C's graphing calculator has surfaced.
It was in his locker, jammed between two notebooks.
That's a good thing.
Unfortunately, it is also a bad thing, because it means C. has a graphing calculator. Leafing through the many-colored spendor that is our new Glencoe Algebra textbook, New York Edition, I spy numerous graphing calculator exercises, lesson upon lesson culminating in graphing calculator "features" and the like.
This can't be good. Apparently, the kids are going to be poking away at their hundred-dollar graphing calculators during "math lab," an extra period of math the 8th graders attend every other school day. The math lab teacher has told the class they will "need" their graphing calculators for math lab.
Let us hope the math lab teacher misspoke.
The math lab was originally put into the schedule by our former principal, who had noticed long lines of students snaking out of the then-chair of the math department's office every morning, each awaiting his turn to receive "extra help." Since at that time the big tests happened in the 4th and 8th grades, he decided to add extra periods of math to the 8th grade schedule.
The new middle school principal, who is forging ahead with planning for the dreaded middle school model on orders from our superintendent, wants to get rid of the math lab, which will have the effect of rendering our middle school exemplary (very important!), because it will free up time in the schedule for Exploratory Programs on Darfur and the like. That was the example he gave, an exploratory program on Darfur.
Needless to say, Ed and I were counting on the extra math period to serve as catch-up time for C. As far as we are concerned, there should be NO graphing of functions on hundred-dollar calculators by a student who, exactly 8 weeks ago, did not know how to figure 10%.
There should be diagnostic assessment, and there should be remediation.
By remediation I mean formal remediation, remediation planned and overseen by actual math education professionals, not by me.
So.
I'll probably bug them about this.
Then I'll do it myself.
the good news
The good news is that C's math teacher is fantastic. That's the math teacher I'm talking about, not the math lab teacher.*
He is a real, live teacher -- and a guy, to boot!
A guy who watches football, and roots for a particular team!
C. is in heaven.
His homework assignments, thus far, have been perfect.
I had heard good things about this teacher, but by the end of the summer I had been thinking we were beyond the point at which an effective teacher was going to make a difference one way or another. By now a lot of these kids -- by no means all, but a number of them -- are going to have math knowledge so riddled with gaps, holes, and yawning chasms that one teacher working alone isn't going to cut it.
But now I'm thinking.....perhaps all is not be lost.
More later.
TI 84 page on ebay
"instructional time issues"
hundred dollar calculator
178 days left 'til summer
email to the principal re: hundred dollar calculators
other people's money
what is the opposite of a silver lining?
* The math lab teacher may be great, too; I've heard one report thus far, and it was glowing. I like glowing. My point is simply that the math teacher and the math lab teacher are two different people.
Catherine,
ReplyDeleteI was glad to read C. is happy with his math teacher. You sound pretty happy yourself! This is a positive note to end such a dreadful day.
Thanks for sharing this.
This is synchronicity!
ReplyDeleteI was just putting up a post for you!
It was a strange day, because we are 6 years out from 9/11....so I didn't know what to say, if anything, on the blog ------ but I'm sick as a dog!
ReplyDeleteI have to think that's not a coincidence.
Christopher was thinking about it a lot.
ReplyDeleteHe came home talking about it.
It must be so strange for him, to think that 6 years have passed.
He was in 2nd grade when it happened.
But yes, I'm feeling WILDLY happier about the state of C's math education for the year.
ReplyDeleteI'm starting to have an image of how things could be when you have a competent teacher with a reasonably competent child who has gaps in his math knowledge....
Yes, he needs lots more work; he needs afterschooling up the ying-yang.
But I'm forming an image that his classroom teaching, as well as his homework, could actually contribute to improvement.
I remember Barry once writing me an email about trying to stay one step ahead of the train wreck when his daughter was using EM.
ReplyDeleteI have now had two straight years of trying to stay ahead of the train wreck.
Two!
In a row!
Also, I haven't been ahead of the train wreck.
ReplyDeleteI've been lashed to the tracks.
Now that my elementary school is going ahead with full math investigations, I feel the train bearing down on me. I keep thinking of all the knowledge gaps in my nine year old and sometimes I feel I can't fill the wholes fast enough.
