John Saxon was one of the first to oppose the recommendation of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics to integrate calculators into math classes. The 1989 NCTM standards that urged students to "construct their own understanding" gave Saxon textbooks a new target.

"John Saxon used to say that understanding more often than not follows doing rather than precedes it," Wang says. "If I'm going to teach you how to drive, I don't lecture you on the theory of the internal-combustion engine. I get you behind the wheel of the car and drive around the block."

He adds: "We're not saying we're against critical thinking. But we feel that creativity comes from a well-prepared mind. What we want to give every child in America is the ability to work to develop a well-prepared mind."

comments...

From Chapter 1 Learning and Assessment, in Making Formative Assessment Work by Kathy Hall:

Introduction

The idea that learning is a mechanistic process of breaking down knowledge into smaller units for pupils to digest mentally is now obsolete. We now know that:

• learning occurs through active intellectual engagement on the part of the learner;

• it is always in a context and involves constructing meaning; and

• it involves linking new knowledge with previous understanding.

These three characteristics of learning are well explained by von Glasersfeld (1989) in an essay entitled, 'Learning as a constructive activity', by Wood (1988) in the book, How Children Think and Learn and by Bruner (1996) in The Culture of Education.

If I had to bet, I'd say that all 5 kids are GATE in math. They're amazing.

But two of them are way out in front -- and they're super-competitive about math, always champing at the bit for more, bigger, and harder problems. One of them is always shouting, Bring it on!

The other 3 are super-talented, but quieter, and that mix is tough!

The bring-it-on kid needs to accelerate RIGHT THIS MINUTE. He and his friend, for sure.

Actually, all 5 of them need to accelerate. They really are incredible. It's astonishing working with these kids.

Not being a teacher of young children myself (other than my own), and living in a town where every other parent has a kid who is gifted and talented, I tend to get a bit jaundiced about talented and gifted education. But it sounds to me as though Catherine's kids really are gifted (if she says they're amazing, then I believe it), and really do have some needs that their regular math classes are not meeting.

And so, if I'm going to start believing in TAG kids, that brings me to seriously ponder the question: what really should gifted and talented education in math be?

Gifted and talented education in history seems pretty obvious to me; you go more into depth with the kids. You talk about more abstract notions at a younger age; you have the kids read the more challenging and interesting material. They cover the same material at greater depth.

But because math education is cumulative, there are two different possibilities to consider: acceleration and enrichment. Acceleration in math usually means sticking a kid into a higher grade class; enrichment all too often means giving a kid (as Catherine put it) a tesselation coloring book to fill in while the other kids "discover multiplication". Acceleration is probably necessary; enrichment (you could argue) in math is a boondoggle, especially if done like this. TAG teaching in mathematics seems at once less rewarding, and more error-prone.

But then we have a class like Catherine's: simple, elegant, and successful. Catherine is doing Singapore math with a bunch of 5th graders who may not be conceptually ready for algebra, but who are certainly ready for bar modeling -- that being Singapore's secret for getting kids thinking algebraically in the early grades. And they are eating it up. Personally, if I were faced with the question of how to enrich a bunch of intellectually hungry 5th graders, I would really wonder what to do; I would certainly wonder whether supplementing from a standard Asian text would be the right approach. I would probably dither myself right out of ever doing it at all.

And, far from being just an enrichment program, Singapore has used this curriculum to pull everyone's performance up and enable acceleration for all their kids. All Singapore kids are doing algebra in 8th grade (you can argue that they do it in second!). Our kids, our typical kids, could do it as well, of that I feel quite certain.

But that still leaves my question. OK, I'm convinced; I am starting to believe in the existence of mathematically gifted and talented children. But what the heck do you do with them? And why is Catherine's normal-for-Singapore curriculum turning them on?

Here's a short article on TAG education in math, which I rather liked (and excerpted a portion of, below). One point it raises that I think is critical is this: TAG kids need extra attention, just like struggling kids. This is one thing, I think, that's making Catherine's Singapore class a real enrichment experience: simply the specialness, the unusualness, of Singapore math in this American setting. Catherine brings extra love to the subject. They're a bunch of very bright people, discovering this stuff together.

It is important that a teacher actually work with the students engaging them in activities that promote high-level thinking and good mathematical discourse. If students are given "enrichment sheets" to work on independently and can do this successfully, it usually means the material is NOT challenging for them. It also does not allow for mathematical discussion with their ability peers. This is so important to foster understanding and spark interest and new insights.

I conclude that talented and gifted kids need a learning community to which they feel they belong and in which they feel typical, probably more than anything else (and pretty much LIKE everyone else). Acceleration for them is necessary but probably not sufficient.

comments...

Ed Wonk says students and parents have responsibilities, too. What can he do if a student refuses to do a simple 5-minute assignment?

This is a tough one for me, because while I'm foursquare on the side of school accountability, 'Ed Wonk' is a teacher, and teachers are getting mulched. (Doug and Ken both say this themselves several times in their comments.)

I'm at a loss as to what one individual teacher can do.

On the other hand, Temple made an enormous difference for animal welfare working inside the meatpacking industry. The odds were against her. She was a woman in a macho industry when women weren't welcome, she was a free-lance designer with no management experience or power, and she was autistic.

Her autism was her strength. Half the time she didn't even know people were mad at her, or laughing in her face. One time she gave a talk to a cattleman's gathering and thought it went well. Afterwards a member of the audience came up to her and said he felt really bad about the way everyone had treated her. She didn't know what he was talking about.

She just kept trying to make things better for animals. Today, 30 years after her career began, she's done it.

What can one teacher hemmed in by bad policy, lazy and/or damaged students, and dysfunctional and/or demoralized parents do?

I don't know.

My feeling is that the solitary individual has a responsibility to try to make a difference, and then, after he fails, to keep on trying.

Which I imagine is what Ed Wonk is doing.




speaking of which

Ed is good at academic politics. (Synchronicity moment. I typed the word 'Ed' and the phone rang; it was Ed. He's in Paris.)

Background: our Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent are drafting a policy, to be voted on by the school board, to make it impossible for me to teach Singapore Math in the after-school program. Under new policy no parent will be allowed to teach any academic course that might conceivably overlap or conflict with content being taught in school; hence no Spanish class in the after-school program, either, though a class in Chinese may be allowed.

Apparently, this is the way it's done in Ardsley. [ed.: Ardsley?]

Ed says there's a fundamental principle at stake, which is that the administration should not regulate parent activities. He told me to call the PTSA president and ask for an invitation to speak to the executive board. I did, and I'll be talking to the board next week. Meanwhile the President says she wants to show the Singapore Math material to her husband, who has a Ph.D. in computer science, proving the Jayne Mansfield dictum that all publicity is good publicity. (It was Jayne Mansfield who said that, wasn't it?)

My points:

• the administration should not oversee parent activities

• the administration should support any and all academic enrichment programs parents are willing to supply

• the after-school program should be expanded to the middle school (the PTSA isn't allowed to set foot inside the middle school)

• the administration should write and submit to the school board a formal declaration of gratitude to the PTSA for offering innovative and cutting edge academic enrichment courses in its world-class after-school program
  

I probably won't press that last point.

