Comments

"Could a lot of college kids make up lost ground more quickly than we think?"

I'll share my brother-in-law's ("J") experience with you. He attended a small school in Kansas (the same small school I attended). He "turned off" from math in 7th grade. J was (still is?) strong-willed and also had a "question authority" personality. He clashed with his 7th grade math teacher (a man with a healthy ego of his own). This was back in the early 70's when the teacher WAS the authority figure. The bottom line was that the teacher told J (or at the very least, implied it) that he wasn't good at math. J believed him. From that point on, J took the minimal math required in high school at the time (which wasn't much). J's parents didn't know better.

After graduating from high school, J enrolled at a nearby small college and found out that he had to take entry-level math for no credit. What he learned was that he WAS GOOD IN MATH AND THAT HE LOVED IT! In fact, he minored in math and later received a master's degree (which I think was in math).

So, I think (at least in some cases) that college kids can make up lost ground more quickly than we think. The obvious problem of course, is that he had to start at ground zero in college (where he was paying tuition) to learn what he should have learned in K-12.

-- KarenA - 28 Jan 2006

It sounds like your brother-in-law's experience was not altogether different than my wife's. When we first were married, she told me that she hated math and wasn't any good at it. She's not the type that likes to have her feelings about things debated, but I tried to gently suggest that she might not be as bad as she thought, and perhaps it math wasn't as hateful as she remembered (it had been some years since she had last taken it). She could actually tell me when she started to hate math. It was when a teacher (I'm thinking 7th or 8th grade) made her feel stupid one day in her math class. The way she talked about it almost made it seem like a switch was flipped and that was it.

She finally took our basic algebra course here where I work (I was not teaching it), and it turned out she was actually very good at math. She stressed out about doing well, but consistently got near 100% on tests. She's not going to major in math or anything, but that course really helped to change her feelings about math and her perception of her own abilities in math.

I guess there may be a distinction to be made between students with genuinely weak backgrounds (or those for whom math is really a struggle) and those who were turned off by some bad experience (sometimes by a single event) but have relatively high ability and mainly need to get past the negative feelings about math. I think the latter are often more likely to move through remedial quickly than the former. I have certainly seen both types move through the math sequence here. (There's also a third type I have seen; those who have had a fair bit of math in the past, but it's been so long, they need the review.)

-- MattGoff - 28 Jan 2006

"The way she talked about it almost made it seem like a switch was flipped and that was it."

I think that's a powerful insight. A number of my college students have related similar experiences in a variety of subjects, not just math.

My "second career" (or third, fourth or fifth) has been teaching business law at the college level. I have also taught a critical thinking course for freshman students and one of my most profound (and, as Catherine might say, "LIFE ALTERING) teaching moments came when I had spilled red ink all over a student's one page paper describing our visit to the campus art musuem. It wasn't just that he couldn't express his thoughts clearly; he seemed to have limited command of how to use the English language in written form.

I suggested that he revise the paper, based on my comments. After class, he came up to me, eager to do it better, and I can still remember the sad expression on his face when he said, "Nobody ever told me before that I wasn't a good writer."

My first instinct was to exclaim, "How can that be?" However, my maternal instincts kicked in and I instead reassured and comforted him, I think, while still making sure he understood that revisions would be needed.

I understand that there is a fine line between instilling confidence and uttering false praise. To be sure, my own children would prefer that I utter false praise. However, I prefer that they have actual skills, not false ones. Ah, I think God must surely be in the balance.

-- KarenA - 28 Jan 2006

In fact, he minored in math and later received a master's degree (which I think was in math).

That's amazing.

-- CatherineJohnson - 29 Jan 2006

She could actually tell me when she started to hate math. It was when a teacher (I'm thinking 7th or 8th grade) made her feel stupid one day in her math class. The way she talked about it almost made it seem like a switch was flipped and that was it.

That's horrifying.

Carolyn has that same story, which I think she's told (about art & creativity, not math).

-- CatherineJohnson - 29 Jan 2006

I guess there may be a distinction to be made between students with genuinely weak backgrounds (or those for whom math is really a struggle) and those who were turned off by some bad experience (sometimes by a single event) but have relatively high ability and mainly need to get past the negative feelings about math. I think the latter are often more likely to move through remedial quickly than the former.

I was just thinking that myself.

I'm in .... 2 of these categories

I needed lots of review, probably have OK aptitutde, & was never specifically turned-off to math. Plus I've always loved statistics & wanted to learn how to do them, how to read them, etc., etc....so I was in the math-friendly category.

-- CatherineJohnson - 29 Jan 2006

So, I think (at least in some cases) that college kids can make up lost ground more quickly than we think.

My grade in the last quarter in the last high school math class I took (junior year) was an F. I had been skating on thin ice for years, with teachers unwilling to give me well-deserved Fs, and finally one got mad enough at me to do it.

I didn't take math again until the summer before my senior year in college. I crammed on algebra for a month before I started calculus, and I took calc 1 and 2 in 10 weeks during the summer. A year and a half later, I graduated with a major in math. Then I got an M.A. in math, and then a Ph.D.. People who look at my resume think my academic history is straightforward, but it wasn't at all.

-- CarolynJohnston - 29 Jan 2006

However, my maternal instincts kicked in and I instead reassured and comforted him, I think, while still making sure he understood that revisions would be needed.

I had a HORRIBLE experience like that, which fortunately I was saved from by the student.

I'd just started graduate school, and was teaching writing for the first time. I didn't know how to write myself, but I was teaching it! (We did get quite a lot of instruction in how to do it, so that part was probaby OK.)

Of course, I wasn't a good writer myself at that point, and one day a student came to see me, very upset.

She felt I had trashed her paper.

I didn't think I'd done that at all — and when I read my comments I realized they sounded awful.

I hadn't learned yet to control my tone on paper; I was hearing a friendly tone of voice in my head as I'd written the comments. (I needed an emoticon, a couple of them.)

IIRC, I apologized to her, and told her that in fact the comments sounded harsher than I'd been thinking them.....this is a long time ago, so I may be re-constructing this memory pretty heavily.

I do remember 'squaring' things with her.

She was right; I had trashed her paper — and that wasn't what I meant to do.

Ever since then I've been acutely aware of the problem of tone.

-- CatherineJohnson - 29 Jan 2006

Catherine--

I'm thinking you and I may be operating in parallel universes (whatever that expression means). Let's just say that I have a Bayesian feeling about it. . .

-- KarenA - 29 Jan 2006

Starting to teach is hard, and all too many of us are thrown in without a clue.

When I started teaching math, my tests were way too hard. I actually was trying to make them interesting. A roar of pain went up, and I cut back. I didn't want my kids to do badly and be frustrated; I just didn't want anyone to be bored...

-- CarolynJohnston - 29 Jan 2006