A little girl we'd taught to knit - I taught a couple of knitting classes in the after-school program two years ago, and my neighbor helped with the classes - had lost her mother to cancer on Sunday.

Her father died two years ago, also of cancer, not long after the class was over. My neighbor and I hadn't even known he was sick.

After the death, a friend learned that our student had gone every day to the hospital to see her father. She had taken her yarn and needles, and had sat patiently by her father's side, knitting and telling him to eat and take his medicine. Today, she read a poem she and her sister had written about their mother.

I'm going to remember, each day, to send good thoughts to the family. I hope the two sisters will take a trip to the mall with me sometime soon, if that would be fun for them.

I have no idea whether it helps for perfect strangers to send good thoughts to children who've lost so much; naturally the 'research' says no.

But this is one of those cases where I can't worry about research.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Apr 2006

comments...

Specifically: a C in writing.

Which means I'm doing a lot worse than Ed, who is getting a B-. I'm also doing worse than our friend N., who told Ed, when they ran into each other a couple of weeks ago, 'I'm getting a B in middle school.'

On the other hand, I'm a couple of points out in front of the distinguished British historian.

She's getting a C-.

update: Ed now says she got a C+ and I "made it into a C- in my head."

We have a lot of these conversations.





my day and welcome to it

So yesterday, after spending all day at a funeral, I finally came home to a telephone call from Christopher's English teacher, Ms K. This is a different Ms. K, not the math Ms. K.

The English-teacher-Ms. K is a dedicated teacher who is paying attention, and is teaching real content. Spelling, grammar, handwriting (not trivial — we need it), and writing as a process of revision, topic statements, etc.

She's also a kind person who is wide awake as to the situation with Christopher and with us.

She was calling to tell me that Christopher had gotten a grade of 72 on his Book Share report, and had been visibly upset. He had put his head down on his desk, and she'd never seen him that way. So she wanted to call me, let me know, and talk about it.

That was great. It's above and beyond, and it's what a professional ought to do under the circumstances.

SO: my point is, I'm not having a problem with Ms. K-of-English. I'm having a problem with her grading, but not with her.





Book Share project

Here is Christopher's report.





What we have here is a failure to communicate

After a lengthy conversation with Ms. K, I don't know what's wrong with this paper.

What I mean to say is, I don't know what's wrong with it in Ms. K's eyes.

I know what I would think was wrong with this paper, if I were the teacher.

If I were the teacher, I would think the parent wrote it.

Ed said the same thing this morning, when he read. He said, and I quote, 'If I were the teacher I'd think this student had a lot of help.





so let's start there

I didn't write the paper.

Ed's take is right, however.

The paper is a hybrid. The ideas are all Christopher's, the structure is the teacher's, the pulling-it-all-together-into-a-coherent-form is mine.

Christopher came up with the thesis himself (unless his teacher taught this idea in class): he said, 'I call it a realistic fantasy story.' That is a terrific perception! I was so proud!

Christopher had to write this report Tuesday night, after being out sick for a week. He had a science test and a math test scheduled for the next day, too, and of course he'd missed all the classes covering the material that was going to be tested. Three massive projects to get through in one night.

We started with the Book Share.

Christopher sat next to my computer, I posted the list of required content next to my screen, and Christopher told me what he thought and put it into his own words. I suggested edits and more varied sentence structure as we went along.

I suspect this approach may be an effective way of teaching writing; I've done it before with other kids (not in this class or this school). Humans are observational learners, and this approach combines observational learning with doing....So I tend to think it's OK, in a pinch, to use this approach on a homework assignment. We were in a pinch. There was no way on earth we were going to get through one written report and two cram sessions in one night without doing it that way.

Long story short: this is more help than I would normally give Christopher, and more help than I've given him in the past.

Ed is right about what's wrong with this paper.

What's wrong is too much help from the parent.





what does the teacher think is wrong?

That's the rub.

I don't know.

She said two things specifically:


1. all paragraphs must have concluding sentences

me: That wasn't on the assignment sheet. I can have him write concluding sentences in all paragraphs, but I have to know you want him to write concluding sentences in all paragraphs.

teacher: It was on the other sheet.

me: I didn't see the other sheet. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep searching backpacks and notebooks for other sheets because What if This Sheet Doesn't Have The Whole Assignment?

teacher: I understand. I know you feel that way.

me: I can't go on like this.


Seriously.