On the other hand, maybe I will.


what can one person do?

Which brings me back to the question of what one person can do.

When it comes to complaining about a lousy math curriculum, one person can be a gadfly.

A gadfly, or a thorn in the side, or both.

I've done a bang-up job on that front, it seems.

What one teacher can do inside a classroom is a tougher question.

I wonder what Siegfried Engelmann would say. Could you create your own formative assessment/Kumon-like series of tiny little in-class lessons that work with undereducated, burned-out 12-year olds?






what is the student's responsibility, anyway?

After allowing Christopher to sign a document acknowledging full responsibility for his grades (I'll be recanting via email tonight, now that I've given myself a day to cool off) my question is: what is his responsibility?

What is mine?

By which I mean.....what does the school have a right to expect from us?

It's crystal clear to me that Mrs. Roth is out of line. I've now talked to other parents in the class, and on the subject of Mrs. Roth they could be my long-lost twins. She's mean, parents say, and she doesn't teach. Moms are spending hours on the internet, pulling grammar lessons, pulling information on how to teach persuasive writing, pulling this, pulling that.

Worse yet, more than one of the children in her class believes that Mrs. Roth specifically hates him or her. These children don't perceive her as uniformly disliking everyone (she probably doesn't dislike anyone; she's just enjoying her caustic performance humor, which was on display Back to School night. She's an entertainer, and her jokes are all at the children's expense.)

So, no, the children don't think Mrs. Roth is just a mean person who dislikes all the children.

They think she dislikes them personally. They spend two class hours a day with this woman.

There's something new and bad practically every week. Actually that's not true; it's not every week. It just feels like every week.

This week's debacle was the 'Feature Story.'

Apparently, the Feature Story was supposed to be a persuasive essay.

Christopher didn't know that, and I didn't know it, either. Another parent told me Mrs. Roth did give the kids an assignment sheet, which I didn't see. I don't know what happened to it.

Is this a breach of responsibility on Christopher's part?

I'm going to say no. At this stage of the game, it's Mrs. Roth's responsibility to find out if her students know what the assignment is.

The fact that she handed out a piece of paper isn't good enough. I want formative assessment on the question of: Do these kids know what I've asked them to do?

So Christopher didn't do the assignment correctly. He wrote a very nice explanatory paper on school violence (what could have prompted him to develop an interest in school violence, I wonder), laying out one or two reasons for school violence, and two possible solutions. Then he told which solution he preferred, and why.

The paper was short, well-organized, and well-written.

Mrs. Roth thought it was terrible, and told him so, loudly, in front of the class.

Then she accused him of 'not trying' and 'not working.'

He was humiliated.

I've had it.

Number one, no child needs to be humiliated in front of the class.

Number two, where is the instruction?

Christopher has no idea what a persuasive essay is, yet he was asked to write one. Meanwhile I, the parent, do not hear the words 'feature story' and think 'persuasive essay.' I have yet to see a single constructive or informative comment written on a paper Christopher has turned in to Mrs. Roth; I have yet to see any comment written on any paper at all. When Mrs. Roth came back from 6 weeks out with pneumonia, she told the class, "Your stories are horrible. They don't deserve to go in a book."

And that was that. My story is horrible; next time I'll try to write something not horrible.

I have yet to see any sequence of writing instruction: rough drafts, revisions, 2nd revisions, anything at all. [correction: Christopher says they wrote a rough draft in class and handed it in. And that was that. Mrs. Roth provided no feedback..]

So....I guess I'm going to have to take back my question.

In theory I'm interested in what Christopher's & my responsibilities to the school may be. In reality, I'm far more riveted by the question of what the school's responsibility is to us.

But I am interested in any thoughts all of you have on the subject of student and parent responsibility in middle school.




comments...

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WhyPublicSchool 03 Dec 2005 - 05:45 CarolynJohnston

On the Doug and Ken take on Ed Wonk thread, JD left this comment:

I remember reading a comment left on a different site that alleged that the public school was, in essence, an institution whose main purpose was to remove the burden from parents of the work involved in educating their children.

I always thought the main idea of public school was to educate those children whose parents could not or would not educate them, for whatever reason.

Early on, in our agricultural years, there must have been a lot of parents who thought it was a waste of time to have perfectly able-bodied farm kids spending most of their day at school. But that didn't matter: the law had decreed that their kids would get educated. Did educators at that time assume that kids would have the whole-hearted involvement of their parents at home -- or that their possibly illiterate parents would be able to help them with their homework? I doubt it very much. So the argument that kids can't be taught unless their parents are involved is beside the point; these are the conditions that schools were intended to function in.

Whether it's possible to teach kids against their will and without their parents' support is perhaps unsettled, but the original intent of public school was definitely to educate kids whether their parents liked it or not. So really the question public schools ought to be trying to answer is this: what's the best we can do for these kids if there's no support at home: how do we ensure they learn anyway?

I'm now going to say something very politically incorrect: unwilling children CAN be made to learn (at least when they are young).

We've educated Ben against the most incredible odds; he had Asperger's, severe Tourette, and severe inattentive ADD. They don't come more unwilling than Ben; there was a time when you could stick your face an inch from Ben's, yell at the top of your lungs, and get only a Buddha-like smile in response; not because he had an attitude, but because he had gone someplace where he couldn't hear you.

We got through to Ben mainly by keeping a close eye on what was working and what wasn't, incentivizing him heavily*, and changing tactics if something wasn't working (that's behavioral analysis). You concoct a set of things you want the kid to learn, and you concoct a set of incentives, and you keep an eye on both to ensure that the goals are being met, and that the incentives are working. Schools have kids for around 6 hours a day; that's a lot of time.

But I feel for Ed Wonk and for all teachers, because schools are very hierarchical and autocratic; teachers can't necessarily do what they know will work.

* i.e., we bribed him shamelessly.

comments...

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AleksIndividualizedLearningAssistant 03 Dec 2005 - 19:47 CatherineJohnson


Nick's Mama sent an email asking about ALEKS.

Does anyone know anything about it?

All I know about it is that a blogger named Parent Pundit used it with her daughter with good results.


slipped my mind

hmm

I see that back in May I was planning to 'check out' ALEKS right away.

Obviously that didn't happen.

Time for me to read Getting Things Done again.

If I can find it.


David Allen has a blog

This could be interesting.

update 6-30-2006: David Allen doesn't have a blog.


good grief

Now here is a photo I would not publish on my blog if I were David Allen.

David Allen needs a blog consultant.

I think by now most of us here at ktm could set up shop as blog consultants.


if you're killing time?

Why is David Allen providing me with suggestions on how to kill time this weekend?

Wouldn't I be killing time reading David Allen's blog because I have a problem with killing time?

