Advice please...Teacher issue...

<p>It’s hard to tell where the real problem lies. It could be in the teacher… a teacher turned me off from math in Trig. Another example is a friends daughter was failing a high school class, but aced the standardized test. Only then could they really confront the teacher and principal. It could also be the level of the class or it could be the subject matter. </p>

<p>As I educated my kids outside the system, I am always of the mindset, if you can’t work with them, then do it yourself. I am suggesting an outside teacher or tutor. I gather she doesn’t have much time left to the school year, so let me suggest a site that works fast, at a low cost. (I have not investment here.) It is ALEKS.com and it will help diagnose her weaknesses, and perhaps explain what she is missing. When she ACES that final, then you can go back to the school and insist on a better grade.</p>

<p>A lot of kids in honors math classes just “get it”. (Some of them probably would have done ok on math SAT without even taking hs geometry.) So the hs may be giving that class to a less skilled teacher. </p>

<p>My guess is that your D and her friends were great at algebra, so they automatically got put into honors geometry. Sorry - it sounds like that has been a rough road. Hopefully things get better soon. At this point, hope for a C. Then over the summer start a new thread about tips for learning SAT-crucial geometry.</p>

<p>It looks like there are two problems here:</p>

<p>1: You (and apparently your daughter) want your daughter to excel in geometry. You’ve received many great suggestions for how to accomplish that.</p>

<p>2: Your daughter has a teacher that she doesn’t see eye-to-eye with. If your daughter is made to feel like she’s the victim and the teacher is the problem, it will only making it harder for her to deal with similar issues in the future.</p>

<p>update - since the meeting we had with the GC and the teacher, my D has stated that the teacher is much “nicer and attentive” to her. That’s a start. She went in early this morning for the teacher tutoring session, but in the meantime, I have started chatting with other parents in that particular class and the common denominator seems to be the teacher. Out of 25 students, only 3 got a “C” or higher. (that’s from word of mouth, not sure how accurate) Hmmmmmm. I have the SAT blue book for my son, and I am going to have my D start taking the math portions of the 10 tests to see where she seems to be struggling the most, then take it from there.
Again, I think a lot of you hit the nail on the head about many things. I guess as a parent, I wasn’t seeing the “whole” picture. Thanks for the advice.</p>

<p>Jamminj – feel for you and your daughter, went through almost exact same scenario with D having a problem in ONLY one math class, all As in everything else (as with your D, that should raise a red flag right there!!). It was a painful and frustrating experience in so many ways, and really put a dent in her confidence. This one math teacher made her feel stupid. After trying to sort it out herself, she asked me to help, and she ended up transferring to lower math class with great teacher.</p>

<p>(No disrespect to all those good math and science teachers out there, but I think that most of those qualified to teach math/science are in other fields besides teaching where they earn 3 times the amount of a teacher’s salary!).</p>

<p>Lessons learned:

  1. Don’t put up with it and intervene early enough to make a change. The effects of one bad teacher last a long time.
  2. Explore all possibilities – changing into lower class, doing it via virtual school (if that is an option), repeating the class next year, even better if that repeat will offer grade forgiveness. Even if it doesn’t, it may be easier second time around – with a different teacher. Ha!<br>
  3. Go talk to the teacher, the GC, the Asst Principal then the Principal. If they don’t know about the problem, there is nothing they can do about it. Encourage other students/parents to do the same.
  4. Get a private tutor OTHER than the teacher. (Rubbish what your GC told you – a good teacher will welcome every available method to teach a concept!). We used [Find</a> a Private Tutor | WyzAnt Tutoring](<a href=“http://www.wyzant.com%5DFind”>http://www.wyzant.com) and found the BEST ever tutor (who was a first year math teacher who said it would be his last year because what they wanted him to do on a teacher’s salary was insane!!). He was worth his weight in gold! He told her, you’re obviously not stupid, so if you are not getting it, the problem lies elsewhere. He even offered to do ‘group’ tutoring to other students in the class who were also having problems, and split the tutoring cost, so keep that in mind too.</p>

<p>Yes, it irked me I had to get a private tutor, but what a huge difference he made. Hate to tell you, but it carries on into college too. Best advice I can give you there is to have your D use [Rate</a> My Professors ? Find and rate your professor, campus and more ? RateMyProfessors.com](<a href=“http://www.ratemyprofessor.com%5DRate”>http://www.ratemyprofessor.com) and try to pick those profs with the best reviews and that would suit her. At least you get somewhat of a choice in college, in HS you are kind of stuck.</p>

