<p>Fun fact (sounds like OP could use a little bit of fun): The Danica McKellar who wrote the book mentioned in post 17 is the actress who played Winnie Cooper in The Wonder Years, and then, instead of going into a Lindsay Lohan-style ex-child star downward spiral, graduated summa cum laude from UCLA as a math major, where her research led to a theorem being named after her! She’s written several math books aimed at teen girls.</p>
<p>OP, I’m sorry your D didn’t let you know sooner that her tutoring sessions with this teacher were useless so you could switch to someone else right away. That C should have sounded the alarm. I was one of those kids who shined in algebra and struggled in geometry–but the concepts that can be tricky in geometry really don’t come up again in high school math, so at least your D can take some comfort in that.</p>
<p>That attitude was pervasive at my math/science urban public magnet high school. Made worse by the fact most teachers taught to the top 1/3 or 1/5 of the class and everyone else was expected to keep up or sink. </p>
<p>If parents/students complained, the teachers/admins would say the student always had the option of transferring back to their zoned high school* and maybe that’s the best option for him/her. And most of our parents would back the teachers/admins up as they felt this was proof the school was academically rigorous and tough “as it should be”.** </p>
<p>It’s also the mentality I’ve heard is common at some state and lower-tiered private colleges’ honors program courses. One friend who took an honors-level college history class recounted how on the last day of class, the Prof asked students who were averaging below B- to carefully consider whether they’re academically suited to continue in the honors program as from the grades in his class, they weren’t performing up to its academic expectations. Moreover, if the cumulative GPA falls below 3.25, the student is automatically dropped from the honors program at that particular college.</p>
<p>*Neighborhood high school</p>
<p>** The silver lining was that college adcoms…including some from elite colleges were willing to dip deeper into our graduating classes than those of most high schools and most of us were more than prepared to excel and do well in college. Despite graduating with an abysmal HS GPA(Not cc/elite HS/pre-med abysmal…real abysmal), I ended up graduating with a highly respectable undergrad GPA most parents would be pleased with from a top 30 LAC.</p>
<p>As for bad teachers, “blaming the teacher” is ineffective if there is 1 parent/student doing the blaming. If you got a ton of students together who had poor grades, then the parents could go to the administration as a group and discuss the teacher’s ineffectiveness. But if it’s only a small group, then the administration will see it as a student’s problem rather than a teacher’s problem (i.e. this teacher might not teach in a manner that your D can understand). If you decide to pursue this route, then do it well after summer. And if the teacher has tenure, then it will be unlikely that she can be fired, but you can always try as a group.</p>
<p>As for what to do right now, your D may have problems with geometry because she may not be spatially oriented. Forget proofs, it’s more like solving spatial or jigsaw puzzles, and some kids may not be as spatially oriented but excel more in auditory learning.</p>
<p>I would suggest having another geometry teacher tutor your D, or see if she can transfer into another geometry class. Can you hire a tutor or a student tutor? Definitely retake geometry in summer school.</p>
<p>My D had a honors physics teacher that she felt was terrible, so she moved into AP physics and loved the teacher and got great grades. Second semester the terrible honors physics teacher took over the teaching of the AP physics class and so my D’s grade went down because he was a horrible teacher for her. But other kids liked him. So different teaching methods work for different kids.</p>
<p>Also, I’m surprised that she would have tutoring 5 times per week and then she and the teacher had not formed some “bond.”</p>
<p>“mom, 3 teachers and 7 students couldn’t help me with my geometry homework questions”…if 7 students are trying to help her, then that means that 7 students understand the problem; thus it appears that the problem is not extremely difficult. She needs to keep a positive attitude for geometry in summer school; a self-defeating attitude can lead to…well…self-defeat.</p>
<p>OP , there’s an opportunity here for a teachable moment. When faced with lackluster results, do we diagnose the areas of difficulty, decide what is within our control, and attack that? Or do we have meetings to try and control other people? I have been in this situation so many times, and often it turns out the student is not nearly as without blame as they’d have you believe. But that doesn’t really matter, in the end. </p>
<p>You can’t change the teacher, you cant change the GC. They do seem underwhelming, I do get why they make you crazy, but at the end of the day, you can put your energy into being mad at them, or put your energy into learning geometry. There’s also the possibility that your D is just not going to get it – maybe a D is the grade she earned —and you need to support her in the idea that it’s not the end of the world, not a moral failing, and sometimes that happens. We move on. We learn the lesson. We study more, study smarter, study harder. But there are things we all aren’t good at, and that needs to be okay.</p>