Think and discuss.


a parent's experience with ALEKS
ALEKS Graphic
formative assessment on wheels
ParentPundit uses ALEKS to fix Everyday Math
ALEKS question
ALEKS assessment coming right up





comments...

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AleksAndIndividualizedProblemSets 03 Dec 2005 - 20:11 CatherineJohnson


This is the aspect of ALEKS that intrigues me:

• Adaptive, dynamically chosen small set of questions

• Details precisely what the student knows

• Constantly updated as work is completed

The idea of 'dynamically chosen' worksheets sounds good, but I wonder whether you gain anything you don't with a program like KUMON, where the worksheets aren't dynamically chosen. Saxon Math has students do the same worksheet many times during a school year, and I know from experience it works fine. You don't need a new mix of problems every time you practice.

On the other hand, even small gains in efficiency would add up over time.


formative assessment on wheels

Interesting.

Here's a link to the research/marketing paper ALEKS has posted on their web site:

ABSTRACT

This paper is adapted from a book and many scholarly articles. It reviews the main ideas of a novel theory for the assessment of a student’s knowledge in a topic and gives details on a practical implementation in the form of a software system available on the Internet. The basic concept of the theory is the ‘knowledge state,’ which is the complete set of problems that an individual is capable of solving in a particular topic, such as Arithmetic or Elementary Algebra. The task of the assessor—which is always a computer—consists in uncovering the particular state of the student being assessed, among all the feasible states. Even though the number of knowledge states for a topic may exceed several hundred thousand, these large numbers are well within the capacity of current home or school computers. The result of an assessment consists in two short lists of problems which may be labelled: ‘What the student can do’ and ‘What the student is ready to learn.’ In the most important applications of the theory, these two lists specify the exact knowledge state of the individual being assessed. This work is presented against the contrasting background of common methods of assessing human competence through standardized tests providing numerical scores. The philosophy of these methods, and their scientific origin in nineteenth century physics, are briefly examined.

Of course now I'm super-intrigued.....

This is all I need, right now. One more high-concept math-learning scheme.

Curiosity doesn't seem to kill cats, but it's going to be the end of me.


a parent's experience with ALEKS
ALEKS Graphic
formative assessment on wheels
ParentPundit uses ALEKS to fix Everyday Math
ALEKS question
ALEKS assessment coming right up





comments...

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TheBarneySong 04 Dec 2005 - 00:13 CatherineJohnson


I have spent a huge quantity of my life listening to the Barney Song.

Jimmy, at 18, still watches Barney, and Andrew is obsessed. This morning when I glanced inside Andrew's bedroom I saw a small plush Barney toy standing bolt upright in the middle of the floor wearing an enormous wide-brimmed straw walking hat from Australia.

Here in my parallel universe, he looked a bit like a Canadian Mounty.

Needless to say, Christopher loathes the Barney song. He probably hasn't gone a day of his life without hearing it, so he's entitled.

Well, guess what?

I have just this moment discovered a Barney Verb Song!

Title - helping verb song
By - Beth Fryer
Primary Subject - Language Arts
Secondary Subjects -
Grade Level - 4
My students learn the helping verb list with an idea by a former student...Sing these words to the tune of the "Barney Song" - or, for those of you who don't know THAT, it's "This Old Man"!

have - has - had
do - does - did
be - am - is - are - was - were - been
can - could - shall - should - will - would - may
might - must - being
are helping verbs!
E-Mail Beth Fryer bfryer@clsd.k12.pa.us!

comments...

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DescriptiveNormativeAndCritical 04 Dec 2005 - 01:04 CatherineJohnson


Now that it's become clear I'm going to have to teach Christopher how to write, I'm on the prowl for material and ideas.

I'm posting this cartoon because I'll be showing it to Christopher at some point, and I want it where I can find it.









comments...

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IepsForEveryChild 04 Dec 2005 - 18:46 CatherineJohnson


Rereading Parent Pundit's post about her daughter's experience with Everyday Math and ALEKS, this passage caught my eye:

...they give a pretest and a posttest for the curriculum. In other words, they give the final at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year to track the learning. My daughter received a 25 at the beginning of her 5th grade year in math, but she only received a 69 at the end of the year....

Clearly, intervention was needed. In the summer at the end of 5th grade, I had her try the Aleks computer program in math, www.aleks.com. The Charter School in my town uses it, and I decided to try it for my own daughter. A tutor would have been expensive and less than optimal in this situation because my daughter does get concepts, she just needs more drill (how can most kids hone their number sense if they aren’t ever asked to multiply and divide numbers continuously), and she needs algorithms that have fewer steps so there is less possibility of error (everything that Everyday Math does not provide.)

I give Parent Pundit's school—and the authors of Everyday Math—credit for the pre- and post-testing.

My problem is: what comes next?

They give this child a pre-test and she scores 29; they give her a post-test and she scores 69.

And then......nothing.

"Clearly intervention was needed."

I'll say.

Why is intervention the parent's responsbility?

The school has failed to teach this child 5th grade math. When she takes the ALEKS test, the program tells her she knows only 21% of a typical 5th grade curriculum. (I'm wondering whether ALEKS allows people just to take the grade-level tests, and if so, how much they charge. I'll check.)

If this child were classified as having special needs, she would be entitled to be taught the content that is listed on her 'IEP,' which stands for Individualized Education Program.

Of course, in my experience the content on the IEPS doesn't get taught, either, but still.....it's there; the parent has a leg to stand on. (And in my own children's case, in fact it's extremely difficult to know what they are and are not able to learn, though I suspect Engelmann would make short work of some of the IEP meetings we've had.)

But with a typical child with normal intelligence, there's no mystery. She can learn 5th grade math in 5th grade. It's the school's job to teach it to her—and to reteach it if they failed the first time around. If that means providing tutoring or summer classes, so be it. It's the school's failure; the school needs to fix it.

This mother was in the same position I was in at the end of 4th grade. My child was failing; the problem was the school's, not his or mine. (In his case the problem was almost certainly the teacher, who I liked very much, but who apparently just could not teach math at that early stage of her career. The school didn't give her tenure, which was the right move. But children who lost a year of math in 4th grade weren't given any help or remediation. No one came to parents of these children and said: Your child failed to learn math this year, because his teacher was inexperienced and didn't manage to teach the subject to mastery. Here's what we're going to do to re-teach the material he missed.

American schools, by and large, teach for coverage.

Not for mastery.


free assessment at ALEKS?

It looks like ALEKS offers a free assessment. (I haven't tried to use it, because I'm not sure I can run the test twice on one computer, and I'm most interested to see where Christopher scores.)

If this assessment really is free, and is easy to use, it could be a useful tool in talking to teachers and administrators.

What we really need is our own simple-to-administer, at-home assessment, 'rolling' assessment tools.

I'd like to be able to send my school a report each month on where Christopher is in the curriculum.

Of course, that's another project.

report cards for the school

comments...

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HistoryOfMathCourses 04 Dec 2005 - 20:54 CatherineJohnson


From A Brief History of American K-12 Mathematics Education in the 20th Century by David Klein:

The following table gives percentages of high school students enrolled in high school math courses.

