Bad math teachers

[kubandalum]

Did one or more bad math teachers kill your confidence in going farther in math than you did?

I went to an eight-grade rural school, and had no trouble with math. My eighth-grade teacher was close to retirement and he taught us algebra and even how to calculate square roots by hand, a process similar to long division.

Going to junior high in town, freshman algebra was a breeze with a great teacher. High school had two math teachers, one good and one the worst teacher in the school. Sophomore year was Geometry and I got the worst teacher. The school had Junior Math and Senior Math. Junior Math was Algebra II and Trig. Got worst teacher again. I could not hack Algebra II with him, though I found Trig pretty easy. I got my first D ever in school with that teacher. I quit trying high school math after that.

At KU to complete the math requirement, I tried an Algebra II and Trig class again. Got stuck in a 7am class taught by a grad assistant who could put anyone to sleep. Never went any farther in math.

I would have gotten a different degree if if I’d thought I could hack the math. I’ve often wondered whether I could have done a lot better with different teachers. A couple of decades later I ran into an old high school classmate, and he said he too had done well in math until getting that one teacher.

What was your experience?

[CrimsonNBlue]

Teachers do matter a lot, IMO. Overall, I was disappointed in my rural KS education. It wasn't "bad" the way the inner city public schools are bad, but I just came into KU quite a bit behind students that came from JoCo and the Chicago burbs that had access to dozens of hours of college credit, AP courses, and just generally better instruction Take for example, my HS refused and did not teach evolution. Calculus was taught by a software program b/c no teacher was qualified to teach it.

But worse, I just talked to my young cousin at xmas who is a Junior at the HS I went to and she is really struggling with the language arts portions of the ACT. Same with me. I scored very, very high in math and science but had scores around 28-30 for the reading and English portions of the test. That is because those things were not taught in my HS and they still are not being taught now. It's just straight negligence by the administration.

When you get to KU, you become a number very fast and have to learn that no one gives a shit about your grades except for you. Coming in behind makes it just that much harder, so it would not shock me at all if a lot of rural KS graduates get served large helping of humble pie grade-wise their frosh year at KU.

[jfish26]

Not a discussion of college math, obviously, but one consequence of Common Core principles is that the parents have no freaking idea how to check (or help with) their kids’ math homework. It’s graded on process, not answer (which is of course appropriate), but it sucks to not understand how to help the kids do better.

[dolomite]

Teachers can make or break a student. I was never a straight "A" student until my 8th grade teacher gave me all "A"s the whole year. I was like wtf???
Had a grouchy old high school math teacher who had his degree from KU. Algebra was a struggle and geometry was even worse, I hacked a "D". Then in college I got an "A" in Trigonometry? Crazy.

[CrimsonNBlue]

Teachers can make or break a student.

To an extent.

But, let's stop short of having your mom call the Dean of a law school to discuss the instructor who gave her an unsatisfactory grade, which happened to a friend of mine.

Also stay short of being a senior at KU and emailing my g/f in disgust that she didn't take into account his grad school application when she didn't give him a 1% grade bump that no one else got.

[TDub]

Not a discussion of college math, obviously, but one consequence of Common Core principles is that the parents have no freaking idea how to check (or help with) their kids’ math homework. It’s graded on process, not answer (which is of course appropriate), but it sucks to not understand how to help the kids do better.

Process is important but why is it more important than tbe correct answer? There are a many ways to skin a cat but its the end result thats important. I hate common core math. I think its a failure.

[jfish26]

Not a discussion of college math, obviously, but one consequence of Common Core principles is that the parents have no freaking idea how to check (or help with) their kids’ math homework. It’s graded on process, not answer (which is of course appropriate), but it sucks to not understand how to help the kids do better.

Process is important but why is it more important than tbe correct answer? There are a many ways to skin a cat but its the end result thats important. I hate common core math. I think its a failure.

Because kids need to learn how to solve problems.

[CrimsonNBlue]

Not a discussion of college math, obviously, but one consequence of Common Core principles is that the parents have no freaking idea how to check (or help with) their kids’ math homework. It’s graded on process, not answer (which is of course appropriate), but it sucks to not understand how to help the kids do better.

Process is important but why is it more important than tbe correct answer? There are a many ways to skin a cat but its the end result thats important. I hate common core math. I think its a failure.

I don't know shit about common core or helping kids with homework, but I would say the goal is to teach the kid how to skin a cat and not for the kid to have a skinned cat in his possession.

[jfish26]

Not a discussion of college math, obviously, but one consequence of Common Core principles is that the parents have no freaking idea how to check (or help with) their kids’ math homework. It’s graded on process, not answer (which is of course appropriate), but it sucks to not understand how to help the kids do better.

Process is important but why is it more important than tbe correct answer? There are a many ways to skin a cat but its the end result thats important. I hate common core math. I think its a failure.

I don't know shit about common core or helping kids with homework, but I would say the goal is to teach the kid how to skin a cat and not for the kid to have a skinned cat in his possession.

Why should kids have to learn to skin cats when they have automatic cat-skinning machines in their pockets?

[CrimsonNBlue]

Process is important but why is it more important than tbe correct answer? There are a many ways to skin a cat but its the end result thats important. I hate common core math. I think its a failure.

I don't know shit about common core or helping kids with homework, but I would say the goal is to teach the kid how to skin a cat and not for the kid to have a skinned cat in his possession.

Why should kids have to learn to skin cats when they have automatic cat-skinning machines in their pockets?