That was the conversation. I am now having conversations with teachers in which I say, 'I can't go on like this.'


2. he needed to write a complete paragraph on the theme of the book

me: speechless


And that's it so far. I have no idea how he lost 28 points for not having concluding sentences in each paragraph and not having one full paragraph on the book's theme.

For that matter, I have no idea how any piece of writing can have a precise grade of 73.

I mean, what made it not a 74?

Or a 72?

I'm completely mystified.





did I mention I'm a writer?

So....we went round the mulberry bush a few times.

I said, in a non-hostile, non-rank-pulling tone, I'm a writer, I have a Distinguished Teaching Award, Ed's a writer, he has two Distinguished Teaching Awards (he's just been nominated for a third at NYU!), I taught writing to gifted kids at Johns Hopkins CTY, etc....and I said I just can't tell what she thinks good writing is.

I said I'm not quarreling with her view of good writing; I just don't know what it is.

I said professional writers don't have concluding sentences at the end of every paragraph, for instance.

She agreed.

Professional writers, she said, would not write the way she's teaching the kids to write.

She herself would not write the way she's teaching the kids to write in her own papers for graduate school.

What she wants, she said, is for Christopher to write the way an 11-year old writes in an English class, at this stage of the game.

This was not a veiled accusation that I had written the paper & not Christopher. I think she might have been saying that an 11-year old needs to learn a certain simple form first, before he tackles more sophisticated forms, the way you don't have an art student start with action paintings. He has to learn to draw first; then he can throw cans of paint on a canvas and make it work.

At least, it's possible she was saying that.

I don't know what she was saying.

She did say that it was very important for Christopher to learn to write the way she was teaching him to write, because he would need to be able to do it in 8th grade.^*





this isn't working, part 999

We left it that Ms. K would give me samples of 'A' papers.

She didn't want to do it.

First she said I shouldn't be thinking about grades.

I said If you're going to give the kids harsh, low grades on the work they do, then they're going to think about grades. If you don't want them to think about grades, stop grading them.

She basically agreed with that.

Then she said she had taught them, in class, what they were supposed to do.

She had told them, "A topic sentence is like an arrow hitting a target."

I said, 'I just don't know what that means. It's a nice analogy, it makes sense, but I just can't translate it to what that would look like on paper, to you.'

I said, 'We have to have models. We have to actually see what a good Book Share report looks like to you.

So then she tried her last tack, and said she really wanted 'just to work with Christopher directly.'

I said no.

I said, for about the 5 gazillionth time in the conversation, 'I can't go on like this.' (I also mentioned homeschooling several times.)

I said, "I want you to work with him, that's my preference, but we can't go on like this. We have to see models of what it is he's supposed to be able to do."

She said she would give us models, and she said she understood.





models t/k

So.

I'm going to take a look at the models Ms. K supplies, and see what's what.

I'm thinking there's a specific formua for paragraph writing that she wants the kids to master.

I'm thinking, too, that in this case 'report' actually means 'list of paragraphs.' Christopher did his last Book Share project completely on his own - we didn't even see it - and he got a grade of 86.

He wrote separate paragraphs answering each question individually. No thesis, no transition sentences, etc.

Separate paragraphs are fine, although he's capable of creating a simple organizational structure and of writing transitions between paragraphs and ideas.

It may be a good exercise to write highly formulaic paragraphs. I tend to think that once a child has shown he can write a simple paper, that's what he should do.

But I don't know.

So we'll see what the models look like and go from there.

But no more guessing games. I really can't live this way; more accurately, I won't live this way.

Ed worked on the CA social studies/history frameworks, and told me that a good framework (or was it standard?) tells you two things:

• what a child is expected to know

• what a child is expected to be able to do

I don't know either of these things about any of Christopher's classes in middle school.

Enough's enough.





waiting for me in my Amazon basket

^* The principal himself told us that the 7th and 8th grade writing programs "need work." So.....I'm guessing Ms. K knows what she's talking about here.


no grade inflation in the suburbs
grade deflation in Irvington
grade deflation in the suburbs, part 2
is there a dangerous myth of grade inflation?

gradedeflation


-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

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TheFirstShoeDrops 07 Apr 2006 - 19:48 CatherineJohnson


I was standing at the buffet table after the funeral yesterday when a mom I see everywhere in town came up and said, "I hear you write a blog."

I must have looked stricken, because then she said, "A good one."

