<p>My daughter has a HS friend who wouldn’t put up with a bad teacher. He dropped the class - pre-calc in 11th, took it in 12th. He’s my hero (we all agree this teacher is a disaster) He got in to his desired U engineering, in the honors college ~rocked the SAT.</p>
<p>OP, I feel your pain. My freshman son failed a different class last marking period and was distraught. However, we had a totally different outcome because the teacher called me and said “this is the gap. He needs to do XYZ over and over again and then move forward.” Teacher observed the problem, communicated the problem and suggested a specific fix. I would never have been able to figure out exactly what was missing and neither would my son. He took her advice and started making slow progress. By the end of that parking period his grade had risen by 45 points. I bless that teacher. She didn’t do the work for him, but she did use her expertise to show us what the problem was.</p>
<p>Exactly zoosermom. That’s what I think a “teacher” should be doing. </p>
<p>@13transfer - If you don’t have anything constructive or useful to contribute, please shut up. You might be smart at math, but you have zero people skills.</p>
<p>I had a teacher for a science class that the overwhelming majority failed all the tests in because the teacher required things be in his words and answered in his methods… which was ridiculous.</p>
<p>He ended up having to curve the grade of D- to C so that he didn’t have a 95% failure rate.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, such teachers are rare IME…even at private LACs. </p>
<p>Moreover, there are “old school” style teachers/Professors who’d consider that a form of “spoon-feeding”. </p>
<p>One ornery Prof who is like this and wrote an editorial condemning “coddling” has this exact mentality…and it’s a reason why many undergrads including yours truly avoided him like the plague. </p>
<p>A much younger college alum unfortunate to have had him right before he retired also mentioned a stock answer to many student questions was “Look it up/Google it!”.</p>
<p>I think that my post was constructive. Given that I have done a fair amount of math (it is my major), perhaps you should think about it rather than agreeing with all of the other moms, most of whom have not taken math. </p>
<p>How do you know that your daughter’s teacher is poor at conveying concepts? Are you just assuming this because her grade is low? Your daughter has done well in basic process algebra, and now she is moving on to a higher level. Many people get lost in the transition. I knew quite a few students who got A’s in Algebra 2, and then ended up with D’s and F’s in AP Calculus.</p>
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<p>I’m inclined to agree with this for the most part. From the sounds of it, this definitely isn’t the greatest teacher ever…but I don’t feel that pinning the blame on the teacher is really going to solve anything. It’s been made fairly clear from the sounds of it that the teacher isn’t really going to extend any extra help than has already been given. </p>
<p>Geometry is a much more abstract subject than basic algebra. Elementary algebra classes are really fairly easy…but the knowledge that you get from an algebra class really isn’t going to help you out very much in geometry. It’s a very different kind of math. Yes, there will be a small amount of algebra in it…(angle 2x+1 is equal to angle 3x-4 type of stuff) and some simple systems of equations…figuring out lengths of line segments and such…but most aspects of geometry involve very little algebra. Especially in a more rigorous honors section, it is going to be very heavily proof oriented. I’m a math major…so I’m sure I have a somewhat biased view on this…but I’ve tutored a lot of people in geometry. Some people just don’t get it. Writing proofs is not really “mathematical,” it’s more in the realm of logic and formal reasoning. </p>
<p>Short of getting the tutoring and using online tools that have been mentioned already in this thread…there probably aren’t really any other options.</p>
<p>My post was not intended to be insulting or overly critical. This has just been my experience, and another math major above agrees with me. Another example is students who had a 90% in high school math, and then ended up with 16% on their first university math midterm, and dropped. Was it the professor’s fault? I’m not so sure.</p>
<p>I would recommend her repeating the course over the summer if that is possible. Usually in middle/high school, they will just replace the old grade with the new grade which is nice.</p>
<p>@13transfer: You mean well and there is a lot to be said for your point of view.</p>
<p>However, there is more to influencing people than simply believing you are right or having a defensible point of view. </p>
<p>There is a saying:</p>
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<p>Parts of your message were not “connecting”, such as:</p>
