Dear Hannah - I'm a #StandupStoryteller. I'm the "Brother From Another Planet". Strange people think I am strange. I think that what I experience is strange. And still I rise. I just completed another school year. I am trying to see where I have been ... and where I am going. Math standards changed again this year. Math, though, has not changed. Math is still as universal a language as music. It is a language that is best communicated using words ... plain, simple words. If you read math standards (the old ones or the new ones), the words might get in your way. The math standards are perhaps written by math teachers ... who may not be as adept at "turning a phrase" ... as they are in mistaking rigamarole (unnecessary compilation) with rigor (appropriate level of difficulty) ...