So... had a parent-teacher conference with the Impossible Son's primary teacher today. It was interesting, and encouraging.
It was only supposed to be for 15 minutes, but... we ended up talking for 45! We talked about the Impossible Son's math problems at length, and I found that he's been rushing through his math assignments so he can read a book afterwards. While she's pleased to see him reading, she's not so pleased that he's rushing through his math, getting problems wrong, and not asking for help. He says nothing to her. Just finishes as quickly as possible and hands in it, then grabs his book and disappears into it.
*sigh*
Shades of his mother. Meaning me. Which means I know exactly what he's doing.
So, I told her, explaining yet again about the lack of trust in his teachers, and said, "It's not you personally. This started in second grade, with Mrs. Oblivious Teacher, who is now teaching fifth grade." I filled her in on what he had gone through, trotted out several of the math "explanations" she had given me, and followed up with what he had gotten in third and fourth grade, including the outside issues that were causing problems for him.
"Was he as lost as he seems to be now last year, too?" Mrs. S. asked me.
"Oh, yes," I replied. "I had Mrs. H. send home math homework, worksheets, whatever it took, to tutor him through what was stumping him."
We went over what I've found so far that stumps him, showed her what he was doing and what I had done to correct it, and finished with, "I can't help him if I don't know what's going wrong, so please, please, please send home worksheets!"
About this time, a mouse made its presence known.
Not long after that, a second larger mouse made its presence known.
We spent the rest of our time with our feet up off the floor, keeping an eye out for the mice, and talking about the Impossible Son and what we could do to help him.
Somewhere in there, I found myself volunteering to tutor three of her students who are having difficulty with reading comprehension. They read beautifully, but have no memory whatsoever of what they've read. "Apparently, this is a skill they didn't learn back in second grade," she said grimly. "Nor have they been tested or had any sort of intervention recommended, so far as I can find out. And the parents are... not responding to any of my notes."
Oh, goody.
So... this should be fun. I'll start out twice a week, and depending on how things go, I may end up doing it more often, but we'll see. I figure getting them to break the stories down into smaller parts and asking them to tell me what they remember is a good place to start, and I'll expand from there.
The other advantage is that this gets me into the Impossible Son's classroom twice a week, so I can see what's going on and unobtrusively observe him in class.
Lastly, I also need to talk to his Language Arts teacher about why he's making a 75 in a class he normally makes 90's to 100's in. I mean, seriously, this is a kid who is reading at a 7th grade level! I mean, I have my suspicions, but... I'll wait until I talk to the teacher.
*sigh*
Tis a puzzlement!!
Showing posts with label bad teachers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad teachers. Show all posts
Monday, October 24, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Another Math Rant in the Making...
Yes, you were spared my math rants last school year because of the Incredible Mr. Knickerbocker™, the most Awesome Math Teacher in this district. He, unlike most of the other teachers here, actually makes it his business to find out what the kids that will be coming into his class are learning at their previous schools. And this is why he is rarely surprised when they come to him with little or no math skills.
I wish the other teachers at the freshman campus and the high school would do this. It would reduce the amount of eye-rolling that happens whenever they say, "You should have learned this by now..."
This goes for every single subject they take, by the way.
Anyhow, the Impertinent Daughter's current Algebra teacher is completely unaware of what they have and haven't learned before coming to his class and... he doesn't care. He started his class with, "I don't do subtraction or division. I don't like it."
O_o????
Yeah, we're in trouble.
Because his "explanations" are... horrendous. I have no doubt he can do the math. Problem is, he understands it so well, he takes all these shortcuts, and expects his students to understand them. Problem is... if you don't have a grasp of how the equations work in the first place, if you don't understand the "long method " (his words) of doing them!
She understands how to do this. However, the wacky explanations she's been getting over the last three weeks have completely thrown her, so when she had to take a test yesterday, well... she didn't do well. And was so very upset when she got home. 'I know I know this stuff!" she wailed, "but I'm so confused!!"
She wrote out one of the problems she remembered for me and said, "I have no idea how to do this!"
I looked at it and was stunned.
x - 5 > 7
"You do know how to do this," I said, shaking my head.
"But..."
"Honey, you treat the greater than sign like an equal sign," I said and did the problem for her.
x - 5 > 7
x - 5 = 7
x - 5 + 5 = 7 + 5
x = 12
Her jaw dropped. "I do know how to do this! But... why didn't he say that??"
I shrugged.
"This is how he showed us how to do this," she said, and grabbed my pencil. "You just turn the minus sign into a plus."
x - 5 > 7
x + -5 > 7
x > 7 +5
And... he didn't go past that point in the notes.
Okay, that's great, and that works... if you already know how to do it the way I did it! If you don't, or if you don't remember it because you didn't spend your summer holiday doing algebra and math, you'll be completely lost!! You want to teach them shortcuts, great. Do it after you've taught them the standard forms!!
It looks like the Husbandly One and I are going to be algebra teachers again this year. As well as chemistry teachers. Because, yeah, I had to spend some time learning how to do dimensional analysis so I could teach the Impertinent One how to do it, because her chemistry teacher can't. And she admitted it, too! "If you can't understand my explanations, go to the teacher next door and ask her. She's better at it than I am."