<p>Khan academy can be great. Having her teach you, even better. There will be many teachers and professors that aren’t the best instructors – here’s the chance for her to learn how to learn when it’s up to her.</p>
<p>Are most students in the class struggling? Do most of them require extra help? One of my ds had an honors physics class in which this was true - the only way she, and many others, got through was by all of them staying for extra help every day. It seemed clear that the teacher’s approach was lacking - why did he need an extra 45 minutes to teach motivated students the same material that other physics teachers covered in the standard time? If most students are struggling, the teacher doesn’t look good.</p>
<p>But if it’s only a small number of students who are struggling in class, there’s probably a disconnect between the way those kids can learn geometry and the way the teacher teaches it. I agree with the poster above who suggests finding a student who did well in the class and having that student provide the tutoring. In many high schools, the National Honor Society offers one-on-one tutoring.</p>
<p>The D doesn’t look great, but it’s not a permanent setback. If your d learns now how to handle this kind of learning challenge (self-study, seeking out other resources, moving on from setbacks), she’ll be much better-equipped when the situation arises again, as it well might in college.</p>
<p>Well, couple of things. First, understand this has nothing to do with intelligence or being bright. But, sometimes the brain of young teen, while capable of performing the calculations, isn’t yet capable of handling something like a geometric proof. It’s person specific. One option might be to drop the class (doable, even when the school says no, if parents make enough noise) and try again next year with a different teacher. I know, it’s practically heresy to suggest someone not stay ahead. She won’t be through AP Calc-whatever by the time college starts. Maybe, maybe not. There is the option to double on math (take Alg II and geometry) in the same year. There’s also the realization that Calc I is considered a basic first semester freshman course. Not a big deal if you don’t take it until college. </p>
<p>We had a relatively similar situation with a math class with my oldest d. The district pulled a teaher out of retirement to cover the class. Well, d came home daily in tears. She couldn’t get it. She failed (and I do mean comepletely bombed) tests. She got a tutor. We found an online lecture (prof using the same book). ANd the students in the class started getting together on weekends to do thier homework. And she started to crawl back. But I’m not going to lie. It was rough. Fast forward a few years, and D was saying that that old teacher, resurrected from the mothballs, did more than any other to prepare her for college level work, where not everything is going to be spelled out every step of the way. So, another strategy is just to access every resource you have at your disposal–the tutors, the online work, and absolutely put together some student study groups.</p>
<p>I know it is late in the year but can she drop down to non-honors geometry? I found that honors geometry was significantly harder than regular geometry at my daughter’s HS - it was a breaker class for many smart students (who later did fine in other honors math classes and went on to AP calc).</p>
<p>Also the geometry on PSAT, SAT, and SAT II tests is way easier than what they learn in honors geometry (especially since those are multiple choice tests - no writing out long proofs etc.)</p>
<p>First, have you seen the test. Sometimes it isn’t that the kids don’t get the concepts but that they are being -1 to death for showing work etc. Also, I know this might sound silly but she could try finding help via YouTube. My son, also honors now graduating, had some issues with his calc this year. The teachers explanations just weren’t clicking for a lot of the kids. He tried tutoring etc and it wasn’t helping. I know nothing about the topic so I started searching and found a ton of YouTube videos explaining different ways to solve problems etc. He laughed at me but after finding some videos that he found helpful, it became a valuable tool. He now has a 98 in the class.</p>
<p>I’m confused–she is going to tutoring, has gotten help from other teachers and still doesn’t understand the work and you are blaming her teacher? It sounds like she earned the grade she got. I’m not sure what your conference will achieve. Maybe she should retake Geometry next year. Sometimes that extra year of maturity will help. Freshman year is an eye opener for some parents. It’s the time where a student’s real ability starts to show. She is a bright kid but maybe math just isn’t her thing?</p>
<p>Bad impression to send in my opinion. This is a sophomore highschool course and you are a big, bad adult. Of course it can be done. Gotta be 80+% of the teenagers get better than a D in the course.</p>