So then we talked.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

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AtTheSeventhGradeTransitionMeeting 07 Apr 2006 - 19:54 CatherineJohnson


Word of the 7th grade transition meeting was buried deep inside one of the school board emails. No flier in the backpack, and you had to RSVP in order to go.

We would have missed the meeting altogether if it hadn't been canceled due to snow a couple of weeks back. Word of the cancellation, unlike word of the meeting itself, had its own subject line in the email from the Board. After that we knew to be watching.

I missed it. I was drained from the funeral, and from my latest conversation with a middle school teacher about the latest indecipherable 'C' on Christopher's latest assignment.

Plus I'm slightly on strike. I've told Ed I'm not going back to the middle school, he's ignoring me, and I'm telling him again. And again. (More on that anon.)

So Ed went to the meeting and I went to bed.

I'm sorry I missed it.

Scott Fried convened the meeting surrounded by his team of teachers. He spoke at length, instructing parents in the appropriate way to communicate with the school. We shouldn't go to him first, we should go to the teacher first, etc.

At some point he said, 'I don't mean to treat you like children,' which of course was precisely what he did mean to do, at some level. To Scott, parents are adversaries; someone has to win and someone has to lose.^* I'm very protective of my teachers.

Finally it was parents' turn to ask questions.

Ed said, "The issue of communication is involved in a problem we've experienced this year in middle school. We all want our children to do excellent work. We try to do excellent work ourselves. And we find that many of our children are receiving low grades indicating that they haven't mastered the skills being taught. The problem is that the school hasn't communicated its standards to parents. So when we try to help our children, we don't know what the school considers to be excellent work. We need samples of work you consider to be excellent."

Boy I wish I'd been there for that.

One mom in the crowd, who happens to be a teacher herself, gave Ed a huge thumbs up; another came up to him and congratulated him 'on his question' after the meeting.

One of the teachers sitting with Scott started to say that he occasionally shows kids models of good writing 'on the overhead,' which is the standard evasion around these parts: I taught that in class. It's on the handout. It's on the other handout. And so on.

Raina Kor, the assistant principal who is moving to Main Street School, jumped in, cut him off, and said, "We know we need to do that. We know we need to give parents models of what we think is excellent work and we're going to do that."


^* I can work with that.


at the 7th grade transition meeting
framing a question
now we're communicating



-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

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FramingAQuestion 07 Apr 2006 - 20:22 CatherineJohnson


After the transition-to-7th-grade meeting last night, Ed said something that struck a chord.

He said the problem for parents trying to speak in forums like this is that they 'can't frame a question.'

Bingo!

I can't frame a question, either.

Next he said to me, "You have the kind of life where you're used to intellectual combat."

I said, "No, I don't! I hate intellectual combat!"

Then I thought, Oh, right. That's my marriage.





backwards and wearing high heels

Suddenly it hit me.

Parents are Ginger Rogers.

Remember that great saying about her?

"Ginger Rogers did everything Fred did, and she did it backwards and in high heels."

That's us.

All of the communication advantages are on the side of the authorities, the authorities being the administration and/or the school board.

When the PTSA hosts a forum or 'debate,' same thing. We can only speak when called upon, and we have to stop speaking when told to stop.

Those are the only forums available to us. We can talk about our concerns in large, public forums under strictly enforced time limits, and and often we must frame our comments, perceptions, thoughts, and desires as questions.

If we have a political statement to make, if we are trying to persuade other parents to support us in working for change, if we'd like to tell the community about the existence of cognitive science and non-spiralling curricula, we have to frame our communication as a question.

And we have to do it on their turf.





home court advantage

Well, as Christopher would say, 'I stink at framing questions.'

That's why I'm writing a blooki.

Writing a blooki gives me the home court advantage. I have control of my tone, message, pitch & pacing, and if I say something stupid I can hit Edit and delete.

Of course, with a blooki you have the complication that you don't know if anyone is reading — and, when you start getting the vibe somebody is reading, you don't know who.

But that's the fun part!

I'm not thick-skinned, but I'm the least paranoid person on earth.

Seriously. I once consulted a psychiatrist because I was falling apart over Jimmy and Andrew. During the first interview she asked me one question after another about paranoia. Did I ever think people were talking about me? and the like. I kept saying 'no' and she kept asking new variants of the same thing until finally I said, 'Is there a category for people with abnormally low paranoia?'

She said there was.

I'm going to let you guess what it was.

