HIGHWAY TO HELL - ALGEBRA II JUNCTION
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| Thu, 04-26-2007 - 3:44pm |
Has anyone has bypassed this route on your road to parenting? Let me familiarize you with my current Highway to Hell. It is located in the city of Math, still don’t know it? Try exit Algebra II Honors. There exists a land of polynomials, with a few exponents and radicals with stupid algebraic expressions on their faces, all debating the quadratic function of life.
DD is an excellent student, A’s in Civics, Bible and English II Honors, however she is failing Algebra II Honors. We have been battling traffic on this highway for the past four months and have now found ourselves at the Ninth Circle of Math Hell. She has declared she now hates Math, loved it in the previous ten years, but nope, this year she just doesn’t relate to the concept.
There are many possible explanations to her struggle this year. The teacher, the less than interesting subject matter, DD's lack of effort and discipline to use available resources, the school system structure, etc. We have instilled the importance of learning and education to two completely different children. DS is an intellectually oriented young man and DD a socially oriented young lady. They possess identical senses of humor and opposite styles of learning information, he learns for the love of learning and she learns what she loves.
Unfortunately, educational systems in American today are geared not to individual learning methods, but a focus on the grade versus actually instructing the student in an intelligent and engaging manner. A manner that results in the student actually comprehending the subject versus suffering total defeat. Our local school system seems content to inspire learning through daily routine that is cycled adnausem to be repeated on a paper exam. Conventional teaching methods seem to hinder both the challenged, and the gifted in acquiring an appetite for knowledge.
We were provided these tips for DD's success in Algebra II Honors class from the teacher, who refuses to make eye contact when speaking to you, I have added my thoughts for additional insight.
1) Review homework each night: Okay, I can look at the homework, but I have long since lost the ability to interpret quadratic functions.
2) Make certain they get 10 hours of sleep each night: What planet do you live on?
3) Reinforce math through everyday life: Okay, as soon as I can think of a way to work in Euclid’s axiom into our daily routine I will get right on that one.
4) I am always here to help: It is not helpful to call my daughter a ditsy blonde, it is also not helpful to treat her with disdain when you discover she is receiving tutoring from one of your co-workers.
5) Test re-takes are always available if she does not do well on the initial test: Did anyone else get do-overs in High School because they did not perform well on the first test? (Refer to previous comment on pressure to produce a grade)
DD has, under duress from the The Meanest Parents In The Entire World, surrendered. Her response: “Mom, really, when will I use this in the real world?” As much as I would like to say, you are right dear daughter, we all know there are hoops you must jump through in our educational system to arrive at the the end of the course. This term she has failed to even apply a minimal effort to improving her understanding of the subject. DH and I have resorted to what I like to call catalyst agents, DD declares they are certainly going to end her social life, I disagree, I could resort to these methods. Pain sometimes motivates change, I would settle for a concerted attempt.
We have enacted the following catalyst agents until a true effort is forthcoming:
1) No computer on school nights
2) Afterschool tutoring 4 days per week-1 hour per day & 2 hours of individual tutoring from home (quite obviously we are not the tutors)
3) Extremely direct conversation with the teacher regarding ditsy comment and what his thoughts are on why DD may not be "receiving" from his teaching lessons.
4) Incentives are installed in the catalyst for change plan for positive effort
5) Online quizzes and assistance directly from her Algebra book (COSMEO.COM - ROCKS!)
Anyone else have any ideas other than having to relearn Algebra II myself, kill the teacher, redesign NC educational objectives or praying she doesn't have to retake the class?
Anyone know how I could get Matt Damon from Good Will Hunting to help tutor? That would provide incentive.

My DD got stuck w/ a less than great teacher in 11th grade for Honors Pre-Calculus. This teacher was pretty young and I figured that she was one of those very smart people who just could not explain things in a way that normal smart people could understand. I think DD ended up getting a B for the course but she hated this teacher. She had to get a lot of help from smarter friends, or at least friends who "got it" for the class. There was also another math teacher who she has had a crush on and who is also one of the trach coaches (she's on the track team), so she had no problem asking him for extra help. I think the tutoring is the good route to go. And no, even though I got A in math all through high school and went up to advanced math (trigenometry), I forgot everything I learned and I could never help her either.
Now the funny thing was that in 12th grade, she decided to take Advanced Placement Calculus. My thought "are you nuts?" since she had so much trouble w/ pre-calc. This year, another young teacher (a man) who she just loves. I gues he is a much better teacher. When I expressed my doubts, her reaction was "you don't think I can do this". Well, yes, based on the previous year, I was wondering if she was a masochist. She certainly didn't need this to graduate, plus the fact that she was taking honors Physics, Anatomy & Physiology, Spanish IV, Semantics (I think that's it). She has managed As or Bs and will be taking the AP test soon.