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<p>Other posters addressed this topic by pointing out that some students, often they themselves, were better at some parts of math than others. Your sweeping and overly general statement, by contrast, managed to insult both mother and daughter in a single sentence.</p>
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<p>You don’t consider this statement to be insulting? That requires no thinking? And not just to the daughter, but to all who have done well in and/or enjoyed algebra?</p>
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<p>Quite a sweeping, sexist, insulting, and indefensible statement. How do you know who has or has not “taken math”? You don’t believe that OP has been “thinking about it”?</p>
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<p>Perhaps not, but it was insulting and overly critical nonetheless.</p>
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<p>Because of your insulting manner and lack of civility, you have no influence on the decision makers in the discussion. The thoughtful core of your contribution goes to waste.</p>
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<p>If your posts are indicative of how you relate to others in real life, you would be wise to give some thought to your people skills.</p>
<p>I don’t believe parents have any intuition. My mom left us when I was 2 and my father has never tried to know or understand me. I’ve survived on my own. The intuition thing is in your mind but not reality at all.</p>
<p>While 13transfer might not have put it best, there is a little truth to the statement that algebra, for the most part, is mechanical. Not to say that it is not difficult, but there are a specific set of skills to be acquired and used, and a lot of times, analytical/critical thinking is not a big component of algebra classes.</p>
<p>The same is not true of geometry and calculus. To a lesser extent in geometry (proofs, inductive/deductive reasoning especially, trig identities if they are covered (I don’t remember, but that’s pre-calc, right?) and especially in calculus (especially BC), the math moves from ‘I can recognize this is an ‘x’ type of solving problem/word problem (even in the more difficult solutions/mixtures and work/labor problems). I do this skill/process’ to ‘This is a ‘x’ category of problem. I know five different ways of doing this problem, and all of them are equally likely. Let me try two or three ways and see what works.’ There’s actually a very large disconnect between people seeing/doing problems and understanding/applying problems, and as you do more and more math, the former group can’t keep up without working to ‘fix’ crucial conceptual gaps in algebra/trig/geometry.</p>
<p>And of course, we can also go back to the point that an algebra-oriented person might just hate geometry, and a high-school level math class may move differently, things we rehashed in the first couple of pages.</p>
<p>ADad, fair enough. After reading what I felt to be the OP’s scapegoating the teacher, I wasn’t feeling particularly friendly. I still feel that the core of the points I made are valid, but they were much too blunt and harsh. The OP did brush me the wrong way, though. Usually on the internet, I just write what I feel and usually it is blunt. I suppose I should conduct myself online the same way that I do in person.</p>
<p>13transfer, thank you very much for replying. I am impressed with the maturity revealed by your response. </p>
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<p>This is an excellent approach and I am glad to hear you say it.</p>
<p>I wish you well!</p>
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Are there other Honors Geometry teachers in the HS? Because, of course, the other common denominator is that they are all in Honors Geometry. Has this teacher taught the course in the past? Or is this the first time?</p>
<p>heart goes out to you - my daughter is having the same type of problem with a science teacher. She is getting an A- but for some kids that just isn’t good enough. I met with the Vice Principal in my school and the GC and it basically had no effect. This is why the concept of tenure makes me CRAZY–what job is guaranteed regardless of performance???<br>
Any way, I went and got her a tutor - one who is very strong. She meets with her once per week and is given assignments in between. The hour of tutoring consists of 1/2 hr. of covering the current topic the so-called teacher is doing in class, the other half hour is review on past topics. You should not worry about geometry on the SAT’s - a good SAT tutor will cover what she needs…
Hang in there and get a tutor ASAP until the end of school- they will have to re-teach her the material but they should spend time on the current topic so she can improve test scores from here on and also review for a final exam or state testing at the end of the year.