<p>We had the experience of a terrible teacher who assigned incomprehensible assignments that the students didn’t have the background to do–and that we couldn’t figure out either. The only solution to this situation is to switch teachers. I agree that it’s not necessarily easy to tell if this is actually the situation.</p>
<p>With the teacher my older D had, he would do one example on the overhead, then give the kids a list of problems to do, then sit at his desk and play solitaire. It’s entirely possible for most kids to not understand how to do the work when there was not real instruction going on. Sure, a few adept kids would grasp it on their own, but not most.</p>
<p>I don’t know if that’s the kind of thing happening with the OP’s D, but not all kids can teach themselves a subject, even with help if the teacher doesn’t teach in the first place.</p>
<p>We had a similar issue, albeit in another subject. No matter what my child did, he could not do well in the class. Is there any option in your school district, to retake a class virtually through an on line program and substitute the grade on the transcript? In our district, you can do that, although it will have a (r) next to it, indicating the class was repeated. I Know that BYU offers most classes online.</p>
<p>If that is not an option is summer school an option for a retake? I will tell you that my son is doing way bettter in his school class while taking in virtually on line simultaneously. Your child will always have bad teachers, the trick is to figure out a way to deal with it. If private tutoring is an option, I would do that as well. One C is not going to kill her GPA. Especially if she does well in the higher levels of Math. Geometry is just a different animal as far as math goes.</p>
<p>I am a strong believer in getting help from the outside. It is usually a waste of time, and a hugh waste of effort trying to convince the school, the principal, the administration that they have an incompetent teacher and they should do things differently. Meanwhile the class goes down-the-drain. Always be on the look out for math/science tutors, enrichment, or another way to take the class.</p>
I totally disagree with this idea in principle. As I see it, you have two types of struggling students:</p>
<p>1) Consider my D (now a senior). She didn’t like her math classes. Math is tedious and boring. All she wanted out of the course was herself and a letter grade. Actual understanding not a goal. Sometimes she would ask me for help, but if I had to take time to look at something or if I said something different than the teacher she would just run away in frustration and turn in her substandard or incomplete work. </p>
<p>This approach hurt her in the long run, but that’s water under the bridge. We did what we could.</p>
<p>2) The student who is really trying to grasp the concepts apart from any grade motivations. Math for it’s own sake. Math is math, and for this student being open to hearing or seeing a different explanation of something can bring understanding that was lacking. True understanding would mean that you were ultimately able to grasp ANY logical explanation of the material even if it differs from what Teach did in class.</p>
<p>You seem to think your D is the second type of student, but not having worked with her yourself (at that level) you may not really know this. Perhaps a discussion with the tutor would help in that regard. If she is the first type, you can’t change that, but it will give you some insight as to how to proceed.</p>
<p>What some may call “teaching” in this context most high school teachers and college Professors my HS friends and I have had would consider “spoon-feeding”. Got almost daily lectures about the “evils of spoonfeeding” in preparing for the rigors of college academics* and life from one HS teacher as a 13 year old 9th grader and it became more common as we advanced. </p>
<p>Funny part is despite many college Profs giving the same spiel, most of their teaching techniques at my top 30 LAC and a couple of Ivies would have constituted “spoon-feeding” in the eyes of my HS teachers. </p>
<p>*
</p>
<p>Some of that is also because from what I’ve heard from older high school teachers and those who attended high school before the 1970’s, that was what constituted good teaching back then. Such teachers had higher standards and expected more independence in thinking/figuring stuff out than teachers/standards after the '70s. </p>
<p>One retired veteran ornery Prof at my college even wrote a long editorial several years ago bemoaning the loss of this among educators even at the college level as he felt they were “coddling” undergrads too much.</p>
<p>There is an old adage, that “those who cannot teach, go into guidance or administration” which is why you have guidance and administration who are so empathetic of the tenured teachers. I hope summer school is an option and I would make it clear in a letter to administration, that you want your D placed with a supportive math teacher for next year and do not want the current teacher under any circumstances. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Paid tutors are sometimes much better than classroom teachers.</p>
<p>Face it–we’ve probably all had our run-ins with certain profs or teachers with whom it just wasn’t working and probably never would. Ever. Some were terrible teachers and some just didn’t relate in some way.