Which, again, I don't know shit about common core, but I assume that is one of its goals. I'm fairly certain I could become valedictorian at most high schools if you gave me a MacBook, a TI-83 (if those still exist) and an extra hour for each exam.

[jfish26]

I don't know shit about common core or helping kids with homework, but I would say the goal is to teach the kid how to skin a cat and not for the kid to have a skinned cat in his possession.

Why should kids have to learn to skin cats when they have automatic cat-skinning machines in their pockets?

Which, again, I don't know shit about common core, but I assume that is one of its goals. I'm fairly certain I could become valedictorian at most high schools if you gave me a MacBook, a TI-83 (if those still exist) and an extra hour for each exam.

Maybe. I'm also certain that if I had to take the SAT (or ACT I guess) right now, I would bomb the shit out of the math sections. I can't even tell you what calculus is for, now.

[DCHawk1]

The way they teach math to grade schoolers these days is shit.

I understand needing to teach kids HOW to solve problems, but the way the teach them to solve them is borderline malpractice.

[CrimsonNBlue]

Why should kids have to learn to skin cats when they have automatic cat-skinning machines in their pockets?

Which, again, I don't know shit about common core, but I assume that is one of its goals. I'm fairly certain I could become valedictorian at most high schools if you gave me a MacBook, a TI-83 (if those still exist) and an extra hour for each exam.

Maybe. I'm also certain that if I had to take the SAT (or ACT I guess) right now, I would bomb the shit out of the math sections. I can't even tell you what calculus is for, now.

Oh yes, standardized testing with time limits and no studying would be an absolute bomb.

School exams with an extra hour which is just for google and teaching yourself - different story.

[jfish26]

Which, again, I don't know shit about common core, but I assume that is one of its goals. I'm fairly certain I could become valedictorian at most high schools if you gave me a MacBook, a TI-83 (if those still exist) and an extra hour for each exam.

Maybe. I'm also certain that if I had to take the SAT (or ACT I guess) right now, I would bomb the shit out of the math sections. I can't even tell you what calculus is for, now.

Oh yes, standardized testing with time limits and no studying would be an absolute bomb.

School exams with an extra hour which is just for google and teaching yourself - different story.

I was in a fantasy football league one time where the last place finisher had to take the SAT hung over.

[thekid6]

I'm a teacher (not a math teacher), but I'm thinking of taking the math Praxis this summer (it looks really hard). I'm good at math, but my KU professors really turned me off math. KU didn't have calc 3, but engineering calc 2 (next class would have been differential equations), which was essentially both calc 2 and 3 in a 1 semester class. Had a 9 or 10 am class with a T.A. that didn't speak English very well, and it was a 5 day week class! Long story short, I'm good at math, but I understand why people feel this way.

[CrimsonNBlue]

Had a 9 or 10 am class with a T.A. that didn't speak English very well, and it was a 5 day week class! Long story short, I'm good at math, but I understand why people feel this way.

1. Bad secondary education practice where GTA's are tasked with teaching courses because they make a fraction of what even lecturers make. aka budget cuts/no money to begin with

2. Allowing grad school applicants to take the TOEFL until they can barely pass it and just relying on the score.

[twocoach]

My 15 year old is in an AP Advanced Algebra class in an excellent school district. Overall I have been pleased but I do have a problem with how reliant they are on submitting homework through a computer program.

They don't do enough handwritten reps to memorize the process. Seeing your hand physically write out a problem imprints it in your brain. These PC programs just don't have the same impact.

She will be way ahead of a typical public school education but there are opportunities missed by the teachers. I make her do a lot of additional work in addition to her regularly assigned homework. Dad The Jerk but she will thank me some day.

[TDub]

Not a discussion of college math, obviously, but one consequence of Common Core principles is that the parents have no freaking idea how to check (or help with) their kids’ math homework. It’s graded on process, not answer (which is of course appropriate), but it sucks to not understand how to help the kids do better.

Process is important but why is it more important than tbe correct answer? There are a many ways to skin a cat but its the end result thats important. I hate common core math. I think its a failure.

Because kids need to learn how to solve problems.

Sure. But whats wrong with how we all learned to solve problems. Penalizing a kid for getting the correct answer but not doing it in a very specific way seems counterproductive to me.

[twocoach]

Process is important but why is it more important than tbe correct answer? There are a many ways to skin a cat but its the end result thats important. I hate common core math. I think its a failure.

Because kids need to learn how to solve problems.

Sure. But whats wrong with how we all learned to solve problems. Penalizing a kid for getting the correct answer but not doing it in a very specific way seems counterproductive to me.

I do believe that kids need to have a step by step process that they show in their work. Many times kids skip steps because they do them in their head. They need to show them on paper because most work done in your head is sloppier and more prone to being wrong due to an silly mistake.

I'd bet the vast majority of mistakes made on my kid's tests are silly mistakes where she tried to do two steps at once or skip writing something out and do bad math in her head.

Grade school and middle school are for learning the foundations, learned mostly through good presentation of the new concepts and reps. High school is more foundation work and a beginning of learning the application of your knowledge and higher level conceptualization.

[DrPepper]

As a parent, I had no problem with common core math when the kids are allowed to go at their own pace.

I went to a great KS public high school. It didn’t offer all the courses and extras of the bigger schools, but I’d choose it again. Senior math did not allow calculators. Like someone else had, we memorized square roots so we could calculate the trig tables rather than looking at the tables in the back of the text book or asking a calculator.

I went to a college that did not have TAs and all the profs spoke English well. However, I blame falling in love for my low calculus grade 1st semester.