And this woman is the Advanced Placement chemistry teacher!!!
In better news, I got the Impossible Son through a misunderstanding in multiplication. It seems one of his previous teachers, in teaching him how to multiply large numbers, taught him to add... oh, geez, let me just show you.
This is, of course, completely wrong!! Because the answer is actually 125.
So... I did it both ways, side by side and right next to each other, explaining what I was doing on every step, and asked him which answer made more sense.
"Um, 125," he said, frowning. "And the way you did it makes more sense, too. Because the way I was doing it just... felt weird."
Yeah, tell me about it! And I got him through long division again, too, which normally he breezes through, but for some reason, he wasn't getting it. Took me a while to figure out he'd never been taught to use trial and error to figure out where to start. You know, taking a scratch paper and multiplying different numbers against your divisor to get close enough to starting the actual dividing?
Okay, I know that made no sense whatsoever, but it's something we all do. Once I got him past that, he sped through his homework. I'm going to have to chat with his math teacher and point out what's going on so she can reinforce what I've already done. Fortunately, she's a good math teacher, once she knows what the problem is.
It's enough to make me want to scream. And absolutely dread the years he'll be in junior high, with the absolutely sucky math teachers there. It's almost, but not quite, enough to make me want to go back to school and change my major to mathematics so I can teach it. But not quite.
GAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!! *tears out hair*
I wish the other teachers at the freshman campus and the high school would do this. It would reduce the amount of eye-rolling that happens whenever they say, "You should have learned this by now..."
This goes for every single subject they take, by the way.
Anyhow, the Impertinent Daughter's current Algebra teacher is completely unaware of what they have and haven't learned before coming to his class and... he doesn't care. He started his class with, "I don't do subtraction or division. I don't like it."
O_o????
Yeah, we're in trouble.
Because his "explanations" are... horrendous. I have no doubt he can do the math. Problem is, he understands it so well, he takes all these shortcuts, and expects his students to understand them. Problem is... if you don't have a grasp of how the equations work in the first place, if you don't understand the "long method " (his words) of doing them!
She understands how to do this. However, the wacky explanations she's been getting over the last three weeks have completely thrown her, so when she had to take a test yesterday, well... she didn't do well. And was so very upset when she got home. 'I know I know this stuff!" she wailed, "but I'm so confused!!"
She wrote out one of the problems she remembered for me and said, "I have no idea how to do this!"
I looked at it and was stunned.
x - 5 > 7
"You do know how to do this," I said, shaking my head.
"But..."
"Honey, you treat the greater than sign like an equal sign," I said and did the problem for her.
x - 5 > 7
x - 5 = 7
x - 5 + 5 = 7 + 5
x = 12
Her jaw dropped. "I do know how to do this! But... why didn't he say that??"
I shrugged.
"This is how he showed us how to do this," she said, and grabbed my pencil. "You just turn the minus sign into a plus."
x - 5 > 7
x + -5 > 7
x > 7 +5
And... he didn't go past that point in the notes.
Okay, that's great, and that works... if you already know how to do it the way I did it! If you don't, or if you don't remember it because you didn't spend your summer holiday doing algebra and math, you'll be completely lost!! You want to teach them shortcuts, great. Do it after you've taught them the standard forms!!
It looks like the Husbandly One and I are going to be algebra teachers again this year. As well as chemistry teachers. Because, yeah, I had to spend some time learning how to do dimensional analysis so I could teach the Impertinent One how to do it, because her chemistry teacher can't. And she admitted it, too! "If you can't understand my explanations, go to the teacher next door and ask her. She's better at it than I am."
And this woman is the Advanced Placement chemistry teacher!!!
In better news, I got the Impossible Son through a misunderstanding in multiplication. It seems one of his previous teachers, in teaching him how to multiply large numbers, taught him to add... oh, geez, let me just show you.
This is, of course, completely wrong!! Because the answer is actually 125.
So... I did it both ways, side by side and right next to each other, explaining what I was doing on every step, and asked him which answer made more sense.
"Um, 125," he said, frowning. "And the way you did it makes more sense, too. Because the way I was doing it just... felt weird."
Yeah, tell me about it! And I got him through long division again, too, which normally he breezes through, but for some reason, he wasn't getting it. Took me a while to figure out he'd never been taught to use trial and error to figure out where to start. You know, taking a scratch paper and multiplying different numbers against your divisor to get close enough to starting the actual dividing?
Okay, I know that made no sense whatsoever, but it's something we all do. Once I got him past that, he sped through his homework. I'm going to have to chat with his math teacher and point out what's going on so she can reinforce what I've already done. Fortunately, she's a good math teacher, once she knows what the problem is.
It's enough to make me want to scream. And absolutely dread the years he'll be in junior high, with the absolutely sucky math teachers there. It's almost, but not quite, enough to make me want to go back to school and change my major to mathematics so I can teach it. But not quite.
GAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!! *tears out hair*
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