Percentages of U.S. High School Students Enrolled in Various Courses

School Year	Algebra	Geometry	Trigonometry
1909 to 1910	56.9%	30.9%	1.9%
1914 to 1915	48.8%	26.5%	1.5%
1921 to 1922	40.2%	22.7%	1.5%
1927 to 1928	35.2%	19.8%	1.3%
1933 to 1934	30.4%	17.1%	1.3%
1948 to 1949	26.8%	12.8%	2.0%
1952 to 1953	24.6%	11.6%	1.7%
1954 to 1955	24.8%	11.4%	2.6%

Looks like the '23 reforms may not have been successful.


This reminds me that David Klein's paper is part of my Great Unread. I need to get to it soon.

Here's a question that springs to mind: why do we see the sharp decline in algebra enrollment?

Does David explain the steep decline in math course enrollment by a difference in numbers of students enrolled in high school?

comments...

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NortonSampler 04 Dec 2005 - 22:44 CatherineJohnson


One of you (I have to find the Comment again—) left a link to the Johns Hopkins CTY Summer program, specifically to the page that lists all the courses.

All of the writing courses have posted syllabi, including the course called Crafting the Essay.

The readings for 'Crafting the Essay' seem far too weighted towards the personal essay—what is it with all this memoir writing?^*—but, at the end of the syllabus, there's a list of 'Supplemental Texts' that includes this book:





Here's the jacket copy:

As a rhetorically arranged collection of short essays for composition, our Sampler echoes the cloth samplers once done in colonial America, presenting the basic patterns of writing for students to practice just as schoolchildren once practiced their stitches and ABCs on needlework samplers. This new edition shows students that description, narration, and the other patterns of exposition are not just abstract concepts used in composition classrooms but are in fact the way we think—and write. The Norton Sampler contains 63 carefully chosen readings—classics as well as more recent pieces, essays along with a few real-world texts—all demonstrating how writers use the modes of discourse for many varied purposes.

Wow.

Depending what's actually in the book, this is exactly what I'm looking for—and I found it thanks to ktm commenters. Incredible. Thank you.

I've mentioned that I learned how to teach writing at the University of Iowa. At the time (and perhaps still today) Iowa had one of the best freshman writing programs in the country.

We used the The Norton Reader of Expository Prose. We lived by that book. Later on I used the short version, I believe, to teach the same course to gifted middle schoolers for Johns Hopkins CTY.

I looked at the Norton Reader again the other day, and had been planning to order it this weekend....but it isn't exactly what I want.

If I were teaching a full-fledged writing course at school, then sure. The Norton Reader would probably be the book.

But I'm going to be trying to hammer my massively resistant middle-schooler into adding afterschool writing to afterschool math, and the mere sight of a 1214-page NORTON READER is going to be trouble.

I haven't looked at The Norton Sampler yet, but I'm almost certainly going to be buying it tonight.


Susan explains the shift to early writing

Part of the problem is that, like New Math and Whole Language, there is a movement afoot to push what I consider middle school skills down into grade school, all with the assumption that grade school skills will just be learned by osmosis (or shoved onto the middle school teachers...again.) These are your two camps.

In the beginning this new way of teaching writing looks very impressive as little persuasive essays come home and state tests appear to improve. Like math, we didn't learn it that way and so what do we know? I believe this is what you would label teaching Whole to Parts.

The traditional way of learning writing (or math, for that matter) has always been Parts to Whole, starting with building blocks for younger children (handwriting, grammar, sentence structure, punctuation) and then moving to more complicated techniques requiring better critical thinking skills (notetaking, outlining, etc.)that actually match the child's growing opinions and ideas. This strikes me as common sense, but what do I know?

Whether this new way is really better in the long run is still unsure, from everything I've read, yet one can't help notice that something is wrong when college professors complain loudly about students' bad writing skills, and then even request a grammar section on the SATs.

That explains a lot.

I've never given it any thought, but offhand I would say that writing isn't 'foundational' or 'hierarchical' the way math is foundational or hierarchical.

Still, I think it's nuts to plunge right into paragraphs and short essays in grade school. Doesn't make sense to me.

Without knowing much about it, I'd say the focus in the early years is words and sentences; then paragraphs.

I don't know what to think about all the journal-writing tiny little children do these days. I like having a record of Christopher's 6-year old thoughts, but whether journaling helped him learn how to write, I don't know.

I was over at a friend's house the other day, looking at books on how to write. My friend was traumatized by a nasty writing teacher in high school and has only recently started to recover from that experience. She's read a number of books for people who want to write but are anxious or blocked, the writing equivalent of Math Anxiety.

All of these books, universally, promote journaling, freewriting, etc., etc......and they all seem utterly foreign to me.

I have no idea whether professional writers 'journal' or 'freewrite.' Maybe they do. If so, they don't talk about it much.

I do neither. I have zero interest in journaling or freewriting; I find the very word 'freewriting' slightly repellent. (Because it doesn't sound free?)

I have so little interest in journaling that I don't do it even though I wish I would. From time to time I remind myself that I'm letting my kids' childhoods pass by unrecorded & unremembered. Then I carry on not journaling.

I suspect that professional writers of nonfiction, which is what we're talking about, are motivated to 'communicate' more than to 'express.' I write every day, but I write to other people, not to myself. I used to write letters; now I write emails & blooki posts & comments on Kitchen Table Math.

I'm also motivated by curiosity, and nonfiction writing means Learning New Things virtually every day. That's another reason I write Kitchen Table Math. Once I write a post, people chime in with interesting comments and factoids I've never heard before. I love that, and it doesn't happen with Journaling or Freewriting.

Given that I've been a professional writer for quite awhile now, and given that I never, ever Journal or Freewrite, I'm not inclined to think that students should Journal or Freewrite as a means to learning to write themselves.

One other thing.

I never took a writing course.

I never even wrote a paper in high school. I arrived at Wellesley not knowing what a paper was.

I never took a writing course because I was terrified I would be told I was no good. I desperately wanted to be a writer, but didn't think I was good enough, and I figured if a teacher told me I wasn't good enough that would be the end of it.

So I didn't get near any teachers.

The funny thing is, when I finally got on track to write, just short of age 30, two different Authority Figures instantly popped out of the woodwork to tell me I wouldn't be able to do it. One said I didn't have the commitment or the drive; the other told me he'd never liked my writing. This person actually took the time to sit down and write me a letter saying, 'I've never liked your writing.'

People are bizarre.

In any case, they were too late. I'd made up my mind.

Getting back to how to teach children to write.....I think my own personal narrative tells me that writing isn't a hierarchical skill the way mathematics is, and I think it tells me that expository writing isn't a direct or natural outgrowth of Journaling or Freewriting, but may be a natural outgrowth of reading, thinking, and talking to other people about what you're reading and thinking.

I know that in order to write nonfiction you have to be reading nonfiction.

That's about as far as I can go tonight.


