This is real. If you’ve got kids, there’s a chance they might learn a completely different way of doing math than the way you were taught. Love it or hate it, there’s no question this is an interesting and logical way to solve a subtraction problem.

If you are struggling to wrap your head around this, think about handing someone a $20 to pay for something that costs $3.27 and watching them give you change. 3 cents to bring it up to $3.30, than 70 cents to bring it up to $4, then $1 to bring it up to $5, then another $15 to bring it up to $20. 3 cents plus 70 cents, plus $1 + $15 = $16.73.

So 20 – 3.27 = 16.73, All done without borrowing.

UPDATE: To clarify, it’s certainly easy enough to use this “common core” approach when making change, but how would you solve the problem 96003.0023 – 9996.782? I can only do this using standard borrowing. For you folks who grew up with common core, how do you solve this problem?