach you while you’re taking notes.” As you skim through the pages from the book, you notice there is a lot of fill-in-the-blanks that is a part of note-taking. With many more years to come, we have to wait and see if these books have taught us well.