Johns Hopkins CTY course list (including math courses):
Crafting the Essay WRT3
Crafting the Essay 3B


KTM Commenter suggestions and recommendations:
First Language Lessons by Jesse Wise (recommended by Ken &, I think, Susan, looks good; apparently there are more books coming in the series)
Classical Writing series (Nick's Mama left the link for this series)

The two biggies amongst homeschoolers seem to be:
Writing Strands (the Well Trained Mind people use this series)
Excellence in Writing



KUMON reading

I'd bet money the KUMON reading program teaches writing as well as reading, if only incidentally. I've scanned in one set of KUMON reading worksheets and will get them posted to a separate KUMON page & linked here, so you can see what I'm talking about. KUMON Reading is as good a nonficiton, critical reading program as any I've ever seen.

Actually, KUMON Reading is the only nonfiction critical reading program I've ever seen. At our school, and apparently at many other schools, the kids read wall-to-wall fiction. No one teaches them how to read nonfiction.

KUMON does.


update: Norton Sampler TOC

This is fantastic:

Introduction

Annie Dillard, The Death of a Moth
Annie Dillard, How I Wrote the Moth Essay—and Why
The Processes of Writing
The Modes of Writing
Mixing the Modes (great)

1 Description

2 Narrative

3 Example

4 Classification and Division

5 Process Analysis

6 Comparison and Contrast

7 Definition

8 Cause and Effect

9 Argumentation and Persuasion

10 Classic Essays for Further Reading


It doesn't look overloaded with partisan picks, and there are two student essays included, which could be a lot of fun. Ann Hodgman ('No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch') is the author of three of my favorite cookbooks: Beat This, Beat That!, and One Bite Won't Kill You.

This is the one.


1918 version of Elements of Style online





^* My neighbor's son has now written so many personal narratives he says he's running out of memories.




comments...

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EndOfParentalInfluence 05 Dec 2005 - 02:13 CarolynJohnston

Catherine and I were just talking a little while ago about having boys in middle school. It's really amazing. Three months ago we had boys who weren't substantially different from the boys we'd had for several years. But they've really changed since entering middle school.

One thing that's caused a lot of domestic trouble around here lately is Ben's long-term reaction to our decision to take him out of his regular Connected Math class, and have him work with an aide from Saxon Math instead. Last year, I'm quite sure, it wouldn't have distressed him to be taken out of math class every day for different work; but this year it's a different story. He's obsessing about his forcible removal from the bosom of Ms. Fredson's math class morning and night.

Sometimes he's angry about it, as when he yelled the other night, "Connected Math is JUST FINE for me, MOM!", and "Ms. Fredson is a perfectly good teacher, MOM!" Sometimes he's imploring, as when, just a few minutes ago, he asserted that Ms. Fredson had never been unkind to him and so he should be able to go back into her class. When I made this decision, I honestly wouldn't ever have thought he'd have such a negative reaction -- though I would make it again.

I've explained to him any number of times that we liked Ms. Fredson and thought she was a good teacher; that what we don't like is the curriculum she has to work with. A curriculum, if you think about it, is a pretty abstract notion compared to that of a teacher.

I tried to give him a concrete example. I pulled a worksheet that Ben had done in his first week in Ms. Fredson's class: it was a quiz they'd taken on odd and even numbers. A number would be read off, and the kids would write 'odd' or 'even'. This was in a 6th grade accelerated math class. I don't even know for certain that that was a Connected Math activity (since the school actually uses a hybrid math curriculum - Connected Math and Prentice Hall); but I do know that he could do that easily in 2nd grade.

"That's pretty easy," Ben had to admit. I seized the advantage. "They just aren't learning as much as you are, Ben!" I said. And it's true.

It's hard to explain the notion of a gross institutional mistake to a kid, especially one on the autism spectrum.

Moral of the story

Try to get your accelerating and/or afterschooling done while your kids are in grade school. They become suddenly and definitively less pliable in middle school.

It's too late for me and Catherine, so save yourselves!

comments...

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NoCommonSensey 05 Dec 2005 - 13:42 CatherineJohnson


OK, it's 8:40 am and I'm already exhausted.

At 5:30 this morning I heard a faint chime that sounded exactly like the doorbell. Ding.

I ignored it.

Then I heard it again.

Since I was asleep, and wanted to stay asleep, I ignored it again.

Then Abby started up. Boof. Boof, boof. You know the sound, the sneeze-bark thing dogs do in the bedroom when they know they're not supposed to be barking for real.

'Abby!' I hissed. 'Quiet!'

I was still asleep at this point.

Ding.

Ding, ding, ding.

Boof, boof.

Ding.

Ding, boof.

I was awake.

So there it was: two bad choices. The person ringing the bell was going to be a) my next-door neighbor needing help with an emergency so dire she and her husband couldn't handle it themselves (bad), or b) a complete stranger insistently ringing our doorbell at 5:30 in the morning, in the pitch dark & freezing cold (also bad). Great.

As Door Number 2 seemed far the more likely probability (simple Bayesian logic), I began filing through my dimly recalled News 4 stories concerning the various doorbell-ringing scams and assaults I was going to have to rule out before opening the door.

I woke Ed. Ed, who just got back from Paris last night, and didn't manage to get to sleep 'til, I don't know, 3 or 4 am.

Then I got up to investigate, expecting my two large, scary dogs to accompany me.

They didn't move.

What is it with my life?

What is it with my dogs?

Normally they're tearing down the stairs to shriek and bark and compete-to-greet whoever's there; now they're hugging the sofa. I'm not going down there in the dark, there's somebody out there. That's their attitude.

So I rousted the dogs, took them downstairs with me, and found the paper delivery lady stuck in my driveway. It snowed yesterday, my driveway goes downhill, nobody plowed it, the whole thing is a sheet of ice, and she decided to drive on down instead of just leaving the newspaper at the mouth of the drive as a person with common sense would do. Apparently she'd already been stuck at somebody else's house for half an hour, and she kept saying that her 'first year,' which it appears was not this year but last year, 'was awful.' I gather she spent a lot of time being stuck in people's driveways her first year, and now, wouldn't you know it, she's stuck in people's driveways this year, too. Being stuck in people's driveways at 5 am is like a horrible recurring nightmare she can't stop having.

I let Ed deal with it.





8:25 am, I hear Andrew's bus up at the top of the driveway, I run shrieking out the door waving off the driver—Stop! Stop!—who ignores me and drives straight down the hill and then, as Ed joins me and starts shouting and waving, too, turns to keep on going down the hill to my neighbor's house.

We share a driveway with our neighbor. Our land was originally owned by John Jacob Astor, and apparently our two houses used to be the servants' quarters and the carriage house. The funny thing is, both my neighbor and I claim to be living in the servants' quarters. I always assumed it was obvious our house was the people house, but then I heard my neighbor saying a couple of times that her house was the servants' quarters and our house was the carriage house. Yet more evidence that we are related to apes and co-evolved with dogs.