ReplyDeleteYet, when I look around I don't see too many people concerned. I will say that a closed friend of mine just placed her child in a tutoring center in our affluent area. She pays $80 an hour Monday thru Thursday to help him become a better student. Geez!
However, I am "wildly" happy about your image of what a competent teacher looks like because perhaps there is hope for the rest of us.
"The math lab teacher has told the class they will "need" their graphing calculators for math lab."
ReplyDeleteI was going over lesson 1-2 in the new (2008) Glencoe Pre-Algebra textbook and they were talking about order of operations. I told my son that those order of operations are useful only for for horizontal (calculator or computer) math. Left-to-right calculation is not used in REAL math. I told him that in algebra, division is not a slash character, its a horizontal line. Algegra is two-dimensional, not one-dimensional and should be done on paper.
X = 21/5 * 30/7
You don't want to apply the order of operations to this. You should automaically see it as:
X = 21/7 * 30/5
With variables, it could be
X = 3a/b * 6b/a
Perhaps this is a minor point, but I see books going way overboard about order of operations when they should focus on basic identities, like a*b = b*a.
By the way, a problem in the book wanted my son to calculate the check number for the 10-digit ISBN number for the math book. They didn't check the new edition because the book now has a 13-digit ISBN number. So we looked up the method online and my son got to learn what "modulo" means.
... which brings up another topic: attention to details. Rubrics are coming home left and right. They use ratings from 1 - 5 (it used to go to 4) where great emphasis is placed on neatness, effort, and attention to details. My rating for the school so far is a 3 - meeting expectations. And we all know how bad you can be and still get a 3.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether to laugh or cry when I see grammar and spelling mistakes in rubrics. The rubrics used to go to 4, so when the teacher updated the rubric sheet to change it to 5 levels, the number 4 was erased and she put in a 5. There is no level 4 defined.
At times like this, we can throw away all talk of research and pedagogy, (that gives them way too much credibility) and just talk about competence. Parents need to put together rubrics for schools.
OK, while I'm at it, the 7th grade Glencoe Pre-Algebra textbook is the only textbook my son has. It may not be perfect, but there it is in black and white (and color splatter). I can look at it and I can make sure my son is prepared. For ALL of his other classes (so far) there is not even a workbook.
They handed out a curriculum framework(?) to parents, but the descriptions are so vague as to be meaningless. There are no details and no descriptions of levels of performance. We just have to wait for rubrics to come home for each lesson. They are not giving us parents the tools we need to make sure that our kids are best prepared for school. Perhaps it's because they are just winging it from lesson plan to lesson plan.
Schools want parent involvement, but they don't give us the tools and information. They don't seem to realize that behind every good student there are parents who do a lot to fill in for their deficiencies. Why worry when you can just blame the kids, the parents, or society. Throw around a lot of pedagogy, research, and happy talk, and you can change the subject.
"They handed out a curriculum framework(?) to parents, but the descriptions are so vague as to be meaningless. There are no details and no descriptions of levels of performance."
ReplyDeleteI felt this same way last night when I attended yet another back-to-school night.
Algegra is two-dimensional, not one-dimensional and should be done on paper.
ReplyDeleteVery cool!
Well.....we are going to have writing in math!
ReplyDeleteLots and lots of writing in math!
What will our kids be writing in math?
They will be writing about their feelings about math.
Also, they will be writing about their feelings in ELA.
I am assuming, in the absence of further information, that they will also have the "opportunity" to write about their feelings in Spanish when they get to Spanish class.
Have you noticed that "opportunity" is the big word in writing instruction now?
ReplyDeleteStudents should have lots and lots of opportunities to write.
This is exactly like having an opportunity to pay taxes.
ReplyDeleteI oppose rubrics.
ReplyDeleteSON CHRIS MUCH BETTA OFF!!
ReplyDeleteKids should not touch a graphing calculator until they are in pre-calculus and event hen it should be used sparingly but, no one listens to a teacher.
ReplyDeleteIn Singapore we learn BODMAS, so it wasn't so much as right to left as outside - inwards.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I realised I've come to loathe the lower grades' "Contemporary Mathematics in Context" textbook. (Fancy Latin for: "we're watering down the mathematics but adding in cool pictures, cuz it's what's hip and modern in education.") Luckily I never had to go through it myself, but when you're trying to help fellow students in the Learning Lab...