Until this moment, it hadn't occured to me that, in the realm of blookis, being the least paranoid person on earth is the functional equivalent of being thick skinned.





so who's good at framing questions?

I have the answer to that.

Two kinds of people:

• lawyers

• professors

I hadn't quite grokked this, but professors spend a huge amount of time sparring-via-question. Listening to papers and asking questions is a HUGE part of academia. I never got that far in my couple of years teaching college; I only got as far as being the person having to answer the questions. I was pretty good at that, but I never had to develop the skill of asking a question that blows everyone away.

Lawyers can do that.

And professors.





Eugene Schwartz on reading & asking questions
Eugene Schwartz on reading & asking questions, part 2

at the 7th grade transition meeting
framing a question
now we're communicating



-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

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IrvingtonTeacherTutorsPart2 07 Apr 2006 - 21:13 CatherineJohnson


Ninety bucks an hour.

I have the answer to the bonus question, too.

My friend's child went from being in danger of having to repeat 6th grade to getting all As and Bs in a couple of weeks.

1. Flunking
2. Hire Irvington teacher-turor
3. Two weeks later: As & Bs






how much do Irvington teacher-tutors make?
Irvington teacher-tutors, part 2
new Irvington policy

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

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IrvingtonTeacherTutorsPart3 07 Apr 2006 - 21:25 CatherineJohnson


Another interesting tidbit I picked up this week.

Apparently the administration is writing a new policy saying Irvington teachers can't tutor Irvington students for pay.





how much do Irvington teacher-tutors make?
Irvington teacher-tutors, part 2
new Irvington policy



-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

comments...

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NowWereCommunicating 07 Apr 2006 - 21:53 CatherineJohnson


So after Ed asked his question about Communication, Standards, and What Kind of Writing The School Considers to be Excellent, the parade moved on and pretty soon the principal was telling everyone that Next year we're going to have writing across the curriculum.

We don't actually have a curriculum, as curriculum specialists define the term 'curriculum,' but never mind. We are going to have writing across whatever it is we do have.

Or not.

I've resisted reading too much about Writing Across the Curriculum, but what I have read doesn't precisely jibe with the science teacher's plan. "Next year I'm going to take off points for incomplete sentences on tests," she said.

Ed broke in at that point and said, "That's very helpful. That's the kind of concrete expectation parents would like to know about. If the science teacher is going to deduct points on science tests for incomplete sentences, parents will appreciate being informed of this policy."

He said the science teacher gave him a black look.





rush to judgment

OK, I've learned my lesson.

I Googled Writing Across the Curriculum, and found this:








Naturally the wording of item number 7 wasn't making me any too happy, until I clicked and found this:





If we're going to have spelling out of criteria, giving out of models of good papers, and teacher commentary, I may be able to live with Writing Across the Curriculum after all.

Did I mention that one of the 7th grade teachers told his class he wouldn't give them models of good papers because 'they might copy them'?

I believe I did.


at the 7th grade transition meeting
framing a question
now we're communicating



-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

comments...

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AllKenAllTheTime 08 Apr 2006 - 00:21 CatherineJohnson


Ken's been practicing again. [update: original post is here ]

I have to put up some posts from a book I found....in Cambridge, I think. It's about what great teachers do differently. One of the main things they do differently is have high expectations for themselves.

Also, I MUST interview my sister finally. She was a teacher before she had kids; she is the exact opposite of the teachers on Ken's thread.

When we talked about her experiences teaching, she said things like, 'I always felt like if a child got a bad grade, that was a grade on me.'

Japanese teachers say the same thing, IIRC. (I think Stigler & Stevenson report this, but I'M NOT GOING TO LOOK IT UP NOW!)


-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Apr 2006

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CollegeAdmissionsSqueeze 08 Apr 2006 - 00:36 CatherineJohnson


Top Colleges Reject Record Numbers Schools Say Surging Applications Produce Unusually Competitive Year; Stanford Admits 11%! ($)

It's just getting worse and worse!

It'll be way worse in 2012!

11% worse!

It's not just the sheer number of applicants that makes schools competitive. The colleges indicate that they are also seeing large numbers of highly qualified students. The University of Pennsylvania turned away 394 of the 1,045 valedictorians that applied. Also, about 70% of applicants who got near-perfect scores in the math and critical-reading sections of the SAT were turned away, says Mr. Stetson. At Brown, 94% of admitted students this year were in the top 10% of their class.

It's all bad.

Which can only mean one thing.