Anyway, the point is, we share a downhill driveway with that stops at our house first, turns left, then continues downhill to their house. If you're driving a bus on ice, and you're all the way down at their house, that's it. You're staying there until someone tows you out.

Miraculously, Ed was able to prevent the driver from making the turn, so now he was stuck in front of our house instead of our neighbor's house. After an extended conference with Ed, he decided to try to turn the bus all the way around right there, directly in front of our garage, which soon meant he was stuck sideways in front of the garage blocking both of our cars instead of just the one he'd been blocking minutes before.

I won't go on.

My question is: Why?

You're driving a car/bus with rear-wheel drive, you come to a downhill driveway that's a sheet of ice, and you sail down it like it's the middle of June.

I don't get it.







no common sense-y




comments...

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SheddingTearsOverEverydayMath 05 Dec 2005 - 23:16 CatherineJohnson


from Joanne Cobasko of SOCCM:

The email below came from a CVUSD parent. Names and sexual identities have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty.





Another Everyday Math Crying Story - Discovery method strikes out again

Working with my 2nd grader on her math homework - she becomes frustrated because she isn't being taught the algorithms that are needed to solve the problem. She sometimes gets so frustrated she cries. (name of curriculum director) should be fired for installing this crappy math curriculum. The one problem she cried on was:


91 — unknown = 45.


The teacher didn't instruct her to put the numbers in a column and subtract:

  91
 -45
  __
  46

How are the kids supposed to know how to do this without being taught? How is a kid supposed to solve the problem? My daughter's classmate wanted to construct a number grid writing all the numbers between 45 and 91 to try to solve it, her mother said. These poor kids whose parents are not helping them with math at home are going to be lost.

Heresay at (School using Everyday Math) is that the teachers aren't making the kids do the ridiculous algorithms EM teaches.

Supposedly a kid in Mrs B's 5th grade class who was a straight A student in math is now getting D's because Mrs. B isn't explaining the EM method well enough. What a shame these kids have to suffer through EM.

You know the kids will say they like the program because they just play games and don't memorize the math facts.

If you follow the logic of EM, why then should the kids have to memorize spelling words if they can just use spell check on the computer?

comments...

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BlackAndWiliamRecommendationsForFormativeAssessment 06 Dec 2005 - 01:11 CatherineJohnson

Black and Wiliam (1998b) make the following recommendations:

• Frequent short tests are better than infrequent long ones.

• New learning should be tested within about a week of first exposure.

• Be mindful of the quality of test items and work with other teachers and outside sources to collect good ones.

No more teaching for coverage.

No more punitive tests and shaming grades.

Teach to mastery.


key words: gapology
overlearning
remediating Los Angeles algebra students
Inflexible Knowledge: The First Step to Expertise by Daniel Willingham
Matt Goff & Susan S on remediating gaps
Anne Dwyer on diagnosing gaps & request for 'gap' stories
failing algebra in Los Angeles
formative assessment
formative assessment in a nutshell





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MoreMiddleSchoolTrauma 06 Dec 2005 - 02:44 CatherineJohnson


So I'm going to ask Carolyn (hi, Carolyn!) to add a homeschooling category. That and a how-to-teach-writing category. (Smartest Tractor has left some books & advice, so I'll get those pulled up front tomorrow. Thank you. Please tell us more when you have time.)

I should have homeschooled Christopher.

Period.

We're watching him fall apart before our eyes. Tonight we had crying. Twice. He came home from school with two Ds on two English papers, another one on his chapter test in math. He's very close to failing his two main courses.

This was the Distinguished Student last spring, a child who has never earned less than a 4 on the state tests (and the English test is serious); now his father is talking about therapy. We're seeing his behavior deteriorate; we're seeing his handwriting deteriorate. Ed, tonight, was shocked by the regression in the look of his written work. He's writing like a child in first grade, and not a happy child, either.

I have now told them both that homeschooling is on the table.

Christopher and Ed say no, homeschooling is not on the table.

That's pretty much my position on therapy, come to think of it; we're not paying for therapy unless Ed gets another career. A much bigger, fatter career. And even then, forget it. I'm not paying a fortune in property taxes and therapy bills so Christopher can attend Irvington Middle School.

The one good thing is that Ed has written a letter to Mrs. Roth, copied to both principals and to the guidance counselor, that is destined to become a classic in the annals of IMS history. I don't know if he'll let me post it, but we can all hope.

Tomorrow he's writing the letter I didn't manage to write about the Grade Contract. I didn't manage to write it myself because I spent the week exhibiting impulse control.

Which, under the circumstances, was best for all concerned.


synchronicity

I've just this moment opened an email from my neighbor:

Michael Viscardi, a senior from San Diego, won a $100,000 college scholarship, the top individual prize in the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology.

Viscardi said he's been homeschooled since fifth grade, although he does take math classes at the University of California at San Diego three days a week. His father is a software engineer and his mother, who stays at home, has a Ph.D. in neuroscience, he said.

Sounds like those folks hit the same wall I've hit. I'm printing it out for Ed.


oh—and tomorrow I get to talk to the PTSA Executive Committee about my sins as a Singapore Math instructor.

Pray for snow.




comments...

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FirstDaysAtSchool 06 Dec 2005 - 05:15 CarolynJohnston

The discussion on the WhyPublicSchools post about girls and boys, and the differences in their personalities and needs, reminds me of a story that Bernie told about his teaching approach on first days in math classes that he taught in colleges.

The first impression, of course, is critical, and Bernie used to play those kids, especially the boys, like violins.

The boys, he said, needed some tough love on the first day. You could scare them with the notion that you were the strictest math teacher ever on the first day, get them braced and working, and then back down later, as necessary, if you wanted to. If you let them get the initial impression that you weren't the alpha dog in the classroom, then you'd lose them.

This approach, he said, backfired like crazy with the girls. A lot of them would run right out of the class on the first day and go drop the class like a hot potato. He really wished that he had a way of secretly conveying to the girls that his bluster was all an act put on for the boys' benefit, that he was really a sensitive guy who would treat them well. And he was, as the girls who stuck around found out.

I didn't try to moderate anyone's impressions of me on the first day, but in general my hand-holding style went over a lot better with the girls than the boys. Since math is pretty much just as difficult no matter who is teaching it, after a while some of the boys would be failing, and would stop coming to class. Bernie's approach on day one would have served those guys better.

Maybe this, more than any difference in math aptitude, is the reason to have single-sex classrooms.

comments...

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PaulMillerAndRudbeckiaHirtaOnAssessment 06 Dec 2005 - 17:30 CatherineJohnson


I'm disheartened today. Watching Christopher fall apart is excruciating (all the more so given how much I know about fear and the brain), and.....

......and I've had it.

So when I got home this morning, after dealing with the THIRD car to be stuck in our driveway in two days (I'm starting to feel like Bill Murray in GROUNDHOG DAY), and found these comments from Paul Miller and Rudbeckia Hirta, I thought, There's hope. (I'll be a much more cheerful person tomorrow, or even.....later on this afternoon!)


from Paul:

One thing I've been putting a lot of thought into is how to teach to mastery in an environment where I'm on a strict schedule and have very limited time. I bet Black and Wiliam weren't thinking of people who have to jam what would be a whole year of algebra in high school into a semester.