I know what you mean about the school system teaching for tests. Now Mass. has a test that everyone has to pass to graduate. It's given in 10th grade, so there are opportunities to re-take it. Now usually, by 10th grade, most kids have only finished Algebra I and Geom, although DD was in Algebra II by 10th grade, since she had the accelerated plan. So what does that mean? Everything after that is a waste of time? My DSD failed Alg. I in 9th grade, so she got an extra math class in 10th grade which was actually just how to pass this test.
Let's see, 10 hrs. of sleep? Obviously, this person does not have children, at least ones in high school. Since they get up about 6:30 a.m. (and that's cutting it pretty close), that would be 8:30!!! Many times DD had to work until 10:00 and we don't even finish dinner until around 7:00. I guess they would have to stop giving homework to fit in all the sleep. I consider it successful if she's in bed by 11:30.
All I can do is commiserate - ds's geometry teacher this year (freshman) is the same - sure they're not clones?! DS liked math, wanted to go into the sciences. Now that he's had her, he HATES it and is ready to drop to 'easier' math just because this year has been so awful. She yells at him for talking when he's not (she has a hearing problem), tells him to stop looking around when he's not (per him; I do believe him), asked him what he was doing when he was reaching down to get more paper - she's into public humiliation, which just makes him shut down. She had him come in to retake a quiz he hadn't completed during study hall, walked to his desk, took it and ripped it up - he said he wasn't done - she said sorry and gave him another. Huh!? She talked to his counselor and then went back in and changed his homework scores - he had the papers with the original higher grades on them - do I call her on that?! He's not the best at showing work - she said she doesn't know if he's copying - I wrote back that he has a great 'work ethic' and he and the friend who's helping him with the material have known each other since 2nd grade and would never dream of copying, or cheating...I just wouldn't sit for that kind of (emailed) accusation. She's such a piece of work.
Sue, with a degree in math, infuriated that one person can crush a subject for a kid like this
Hi,
Horrible math teachers are plentiful.
Horrible math books are also a problem.
My DD had a horrible teacher who announced that she did not want to be a teacher on day one.
The books are the CPM series - - an unconventional teaching program that does not provide instruction but instead wants you to "discover" how to do the problems.
After a semester of nonsense, we opted to switch to an online math course with a regular math book. We were fortunate that we were even able to find an honors math course series online. The school will give full credit for the online math class.
Don't feel trapped. Consider the possibilities.
<<>>>
Awww.. Whatsup. Just remember...
It's not your fault....It's not your fault...It's not your fault....It's not your fault...
It's not your fault....It's not your fault...
Highly amusing post! I can sympathize with the math difficulty. I wanted to add one more variable to your list of reasons for having trouble with math. I remember sweating bullets and getting loads of extra help from my 8th grade math teacher on a particular math concept/section. Somehow, no matter how it was explained to me, my brain would not go there. I suffered through and did just barely ok. But when the next year began and we touched briefly on that old subject, suddenly I completely understood everything and could do the proofs with ease. The only difference was: time. I don't know if my brain was just still growing, or if my subconcious was doing math in my sleep all summer (LO!), but suddenly the grey matter was doing new tricks!
My DD is only in 7th grade, so her homework is still comprehensible to me. She has always said she loved math, until this year when they bumped her up two levels. After one semester of struggling, the school decided on their own to let her go back to where she would have been normally. Thank heavens. I think the experience was of value to her, she has very little experience with having to really sweat to "get it."
'Course now she is in a class with a newbie teacher who maybe didn't pay attention in Teacher Class. He makes the students do masses of homework on a subject (including neatly writing out the 50 questions/problems onto the homework paper), tests them on that subject, then gives them back the corrected homework two weeks later. If they did the homework wrong, they never know until after the test, so what WAS the purpose of the homework? Hmmmm?
Newbie teacher sounds like she has the same 'skills' as ds's older teacher - she randomly adds homework grades, and then goes back and changes them on the online grade report, even though the original paper had a different grade. And tests/quizzes are handed back so they can see their grade, then scooped back up - no going over them, etc. What's the point!?
For ds, even if he does still end up with a D+ in there, he only has to repeat the semester this summer (3 weeks, 5 hours/day - grueling but should be 'review' and with a better teacher). If his present teacher is teaching this summer, there's NO way I'd let him take it (nor that he'd consent to go!).
So frustrating. And he 'gets it' when dh or I go over it with him too (he claims she really just doesn't teach) - it's more that he's just so turned off with her constantly ridiculing him that he loses it in class when it comes to taking tests. SO frustrating, but only 2 more weeks!
Sue