Ms. K. returned today. The final assessment happens Thursday and today is Monday, so one might have thought she'd give the kids a hint about what the assessment will cover.
But no.
The kids in the other sections "played games," according to C. and his friend M.
C's class, on the other hand, had been "bad" with the sub, so Ms. K. punished the lot of them by making them do a worksheet filled with nested FOIL problems none of them had ever seen or attempted before.
C. worked 45 minutes and finished 2 problems.
I'm sure he got both wrong, but we'll never know since Ms. K does not collect or correct homework blah blah blah.
Two more days and then freedom.
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Ms. K punished her students with math.
It's going to take awhile for that one to sink in.
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Goldstar Homework Mom just called: do I know what's going to be on the final assessment?
This is a measure of how completely fed up I am.
I have no freaking idea what's going to be on the final assessment.
Actually, that's not the measure.
The measure is: I don't care to track Ms. K down to the ends of the earth to find out what's going to be on the final assessment.
I haven't written an email.
I haven't written a follow-up email.
I haven't blind-copied the teeming hordes of ticked-off Irvington math parents on my efforts.
I haven't posted anything to the Forum.
I've had it.
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That doesn't sound like me, does it?
Maybe I'll cook something up tomorrow morning.
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all the answers are belong to us
email to the math chair
second request
teacher's manual
it would be unusual
more stuff only teachers can buy
inflammatory
2 weeks off
the return of Ms. K
getting better all the time
I e-mailed a teacher last week about a rubric for a Language arts assignment (off topic, sorry). 10% of the points were for the written article, and the other 90% were for following instructions on how to assemble it into a "magazine" (it seemed to me that in a language arts class, at least 50% should be for the writing). She e-mailed back and told me that a major concern was that children learn how to follow instructions for a complex task like this, so the grading scheme was what she wanted.
ReplyDeleteIt was most discouraging. Is my child learning anything academic?
"Ms. K punished her students with math."
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have ever encountered a college student who has a "problem" with algebra who did not have a teacher like that. It can be worse (letting the other kids know who is doing badly and that it is OK to pick on them), but it is not uncommon to find teachers who hate math and do their best to teach that attitude.
With an adult student, one can get them to comprehend that they are being held hostage by an evil person from 10 years ago, and let it go. I don't know how you deal with it in real time, but I have seen test scores double when a student realizes the problem is not with their ability to do math.
to L^2:
Yes. Students can flunk out of engineering school if they cannot or will not follow directions. I know of classes where they get a zero on an assignment if the pages are out of order or a pen (with the right color of ink) was not used or the name is not in the correct place on each page.
That said, I would expect them to be graded on writing, but I can understand why a teacher would not want to grade carefully a stack of papers at the very end of the semester. The best time for careful grading is when students can learn from it.