Still, I have decided, there will be quizzes at least weekly next semester.

and from Rudbeckia:

This semester I gave twenty quizzes in calculus (the best 10 counted), and I'm thinking of giving quizzes every class next time I teach something from the algebra / precalc / calc sequence. Next time I'm going to make them VERY short, 3-5 minutes, and give them at the exact beginning of class. My bet is that the instructional face-time lost will trade well with increased studying.

Here's how I feel, reading these comments.

These comments, these actions, are a gift. A gift from two highly intelligent and educated people to the younger people they are trying to teach.

The way I'm feeling today, they're a gift to me, too.


where we are with English

Mrs. Roth can't teach our child. That battle we can handle, although the school will certainly refuse to move Christopher to another class. If I were a betting person I'd bet they end up moving him whether they want to or not, but we'll see.

Whether he goes or stays, he will never write another assignment for this woman.

Worksheets, fine; reading logs, check. But no written work. We're done.

What we need is for the principal to read Christopher's essay and tell him it's not a 'D.' His friends are making fun of him, telling him his parents are 'just saying' his essay is good, because we're his parents. All these boys insult each other all day long, Chris included. But on this issue his friends are drawing blood, which I'm sure they don't know. He's probably hurting them, too. The things they say to each other are appalling, and I have no idea what to do about it.

Advice?

Christopher's confidence is shot. He thinks he can't write, can't do math, can't do anything.

We saw this happen before, in 2001, after the attacks. He'd been an aggressive little soccer player, one of the best on the team. Then he lost his nerve. He just....stopped. On the field, he was diffident and slow. At school, he was bullied.

Ed was the soccer coach, so he was there; he watched it happen. He told me last night he's seeing the same thing all over again, only this time in academics, where it counts.

Maybe it's not like that; maybe he'll bounce back. We'll see.


question

So Mrs. Roth has to go, but the math teacher is another story.

She's very young; I think this is her first job. (back story for new readers stopping by: Her course last year was so brutal for the kids—unintentionally so—that the parents were in open revolt.)

She's a good egg. Last year must have been painful for her; the huge revisions they did to her course over the summer may have been distressing, too. Yes, it's important to have mentors and help, but having mentors and help in the context of parent fury is another story.

So....I need to push her for Christopher's sake, but I want to 'push' in a way that's positive, helpful, and likely to be listened to.

Here's what I think we need: If any of you have extra items to add, let me know

• First item: I need to know, from the beginning of each chapter, what 'showing your work' means to Ms. Kahl.

Let me ask all of you: what is the work that would typically be shown for this question?

Compare using <, >, =

0.635 __ 0.365

To me, this is a simple comparison—but do teachers typically ask for work to be shown on this kind of question?

If so, does the student write a subtraction problem, or perhaps draw a number line?

I'll find out from Christopher's teacher, but I'm wondering about other peoples' experience.

I have no problem with the requirement that the kids show their work; I think it's probably good at this stage. But I've got to know from the get-go what 'showing your work' means for each given problem, so we can practice it from the get-go.

• Second item, Christopher needs guided practice in class.

Christopher says that the norm is for Ms. Kahl to lecture and give an assignment. The kids do the procedure she's taught for the first time at home.

I'm sure his perception of the class and her perception of the class are going to be an imperfect match. she does have them do worksheets in class sometimes, or start their homework. I'm not sure whether either of those situations constitute 'true' guided practice, but they're probably in the realm.

Still, the fact is that he not infrequently comes home from school without a clue how to do the procedure she's demonstrated in class that day is significant. While she may be doing some guided practice, I need her to do more. Which means I'm crossing a line into the realm of telling a teacher how to teach.

• Third, and most important, I need formative assessment to be happening in the class.

We have no teaching to mastery at all. Instead we have a classic 'accelerated' course, where the children are expected to be math brains, the teacher whizzes through the material, and only the strong survive. The weak fall behind, struggle to move their legs faster than they'll go, gulp down huge mouthfuls of air, pour sweat, and finally collapse in a heap. Only one grading period into the year so far, Christopher's nearing collapse. He earned a B on his first chapter test, a C on his 2nd, and, now, a D on his 3rd.

Yes, he could move down to the combined Phase 2/3 course.

He could move down and study place value. They've spent weeks on place value. I forget what they're doing now; I'll find out. It's not going to be anything he needs to spend an hour a day doing.

Here's my question: how do I broach these subjects?

These are large issues, not small. And this teacher is almost certainly in Paul's situation. She has to cover this material, and she has to cover it fast. What she's got to work with is nothing like a Singapore course where the curriculum has been painstakingly put together to allow the fastest possible progress for all children, math brains or no.

So she's up against it.

But we need these changes. We need the school and the individual teachers to assume responsibility for making sure the children have learned what they've been taught. All but the brainiest kids need this, and even the brainiest kids are going to need it somewhere along the line, too.


back to Rudbeckia & Paul

Actually, it suddenly occurs to me that I can cite Paul & Rudbeckia—especially, for my purposes, Rudbeckia's top-10-quizzes count approach.

That would be so much more humane for these kids, and so much more motivating.

Alright, that's a possibility.


what we told Christopher

The math situation is probably manageable.

Ed, this morning, read over Christopher's test and said that he's not having nearly the amount of homework he needs if he's to do the tests she's giving.

Math class lasts 50 minutes; the test had 24 questions, some with several parts. Christopher has two minutes at most to answer each question, and he has to show his work (and his handwriting is not only bad, but slow).

Now he's developed test anxiety, so he's not managing to read the questions. He must be freezing up, just not seeing the words.

The point is: if he's going to do 24-item tests in 45 minutes, he has to have more practice. Ms. Kahl sometimes sends home homework 'sets' with only 4 problems. Maybe the math brains can do 4 problems and ace a test (they probably can).

Christopher can't. If Christopher is going to do a 24-item test in 45 minutes he can't have done 4-problem homework sets. Wayne Wickelgren says children should do 30 problems a night. That's what Christopher needs to do. Thirty problems a night.

We were finally able to get through to him on this point last night—thanks to KUMON and to Saxon Math.

I said, "Do you ever flunk KUMON worksheets?"

Christopher said, "No."

I said, "Why don't you flunk KUMON worksheets?"

Christopher said, "Because I've practiced."

I said, "Because you've practiced a lot."

Then I said, "Did you ever flunk Saxon tests?"

"No."

Why?"

"Because I practiced."

"Because you practiced a lot."

Then both Ed and I said, You need to be able to do these problems as fast as you can write.

You need to be able to do them in your sleep.

You need to know them cold.

That's a simple message, and he understood it.

I hope it will finally start to sink in. Christopher thinks that if he can do a problem he knows it. It may take him 5 minutes to do one problem, but if he gets it right, he's done.

