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Four weeks into the school year and already we've had our first bomb threat. A new record? Possibly. It's a happy place, Irvington Middle School. UPDATE 10-6-2006: I've heard from another parent that middle schools all over the county have lots of bomb threats. "There's always bomb threats," Christopher says. "Nobody really cares, because, ... you know...." Yes, son, I do know. I don't care, either. Just so long as our scores bounce back in the 11th grade! That's what counts. So today they evacuated the kids to the Catholic school down the hill, the one I was threatening to send Christopher to until I found out about the Lucy Calkins writing program. They made them stay there 'til 4, and then there wasn't any bus. Christopher doesn't take the bus, but still. The other news is that thanks to the bomb threat Christopher didn't take his math test. Which means more time to practice some Work Backwards problems. All the textbooks have work backwards problems these days. I'm assuming we have Polya to thank for this, but I don't know. Offhand, I'm inclined to think Work Backwards problems are a fine thing, a clever and sensible innovation. I didn't think so last year, but that was then. Still, I wish the books — and Ms. K — would approach Work Backwards problems with more rhyme and reason. Or with any rhyme and reason. One of my favorite Carolyn posts was the one about Understanding Basic Algebra Moves, where she wrote:
I love that idea, undoing what's been done to it; I love it so much I've never forgotten it. Work Backwards problems aren't a bad way to hammer in this point. The problem is, nobody hammers it in. They just give the kids 5 Work Backwards problems to do, and then they take a test. So last night I rustled up some Work Backwards problems in a nice little Algebra 1 Workbook I have from the Skill Builders series, and found, not surprisingly, that Christopher couldn't do them. He could do the ones he'd done in class; he couldn't do the new ones from a different book, which were a bit harder. For instance, he didn't immediate see that "undoing" taking a number times itself and getting 2041 means finding the square root of 2041. In fact, he didn't see it at all. I finally had to just tell him. So then I started just telling him what Carolyn said about algebra meaning you undo what's been done to the number, and reminding him about inverse operations, etc...and he thought that was kind of cool. So here's a thought. Why not spend longer than one class and one homework set of 5 word problems doing Work Backwards problems? Or, if you don't have longer than one class to spend on Work Backwards problems, why not distribute some Work Backwards problems in the homework sets you give throughout the school year so the concept would start to grow on the kids, start to fan out to other problems and other operations and maybe even to the Big Picture that is Algebra 1? Just asking.
Anyways, tonight, seeing as how Christopher didn't get to take his math test, he can do some more Work Backwards problems.
Speaking of which, I am determined that this year Christopher will GET the fact that if an item is reduced by 10% that means you are going TO PAY 90%, so all you need to do to find the sale price is multiply the original price by .9. This is going to happen.
UPDATE 6:10 pm: oh yay. They're going to have an assembly on the bomb threat tomorrow. They've already missed two periods of class for the bomb threat; now they'll miss a couple more so they can discuss the bomb threat. UPDATE 10-6-2006: They had the assembly. The principal told them they have "too much freedom" or "a lot of freedom," something like that - God only knows - and they were all going to have to stay inside the building during lunch break, apparently as a form of collective punishment though I don't know. "Don't be mad at me," he told the kids, "be mad at the person who did this." I've emailed the principal to find out what the policy is. Then when I don't find out I'll email him again. Another bomb threat this am, apparently district-wide, the 2nd in 3 days. UPDATE 10-11-2006: 3:23 PM: I did get an answer! The new principal, when we met with him, was direct, frank, and not defensive. Wonderful. The kids were kept inside for 2 reasons: logistical reasons having to do with getting a monitor posted by the bathroom(s) and reasons of deterrence based in his experience at his previous school, where waves of bomb threat behavior could get set off by the first note left in the bathroom. He'd found that a group consequence could nip the sequence in the bud and had imported the approach to IMS. "Group deterrence" has something in common with group punishment, of course; I'm sure this is why some kids came home thinking they were being punished. I'd get antsy if we had to have lots of group deterrence, but bomb notes left in the bathroom are hugely disruptive — and "punishing" in their own way to kids who miss class and are then under pressure to make up the work on their own. If it's possible to deter copycat bathroom bomb note writing by having everyone stay inside for a couple of days, the kids are going to spend more time in class and less time milling around the ICS parking lot. Which is probably a trade-off most parents are willing to make.
a typical Work Backwards problem:
Rainbow Resource
algebra advice from Bernie & V
Math Forum on Work Backwards
-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Oct 2006 Back to: Main Page.