My poor D had a Spanish I teacher who couldn’t teach in any way, shape or form. And didn’t pretend to. MORE than one class (a total disgrace to the county) had to take summer school because of it. I was too naive to get her out of it soon enough–I feel bad to this day. She passed but was pretty much failing Spanish II until her teacher realized who she had for Spanish I and took pity on her (and most of her class). It took way too long to rid the school of that teacher–your kid doesn’t have the time to be fighting these types of fights.
My D had an AP history teacher who would state up front that girls just weren’t as smart as boys and that they should go ahead and quit the class. She complained of course but we found that hard to fathom–until my H met him and after talking with him pulled her out immediately.<br>
My son insisted in middle school that his English teacher just did not like boys. Didn’t matter who you were, how you acted, how smart you were–she did not like the boys and would grade accordingly (he still made good grades but he detested being in the class). I found that very hard to believe until I saw her evaluation of him that was required for going to a private school (enough was enough…). All his teachers wrote glowing recs and she barely acknowledged that he was even in her class. He’s bearable was about all she could muster to say for a great kid. All I could say was good riddance and we got out just in time (he was signed up to be in her class for 2 more years because of the way they structured honors classes–one reason we went private).</p>
<p>Anyway, after my rant, I understand how this stuff comes down the pike and the parent gets blindsided–you have a smart kid and can’t believe how awful a teacher can be. You figure the B is good, C can be improved etc. And then…</p>
<p>But OTOH…geometry is just different. I was a science major, took Calc in HS, loved algebra, did well in physics–and was just happy to get out of 8th grade geometry and never see it again. And I had a great teacher too. It wasn’t her fault in the least. It was geometry and me that didn’t click. I had other friends who LOVED geometry, excelled at it and hated all other math.</p>
<p>cobrat-I have no problem with a teacher who wants students to do the bulk of the work themselves-that’s the way my younger D’s school operates-the KIDS show the TEACHER the “proof of mastery” after initial instruction, followed by peer review, teacher assistance and any number of alternate sources of instruction. But that isn’t what happened with her sister. Surely a teacher who spends his time playing solitaire isn’t teaching anything in any way. And yes, I saw this happening.</p>
<p>gouf-I was the same way, so I feel for this kid. My S, on the other hand, used to get in trouble in geometry for not showing the proofs. Why? Because he could just “see” the logic in his head and it really took some work to explain to him that the point was to show how he got to the answer. I don’t think he understands even now that most people don’t “see” math the way he always has.</p>
<p>Thank you all for replying. I have gotten some useful information and plan on using it. I think to some I sounded like a “OH NO, not my daughter” kind of parent. I can assure you, I am not. I agree with those of you who think she may just NOT get it. She aced right through algebra 1 & 2, but has hit a brick wall with geometry. The only reason I put blame on the teacher has already been stated. No need to re-hash. I will be buying the books you have recommended, looking for a “better” tutor, and possibly have her take a summer class if the tutor thinks that is what she needs. Thanks again. I will let you know how her last 9 weeks turned out in June.</p>