Time for a glass of life-extending red wine. I want to live to see my son rejected by the top college of his choice.

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Apr 2006

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ProbabilityQuestionSaxon87 08 Apr 2006 - 18:47 CatherineJohnson


update: take a look at Ken's & Rudbeckia Hirta's discussion in the Comments thread

Robert was asked to select and hold three cards from a normal deck of cards. If the first two cards selected were aces, what is the chance that the third card he selects will be one of the two remaining aces?

source:
Saxon Math Homeschool 8/7
Lesson 119
Mixed Practice
#1


I don't know how to answer this problem.

First of all, choosing 3 aces in a row seems like a series of dependent events, but the answer given — 4% — is the answer you would get by assuming that the 3rd ace is an independent even.

So this is like tossing coins?

And why don't I get that from the wording?

Another thing: this question reminds me of the Monty Hall problem, but I don't know why.

Why do I think that?






low birth weight paradox (& Monty Hall)
Monty Hall, part 2
Monty Hall, part 3
false positives
false positives, part 2
Doug Sundseth on Monty Hall
John Kay: We are likely to get probability wrong (subscription only)
Monty Hall diagram from Curious Incident
probability question from Saxon 8/7
a question about learning probability

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Apr 2006

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WeathervaneMe 09 Apr 2006 - 01:44 CatherineJohnson


I've mentioned a couple of times that I'm almost bizarrely mainstream.

I'm also, due to general giddiness, I guess, an Early adopter type, and occasionally even an Innovator.

For my entire adult life, virtually every time I've developed a New Interest, 5 seconds later I find out everyone else has developed the same new interest, too. For instance, take the matched vests in this family photo.

These vests are from The Gap. I saw them one fall and fell in love with them, but they were too expensive. I wanted them desperately. I would go to Gap stores from time to time, just to check them out. They were lovely.

Eventually I more or less forgot about them....and then one day sometime around Christmas all of a sudden the vests were on sale at The Gap in Sherman Oaks — 2 vests in the twins' size, and 1 in Jimmy's!

I snapped them up, and my best friend Cindy took a Christmas photo of the kids wearing their matched fair isle vests from The Gap.

Immediately afterwards the vests turned up everywhere.

They were on the cover of TV GUIDE. (Somehow I'm remembering them as being associated with Don Johnson's cop show. Did he have a son in the show?? Was it the son who was wearing the vest? I remember a daughter....)

They appeared on a child in a soup ad in a magazine. (I think it was soup.)

The vests were on my children, in my Christmas photo, and they were everywhere else, too. Stylists had scooped them up and photographed ad campaigns and magazine covers of PEOPLE WEARING THE EXACT SAME GAP FAIR ISLE VESTS I'D JUST SPENT 3 MONTHS OF MY LIFE OBSESSING OVER.

I used to keep a running list of all the things I'd bought that TV stylists had bought, too. Our Limoges china (from Paris, no less, bought when the exchange rate was good, later destroyed in the Northridge earthquake) was on DALLAS. Our sofa pillow was on THIRTYSOMETHING. Our dishtowel with the blue-and-white checkerboard pattern and the little pig was on ROSEANNE. Later, when we moved to New York and bought a rug for the twins' room on sale at ABC Carpet and Home, the rug was on THE SOPRANOS. In the son's room.

My greatest triumph when it comes to Jumping On The Train First Not Last is math.

Eightteen months ago, I became obsessed with math — obsessed with math to the point of writing a blooki about math. That's really obsessed. I never wrote anything about the vests.

Five seconds later, the President of the United States is announcing math initiatives in the State of the Union speech.

This happens to me constantly. I call it Surfing the Zeitgeist. People should forget about forming focus groups and just get me to free-associate for a half hour or so about Stuff I'd like to Know, or Stuff I'd like to Buy, or whatever it is, then form their strategic plans accordingly. They'd make a fortune. I think.





Friday in the TIMES

So last week I decided to pull my kid out of public school and enroll him in a virtual charter school. (I've decided; Ed is in the process of deciding. Which is probably just as well. Not sure you want two early adopters in one marriage.)

Two weeks ago I'd never heard of virtual charter schools.

Last week Carolyn's friend Linda P clued me in, and the next week I hopped on the virtual charter train.