Four weeks into the school year and already we've had our first bomb threat. A new record? Possibly. It's a happy place, Irvington Middle School. UPDATE 10-6-2006: I've heard from another parent that middle schools all over the county have lots of bomb threats. "There's always bomb threats," Christopher says. "Nobody really cares, because, ... you know...." Yes, son, I do know. I don't care, either. Just so long as our scores bounce back in the 11th grade! That's what counts. So today they evacuated the kids to the Catholic school down the hill, the one I was threatening to send Christopher to until I found out about the Lucy Calkins writing program. They made them stay there 'til 4, and then there wasn't any bus. Christopher doesn't take the bus, but still. The other news is that thanks to the bomb threat Christopher didn't take his math test. Which means more time to practice some Work Backwards problems. All the textbooks have work backwards problems these days. I'm assuming we have Polya to thank for this, but I don't know. Offhand, I'm inclined to think Work Backwards problems are a fine thing, a clever and sensible innovation. I didn't think so last year, but that was then. Still, I wish the books — and Ms. K — would approach Work Backwards problems with more rhyme and reason. Or with any rhyme and reason. One of my favorite Carolyn posts was the one about Understanding Basic Algebra Moves, where she wrote:
It's the basic trick of algebra; you solve for something by undoing what's been done to it, remembering that anything you can do to an expression in an equation is okay as long as you do it to both sides of the equation.
I love that idea, undoing what's been done to it; I love it so much I've never forgotten it. Work Backwards problems aren't a bad way to hammer in this point. The problem is, nobody hammers it in. They just give the kids 5 Work Backwards problems to do, and then they take a test. So last night I rustled up some Work Backwards problems in a nice little Algebra 1 Workbook I have from the Skill Builders series, and found, not surprisingly, that Christopher couldn't do them. He could do the ones he'd done in class; he couldn't do the new ones from a different book, which were a bit harder. For instance, he didn't immediate see that "undoing" taking a number times itself and getting 2041 means finding the square root of 2041. In fact, he didn't see it at all. I finally had to just tell him. So then I started just telling him what Carolyn said about algebra meaning you undo what's been done to the number, and reminding him about inverse operations, etc...and he thought that was kind of cool. So here's a thought. Why not spend longer than one class and one homework set of 5 word problems doing Work Backwards problems? Or, if you don't have longer than one class to spend on Work Backwards problems, why not distribute some Work Backwards problems in the homework sets you give throughout the school year so the concept would start to grow on the kids, start to fan out to other problems and other operations and maybe even to the Big Picture that is Algebra 1? Just asking.
Anyways, tonight, seeing as how Christopher didn't get to take his math test, he can do some more Work Backwards problems.
Speaking of which, I am determined that this year Christopher will GET the fact that if an item is reduced by 10% that means you are going TO PAY 90%, so all you need to do to find the sale price is multiply the original price by .9. This is going to happen.
UPDATE 6:10 pm: oh yay. They're going to have an assembly on the bomb threat tomorrow. They've already missed two periods of class for the bomb threat; now they'll miss a couple more so they can discuss the bomb threat. UPDATE 10-6-2006: They had the assembly. The principal told them they have "too much freedom" or "a lot of freedom," something like that - God only knows - and they were all going to have to stay inside the building during lunch break, apparently as a form of collective punishment though I don't know. "Don't be mad at me," he told the kids, "be mad at the person who did this." I've emailed the principal to find out what the policy is. Then when I don't find out I'll email him again. Another bomb threat this am, apparently district-wide, the 2nd in 3 days. UPDATE 10-11-2006: 3:23 PM: I did get an answer! The new principal, when we met with him, was direct, frank, and not defensive. Wonderful. The kids were kept inside for 2 reasons: logistical reasons having to do with getting a monitor posted by the bathroom(s) and reasons of deterrence based in his experience at his previous school, where waves of bomb threat behavior could get set off by the first note left in the bathroom. He'd found that a group consequence could nip the sequence in the bud and had imported the approach to IMS. "Group deterrence" has something in common with group punishment, of course; I'm sure this is why some kids came home thinking they were being punished. I'd get antsy if we had to have lots of group deterrence, but bomb notes left in the bathroom are hugely disruptive — and "punishing" in their own way to kids who miss class and are then under pressure to make up the work on their own. If it's possible to deter copycat bathroom bomb note writing by having everyone stay inside for a couple of days, the kids are going to spend more time in class and less time milling around the ICS parking lot. Which is probably a trade-off most parents are willing to make.
a typical Work Backwards problem:
Jack walked from Santa Clara to Palo Alto. It took 1 hour 25 minutes to walk from Santa Clara to Los Altos. Then it took 25 minutes to walk from Los Altos to Palo Alto. He arrived in Palo Alto at 2:45 P.M. At what time did he leave Santa Clara?
Rainbow Resource
algebra advice from Bernie & V
Math Forum on Work Backwards
-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Oct 2006 Back to: Main Page.