<p>P.S. Had the same problem with a physics hons teacher (who replaced a brilliant one ¾ way through school year, got a higher paying job!!), got same tutor to help, he told her to just basically ignore what the physics teacher was teaching (which wasn’t much anyway). I did go talk to teacher, GC & principal, wasn’t sure if it was falling on deaf ears, but the teacher did not return the following year.</p>

<p>P.P.S. And just so you know I am not a whiny, helicopter parent, I do write letters of appreciation to all the GREAT teachers and cc the principal too.</p>

<p>GOOD LUCK!!</p>

<p>The main problem I still see is that you’ve taught the D to expect the teacher to accommodate her needs. That’s okay for a H.S. Frosh, but she also needs to be taught that there will be no such coddling at University.</p>

<p>

Here is a review of one of the teachers at my school from RateMyProfessors:

This student gave the professor a Poor Quality rating. Not sure how helpful these are sometimes. Still waiting to appear there myself. Sure it won’t be good ;).</p>

<p>Sometimes those reviews are accurate. I looked at a few from Ds school & it is such a small school that I also am fairly confident that I know which students wrote the reviews.
An opinion is still an opinion, but more information is generally useful.</p>

<p>It’s too bad about the teacher, as teaching ability seems to have the greatest impact with subjects like math/science. But even with sub-par teachers, there is a wealth of excellent teach-yourself books, manuals, and online resources - perhaps your D can spend some time with a good self-teach book in the subject (the likes of “Geometry Success in 20 Minutes a Day” or similar), just going through the material at her own pace and explaining it to herself and doing every single exercise in the book. Sometimes that works better than relying on someone else to explain the material. </p>

<p>Your story brings back “fond” memories of a 9th grade math class which a family friend was unlucky to take. After a long struggle, his final grade was F. The teacher advised his parents that he was a hopeless case, that no amount of tutoring would help, and that he would not be able to graduate high school.</p>

<p>Fast-forward a few years - friend got his graduate degree in computer science (math-heavy!) with a GPA of 4.0, and is now a successful engineer at a Fortune-500 firm. The one bad year in math apparently did not stop him!</p>

<p>From what you say, this teacher isn’t very friendly or nice. That being said, your D is going to run into many unfriendly teachers who aren’t looking to help her succeed. She may even run into some who are “against” her. So what can she do to earn an A in spite of this?</p>

<p>Are the exams based on a text book? If so, can you or a tutor help her to learn the material in spite of the bad teacher? While this might not seem “fair” to you, what does it matter in the long run? You and your D don’t really have time to worry about what is fair or right…she just needs to keep her grades up.</p>

<p>I realize that in HS, you expect the teacher to be on her side. But it isn’t going to be long before the teachers/profs aren’t spoonfeeding material to her. She is going to have to figure out how to “get it” on her own. </p>

<p>Also, I don’t feel it is every HS teacher job to make sure all the kids “get” every topic. Their job is to present material and offer resources to help make the students self sufficient… my S right now has a Physics teacher that he detests in HS and he has to fight her at every turn. I try to tell him to look at it like a college class (it is dual enrollment) - I often didn’t like my profs, but that didn’t stop me from learning.</p>

<p>I know this may not be the answer you are looking for, but we can’t always change the teacher. Sometimes we have to change our attitudes in response to those teachers.</p>

<p>And there are also a lot of thoughtful, hardworking students out there looking for decent teachers/profs (like jamminj’s daughter) who also comment on Rate My Professor, such as this one review (out of 96) for a math teacher who had an overall rating of 4.9 on a 5.0 scale:</p>

<p>“If all math teachers were like Mr. X, everyone would be going into STEM fields. Hate math, loved Mr. X, really GOT a lot of algebra concepts for the first time. Awesome teacher! Just goes to show you with right teacher anyone can succeed!”</p>

<p>You take all the comments with a grain of salt, but in this case, my D took a college math class with Mr. P, and he was EVEN BETTER than all his reviews.</p>

<p>Jamminj, check and see if the teacher is rated on [RateMyTeachers.com</a> - Professor, Teacher Ratings and Reviews by Public and Private School Students Parents and Faculty.](<a href=“http://www.ratemyteachers.com%5DRateMyTeachers.com”>http://www.ratemyteachers.com). Didn’t mention it before because you generally don’t have much choice with your HS teachers, but at least it might give you a heads up in the future.</p>

<p>Sorry, but I respectfully disagree. I don’t want to teach my S to spend his time seeking out the best profs for each and every subject. I would rather have him learn to succeed on his own. It’s nice if he runs into a great one now and then, but unrealistic to expect it. Difference of opinion on this one!</p>