And now this op-ed in yesterday's NYTIMES:

Virtual Schools, Real Innovation
By ANDREW J. ROTHERHAM (aka eduwonk)
Published: April 7, 2006

A WISCONSIN court rejected a high-profile lawsuit by the state's largest teachers' union last month seeking to close a public charter school that offers all its courses online on the ground that it violated state law by depending on parents rather than on certified teachers to educate children. The case is part of a national trend that goes well beyond virtual schooling: teachers' unions are turning to the courts to fight virtually any deviation from uniformity in public schools.

[snip]

Virtual charter schools grab headlines, but they are actually relatively minor players. The Center for Education Reform reports that there are 147 online-only charter schools in 18 states, with 65,354 students. In other words, virtual schools make up just 4 percent of the entire public charter school sector. And a third of them can be found in just one state, Ohio.

Still, they are valuable for many students. For example, a student in a rural community with few schooling options who finds the curriculum in her school too limiting might be better served through an online program that allows her to learn at her own pace. So, too, might a ninth grader who finds unbearable the jock-and-popularity culture that still largely prevails in our high schools. And some parents may want to be more involved in their child's education than is possible in traditional public schools but don't have the time or resources to do fully independent home schooling.

[snip]

...virtual charter schools are just part of a larger debate about public education. There is a universal American desire for customization and variety in goods and services, and education must respond to that demand, whether the unions like it or not.

[snip]

This debate, like the ones over many other education issues, is fundamentally about who gets to have power. [ed: I'll say] Yet the power the teachers' unions now wield will be fleeting if public schools do not become more responsive to parents.

This is my best timing yet.





The change in customers as a technology matures. In the early days, the innovators and technology enthusiasts drive the market; they demand technology. In the later days, the pragmatists and conservatives dominate; they want solutions and convenience. Note that although the innovators and early adopters drive the technology markets, they are really only a small percentage of the market; the big market is with the pragmatists and the conservatives. (Modified from Moore [1995]).

source:
The Invisible Computer, Chapter 2
The Invisible Computer
MIT Press



Linda P on K12
eduwonk op-ed in TIMES on virtual charter schools
Change Agent Me

Linux desktop adoption
Crossing the Chasm
The Innovator's Dilemma

keywords: marketing


-- CatherineJohnson - 09 Apr 2006

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PalmSunday 09 Apr 2006 - 18:39 CatherineJohnson









I find this painting quite beautiful, too, though I don't know what it represents. (Click on 'full size image').

The artist is Hyatt Moore.


-- CatherineJohnson - 09 Apr 2006

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QuestionAboutLearningProbability 09 Apr 2006 - 19:05 CatherineJohnson


I learned almost nothing about probability as a kid; I'm almost a blank slate.

So I'll try to remember to take notes on my learning process as I go along — which explanations and lessons work well for me, which ones aren't as effective, and so on. (Carolyn's much better at this kind of thing than I am, so we'll see. I've never kept a journal in my life!)

Looking at Rudbeckia Hirta's explanation, which I have yet to read, sparked an observation and a question.

So far, I think I've done best with visual, 'branching tree' examples like hers —





Have other people experienced this?

Another helpful approach: Saxon 8/7 has an Activity Sheet that gives you a sample space for the various outcomes when you roll two die, then has you construct a bar graph of the results.

That was wonderful.

It didn't cause me to understand probability better, I don't think.

But it was incredibly compelling and 'useful' (can't explain 'useful') to see the shape and order of the bar graph. I assume this is related to the 'bar model' phenomenon. I can't explain why bar models should be so powerful and 'ordering' for me, but they are.

One more thing.

I find branching trees much more comprehensible than 'sample spaces' and grids of all kinds. The multiplication grid never makes much sense to me, though I haven't sat down and really focused on the thing.

The fact that I haven't done so is a clue, however.

I do feel motivated to study a branching tree.

I don't feel motivated to study a grid. When I see a grid, I think "I'll get to that later."

So far, for me, grids seem to erase distinctions and patterns, rather than to highlight and reveal them.

Each square on the grid is the same size, and the numbers inside the grid seem subordinate to the ordered squares.

I don't necessarily think it has to be this way. The '100s grid' I use with Andrew now makes all kinds of sense to me. When I look at it, the numbers 'pop.' (I think they may 'pop' for Andrew, too. Tens go below tens, 1s below 1s, etc. He seems to see this. I'll post some KUMON sheets so you know what I mean.) So it's possible that a grid requires more textual support than I've been given with some of the grids I've encountered in textbooks.