No one at the school has told him that isn't the way it works. He's had two months of "Study Skills" class and the only thing they seem to have told him about study and learning is 'Find a quiet place.'

I, of course, have been trying to get this message across for months, but, as Carolyn pointed out, we're hitting the end of parental influence.

Last night he heard us.

A couple of weeks ago I tracked down the Prentice Hall pre-algebra workbook that accompanies his text. We agreed that from now on he'll do ALL the problems on the work sheet, not every other problem, or, even worse, every fourth problem. (I'd put money on it Ms. Kahl has been told not to overload the kids with homework.)

Last night, that's what we did. Every single problem.

That proved to be a terrific object lesson.

He did one problem laboriously, taking far longer than he'd have on a test.

Then, because we were doing every problem, he did the next one— in half the time.

I said, "Look how much faster you got just from doing two problems instead of one."

He saw it.


cheeful thought

I'm going to get a grip now.

My neighbor, whose son struggled through this class last year, told me that the 7th grade book is mostly review. I think they start algebra in January, so I'm assuming they spend fall semester reviewing the gazillion procedures and concepts they learned in 6th grade pre-algebra, then make the move to formal algebra mid-year.

That's good.

I'm obviously back in re-teaching land; Christopher is losing another year of math instruction, just as he did in 4th grade.

But this time he's got KUMON, and KUMON speeds along. Yes, he's doing 3rd grade math now, but in two weeks he'll be doing 4th grade; 7 weeks after that he'll move to 5th. Slow but steady wins the race. Mr. Liu told us parents see major gains after one year of KUMON.

'You need to invest that time,' he said.

We're investing.

And this time I know I have to re-teach, and I'm starting now. I'll have the summer, too.

Then he'll have a fall semester of review with, I hope, the best teacher they've got.

So I think we can do this.




comments...

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HelicopterParents 06 Dec 2005 - 21:13 CatherineJohnson




XXXX





helicopter parents, part 1
helicopter parents, part 2
helicopter parents, part 3
helicopter parents at the AFT
news from nowhere, part 6 (AP students)
helicopter parents of the word, unite
helicopter parents of the world, unite part 2a (t-shirts)
MiddleWeb says hovering is good





comments...

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SusanOnBeingYourChildsSecretary 06 Dec 2005 - 21:27 CatherineJohnson


great comment from Susan


I have no idea what work you "show" for greater than/less that questions.

You might want to write down managable questions like what you put up above for your meeting with her, which I know you'll be having soon. That's perfectly legitimate and it will get you clear and perhaps make her realize that she's not so clear. She has to tell them what she means or the book must have had them doing it that way unless it is some standard way of doing it that everyone knows about.

We were having similar issues with not having enough homework for the work being asked to be done. We've had to use the other books I have for extra practice.


children don't know what they don't know

Again, children don't know what they don't know. They don't know about flexible/inflexible knowledge. They don't know how much is enough. An experienced teacher whose had children bomb on sections would probably anticipate problems with certain chapters. My son's algebra teacher is a veteran. He has stretched and redone some chapters with extra practice. After 25+ years of teaching math he knows exactly what's going to happen and when he can trust the text and when he can't. Even with that, some kids aren't going to make it and I still have the feeling it has more to do with not having enough practice.


the parent as personal assistant

I have had to become his personal secretary because of the school's expectations of him regarding homework and projects and deadlines. He is given all kinds of things to do with all kinds of deadlines and no real guidance on how to manage his time. Many of these things are lacking in specificity. I have to make him pull out his assignments and go through them one by one. If he can't explain something I ask why he didn't write down more so that he would understand it when he got home. We've had much whining and crying over this, but he's starting, finally, to realize that I am going to look at it when he gets home and it must make sense. Just my hammering away at the assignment book and his responsiblity to accurately get his work written down thoroughly has started to make him realize what he has to do to succeed, but that is a gargantuan assignment in and of itself.

I seriously don't remember this kind of juggling of assignments myself much before high school, so it irritates me that I have to take so much time to teach him how to even write it down properly.

I think as a parent you can point out these kinds of murky expectations by the teacher (like the show your work problem) and that they need to be clarified better.

Test-taking has been more difficult for my son, too. There's a stamina and a maturity needed that's a little different than is required for the quizzes. We were doing great on the quizzes, but tanking on the tests. We've talked it through with him and he's improving, but he still isn't as strong on them as he is on the quizzes.

It sounds like you are trying to turn it into a Life Lesson about perseverence and I think you are so smart to do so. Like you said, quitting soccer is no big deal, but he needs to see that some things he can't quit and that it will be alright. They really think it's the end of the world.

With all that blasted "character" stuff they're teaching, you'd think they'd include some of what he's going through.


the veteran

My son's algebra teacher is a veteran. He has stretched and redone some chapters with extra practice. After 25+ years of teaching math he knows exactly what's going to happen and when he can trust the text and when he can't.


This is exactly my concern with Ms. Kahl.

She is, I think, a 2-year veteran, and last year was a trial by fire.

Plus she's up for tenure this year, and while I don't know whether she should have tenure or not, I don't feel that she shouldn't. I know what a tenure year is like; we went through two years of he**. I'd have to feel strongly that she's in the wrong business to want to make Ms. Kahl's tenure year more stressful than it already is.

Christopher has said to me, several times, 'Ms. Kahl is a good teacher,' or 'Ms. Kahl is a pretty good teacher.'

Ms. Kahl isn't a crowd-pleaser; I'd be stunned to learn that she plays to the kids in any way, or grooms fans.

So if Christopher is telling me she's a good teacher, one thing he's not saying is that she's a narcisstic teacher winning love from kids. Plus he doesn't love her. He sees her as a good teacher who wants him to do well.

She's someone who might be a terrific teacher in 5 years' time.


chipperness restored

OK, Christopher just walked in chipper as usual; so far so good.

He's in particularly good spirits because they had another bomb threat today, so they had to walk down the hill to the Main Street School and mill around with their friends until The Danger Had Passed.

That's two bomb threats this fall, both at the middle school, and both, oddly enough, starting in the girl's restroom. "They always come from the girls' restroom," Christopher says.

I know my school didn't have bomb threats in the girls' restroom when I was a kid.

So we finished up with the bomb threat and segued to the subject of, "Do you have my Feature Story?"

"Yes, why?"

"Mr. Fried wants to see it."

comments...

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HelicopterParentsPart2 06 Dec 2005 - 22:13 CatherineJohnson









helicopter parents, part 1
helicopter parents, part 2
helicopter parents, part 3
helicopter parents at the AFT
news from nowhere, part 6 (AP students)
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comments...

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FuzzyMathInSeattle 06 Dec 2005 - 22:42 CatherineJohnson


Charles left a link to this article on reform math in Seattle:

Marilyn Leverson flips through the textbook to show how math instruction is changing.

Words dominate the pages, not numbers. There's not a problem set to be found. It's definitely not the kind of math book that parents remember — which dismays some of them. In Tacoma, students have two choices in high school — reform or traditional math. Teachers recommended the