<p>@ Cairde - Out of curiosity I checked the rate my teacher link, but I couldn’t find her. In our HS district, we can’t choose teachers anyway, even if there are numerous complaints. </p>

<p>@ Diana - I agree with you for the most part. I have 4 children and I know by this point in my life that not every teacher is going to be all warm and fuzzy towards every student. I don’t ‘think’ I have unrealistic expectations from the teachers or my kids. I do expect my kids to try their best, in my house, we, the parents, go to work to support our family. My hubby & I expect the kids to treat school and schoolwork as their “jobs”. BUT, I expect the teachers to do the best to their ability also. I don’t think this particular teacher is very good at what she does, IMHO. I agree with you that my D, and for that matter, every student, has to take responsibility too. The whole point of my original post was to seek out info about what to do when the student is doing her part, but not the teacher. Three afternoon sessions and two morning sessions of tutoring is an awful lot of time and dedication on her part, I think, plus studying at home, getting her big brother to help w/ homework, etc. shows me that she is trying her hardest. I feel at this point the teacher should have intervened more quickly. Now I’m not saying she should have spent every second with just my D, but from what I am hearing from other students AND parents is that she just kind of sucks as a teacher. Like I said earlier, I think there are bad apples in every bunch.<br>
I do agree that we have to change OUR attitude about this situation. I was much more stressed before I posted on CC about this. The advice from ppl has helped tremendously.</p>

<p>In my experience of Rate My Professor, often negative comments and evaluations come from students who received poor grades. The comments on Rate almost always turn up after grades are in, and more or less, they correlate with grades rather than good teaching.</p>

<p>Now universities have internal polls of students which precede grades. These are more accurate, but student evaluations are considered less reliable than observations, syllabi, evaluations of tests and other less subjective measures.</p>

<p>I haven’t read through all the posts and my reply isn’t helpful, but just wanted to comment that my friend’s S had a math teacher (pre-calc) whose response to a plea for help was “google it”. </p>

<p>Some math teachers just are NOT good teachers!</p>

<p>You have a lot of good advice already. Finding an upperclassman to tutor her or taking advantage of the many free online resources sounds like the way to go.</p>

<p>I absolutely think it is both possible and correct to blame the teacher in this situation. The grade distribution you describe reminds me of a math teacher I had long ago (I am a parent). I was by far the strongest math student in my high school, and one year I got a C; that actually was a very good grade compared to what others received. We begged the teacher for help, and she would refuse, saying she had seen us at the library (where we were working together trying to understand our math homework) the night before when we should have been at home, so we could just suffer the consequences.</p>

<p>As it turned out, the consequences in this case were that we, the students, got her fired, and the school sent a letter explaining those math grades to the colleges where we applied. </p>

<p>Letting the bad teachers remain in place helps nobody. Years later, I still am frustrated with that woman for killing my love of math.</p>

<p>@ ridethewave - I do not want ANY child to feel like you feel now. It is very easy to look the other way. However… it is NOT easy to go against the grain. MOST of us parents know through intuition what is REALLY going on with our children. We need to trust our instincts and act quickly. Unfortunately for my daughter, I put to much faith in our school system and didn’t act quickly enough when I saw the writing on the wall. UGH!</p>

<p>Long ago, in HS I was in Honors Geometry and doing relatively poorly (C+) too. Bad teacher, unhelpful and verbally abusive too. It certainly killed my interest in math, extinguished my sense of “being good at math”, and flattened my high school’s estimation of my math abilities. Fast forward to college, where I was one of a handful of students who hadn’t had Calculus senior year of high school. My major req’d one-year of Calculus for freshman year, same Calc class for engineers as for my major. I aced the class, found Calc to be intuitively easy, and was asked if I was interested in Math as a major.</p>

<p>I find it absolutely plausible that this is a bad teacher issue, and not a student issue.</p>

<p>Why do you think it is the teacher’s fault? Also, why are you phoning the principal? For both levels of AP math, I ended up with the “worst” math teacher in the school. Her ratings on rate my teacher were mostly 1/5, and kids would whine that they got 75% last year and ended up with 30% in her class. I ended up getting 97% in the class and a 5 on the AP exam just by putting a little extra work in and utilizing online materials. Your daughter probably isn’t as good at math as you thought she was. She excelled in the basic process algebra that requires no thinking, and now she is having trouble with more abstract material.</p>

<p>I’m a parent who has looked up teachers on rate-my-teacher that taught me - and are still teaching. I found the range of comments to be right-on-the mark.</p>