I wonder whether branching trees work better off the bat because a branching tree contains an implicit 'narrative element' — a first, middle & last sequence....(can you tell I went to film school?)

I'm going to have to finally get around to reading Daniel Willingham's article on narrative.


probability question from Saxon 8/7

-- CatherineJohnson - 09 Apr 2006

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GradeDeflationInTheSuburbsPart2 09 Apr 2006 - 21:03 CatherineJohnson


Ed got the scoop on the distinguished historian who got a C- on her middle school paper.

Turns out she didn't get a C-.

She got a C.

Also, the reason she wrote her daughter's paper was the same reason I put so much time into Christopher's C paper: her daughter was overwhelmed with projects due the next day and there was no possible way she could do it all. So her mother wrote the paper, and the daughter did the rest.





this is rigor in suburbia

At least, this is rigor in my neck of the woods. Overwhelm the children with work they can't possibly manage in the allotted time, then give them Cs and Ds on the work they do complete, and tell the parents, 'He's going to get it. Don't worry. The wheels are spinning. He's thinking.' I heard these exact words last week, from Christopher's English teacher. I don't know exactly what she meant, but judging by her tone she seemed to be saying, 'He's brighter than I thought. With hard work, I think he can learn to read and write at a middle school level.'

The message Ed and I get from our middle school — the tone of the message — is sympathetic and concerned. Don't worry, he's capable of learning, it will take time, why are you thinking about grades so much?

He's an ordinary boy, and ordinary boys are ordinary.

Everyone knows boys do worse in middle school than girls. Direct quote.

You can't compare American schools to European schools. Direct quote.

Given what I'm hearing from other parents, this is the Middle School Message in any number of schools.

I've mentioned this before, but I'll repeat myself:

Three different families have told me their 6th grade children came home not long after the beginning of the year saying that a teacher had 'come into' their classroom, had drawn something that sounds like a bell curve on the board, had told the children that they were 'average,' that 'average' is 'normal,' and that 'average' means a grade of 'C.' The children were not to be upset about getting 'Cs.' They should expect to get 'Cs.' Because they're average.

From where I sit, Irvington Middle School has a formal or informal grading policy that stresses giving Cs to 6th grade students, and perhaps to 7th and 8th grade students as well.

Why else would Mrs. R tell us, on Back to School night, that she would not be assigning 15 minutes of daily reading because middle school is so emotionally painful for children that asking them to read every day would be asking too much?

"That first D is devastating," she said. "Devastating."

I took notes. That is a direct quote. The word she used was devastating. She was telling us our children would be devastated by 6th grade.

And sure enough, my child was devastated by 6th grade — by Mrs. R herself, in fact.

Of course, I don't know that IMS has a formal or informal policy of giving Cs for average work regardless of its quality.

I don't know anything at all about the formal or informal policies governing grading at the Irvington Middle School.

I know a great deal about the appropriate way to communicate with the Irvington Middle School when I have a problem. I am not to go directly to the principal. I am to speak to the teacher first. I am to be cordial when I do.

I don't know anything about curriculum, grading policy, educational philosophy, or the results of any schoolwide testing of my child or how much of the curriculum he has mastered and how well he has mastered it.

the best defense is a good offense

"Middle schools are the place where achievement goes to die."

All middle school administrators have heard this line.

So say you're a middle shool principal who firmly believes that 'you can't expect American schools to do what European schools do' (how many times have I heard our principal and assistant principal say this?)

And say you're getting heat from parents who think that, at $18,000 per pupil spending, this particular American school should do what European schools do.

What's your move?

My move might be to institute a harsh and arbitrary grading policy.

The kids are doing badly, the parents are working around the clock to help their kids 'bring their grades up,' and nobody's got the time or energy to complain about international standing.


no grade inflation in the suburbs
grade deflation in Irvington
grade deflation in the suburbs, part 2
is there a dangerous myth of grade inflation?

bellcurve
gradedeflation

-- CatherineJohnson - 09 Apr 2006

comments...

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GradeDeflationInTheSuburbsPart3 09 Apr 2006 - 21:50 CatherineJohnson


Does anyone know a resource that would tell me how other middle schools with kids in our SES grade?

I'm convinced we have grade deflation here. But in fact, I don't know how other schools grade.

Do other middle schools like mine take a 'C' to be 'average' regardless of the quality of the work?

And is there really a dangerous myth of grade inflation?


no grade inflation in the suburbs
grade deflation in Irvington
grade deflation in the suburbs, part 2