GOOD LUCK!!! I also have spent alot of time asking around about which teachers are exceptionally bad and I sent an email to her GC requesting she not get those teachers … I’ve tried switching after the fact and our school won’t do that easily.</p>
<p>^This is the mentality that set me off a little bit in the first place. If your daughter gets an A-, why is the teacher automatically bad? I think that this is why there is so much grade inflation in US high schools. Teachers don’t want to be harassed by some parent because his kid has an A-, so they just give her an A.</p>
<p>Guess what? I have received an A+ in terrible teachers’ classes, and a B+ in one class that had an excellent teacher. What’s going to happen when your daughter or son goes to college, and a professor inevitably gives him/her a B, or even a C? Are you going to phone the professor? Do you think he will care? What are you teaching your child by doing this?</p>
<p>Even at the best of schools, you can run into bad teachers, or frankly, teachers that just don’t click with your child. When our son took AP Calculus (at a prestigious all-boys Jesuit school), he had no problem understanding it, but he just couldn’t get a good grade from his teacher on the exams. He wouldn’t show his work “the right way,” and she would mark him down terribly on each question when he had correct answers and clearly demonstrated he understood it. He was always very strong in math (740 on the SAT). We hired his AP Physics teacher to tutor him, and when he would get his tests back, the physics teacher couldn’t understand why his calculus teacher had marked so much off on each problem. Our son found her very intimidating, and felt he could do nothing right. Just before finals, with his grade teetering at a C-, my wife and son met with her to ask for help, explaining he had been tutored all year, felt he completely understood the work, and wanted her help to make sure he passed. She said she had no idea he was being tutored, and wishes he had come to her for help. We think she had assumed he was just not working hard (she prided herself on the idea that students should have to study 2 hours per day for her class). After this meeting, she seemed to be more on his side, he got an A on his final (securing a B- in the class). To this day, our son doesn’t believe he did anything different on the final than on the other tests all year long. I believe she formed an early opinion of our son, and then saw everything he did through this prism. In the end, this experience is behind him, and it did not alter anything in what he is doing today. There are great teachers and bad teachers. Get a tutor when your chid is struggling with the material and consider repeating the course in summer school. If the teacher isn’t helpful, don’t dwell on it. Move on. If caught early, try to transfer to one that is a better fit for your child, but in the end, you can’t force the teacher to change.</p>
<p>There have been very few instances in which I have actually blamed teachers for grading and/or learning. These have both occurred in English. The teachers didn’t like me and graded me harshly. This was verified when I took my essays to other teachers and asked what they would grade it.</p>
<p>I find this whole discussion to be offensive to teachers. I am a teacher in a way; I tutor quite a few students. Some get it immediately. Others, however, don’t. Does this imply that I am a bad tutor? Don’t get me wrong: there are many bad teachers that should be fired. The discussion seems to be focused on “my son has a bad grade; let’s blame the teacher!” however.</p>
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Perhaps this is one of the reason tenure was implemented in the first place. Everyone in the class gets an A or you are out isn’t an operational education model.</p>
<p>I have found from my years of teaching that what students (and sometimes by extension, parents) expect is often very different from what constitutes actual teaching and learning. As an example I’ll repost the review from RMP (post #67 above):
Now this seems pretty axiomatic advice to me, but obviously this student had other expectations, perhaps ones not involving any effort on his part. To him, the teacher did not meet his expectations and was therefore a terrible teacher. </p>
<p>You gave as an example that the teacher told D to “refer to her notes”, but we don’t have the context in which that was made. Here is a possibility:</p>
<p>Student: Mrs. J, can you do Problem 5?
Teacher: Everything you need to do Problem 5 is in your notes. They are a resource you should be using. Do you see anything in your notes that in any way relates to Problem 5? Anything at all?
Student (to self): I just want the answer. Why can’t she just give me the answer?</p>
<p>You are getting your information on her performance filtered through the expectation lens of your D, after which you filter it through your OWN expectation lens.</p>