<p>"I think you are placing way too much faith in the public education system to teach your D what she needs to learn to succeed both in school and in standardized testing. "</p>
<p>This might be very true in some schools. </p>
<p>However, it is probably equally true that some parents are putting way too much faith in their children’s ability and efforts in deserving good grades.</p>
<p>You say that the few bright students are getting As. Shouldn’t all the kids in an Honors Geometry class be bright?</p>
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<p>That’s not how Honors classes work. Honors classes move at a faster pace, with less repetition than regular classes. It is the responsibility of the Honors student to keep up. I would consider investing in a private tutor for your D. Just because she has good grades in her other classes that does not mean she deserves good grades in all her classes.</p>
<p>It is very difficult to express and explain in detail everything that has transpired since Sept. I am a “get to the point” kinda girl. I did NOT mean to insult or disrespect ANY teacher. I am of the few that think teachers are overworked and underpaid. With that being said, I have 4 children. I have been around the block a few times. I am not a “tiger mom” whatever that is, I do not “call” and make complaints about b.s. I am just a concerned mom whose daughter is having trouble in honors geometry. I know my kid. Just as all of you do. My daughter happens to be a very energetic bright girl accompanied with determination and compassion. I just wish her geometry teacher was as well. Jump all over that one, go ahead. I would like to thank all of you once again that have taken the time to read my post and sincerely give a thoughtful, kind sincere opinion. I have read your posts and taken your skillful advice. For all others, take life with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>If she’s having trouble in honors geometry, my suggestion would be to move her into the regular geometry class. That may be hard to hear if she’s been a high achiever all her life, but maybe in this instance she needs a slower-paced class. </p>
<p>About RateMyProfessor, though . . . at first I pretty much ignored it, figuring a lot of complaints were just from students who wanted an easy class. But then I had a few bad classes (“bad” for various different reasons) and I looked on RateMyProfessor . . . and lo and behold, the reviews matched my experiences to a T. </p>
<p>Yes, there are meaningless reviews on there from lazy students, but if you read the in-depth reviews, they are spot on. At least they were in my experience. I would highly, highly, highly recommend telling your kid to check RMP before taking a class.</p>
<p>ETA: My experience was with college professors. I would be more hesitant checking the ratings for high school teachers (if they’re even up there?), as high school students are more flaky and sometimes have not met up with real life yet.</p>
<p>jamminj: I’ve read all the replies and here’s an idea I haven’t seen as such.
Since, based on your sampling, only 3 students are passing the class, go and ask point-blank the teacher what percentage of the students are passing, and based on this, whether she intends on curving - typically, it’ll mean something like 30% As, 30%Bs, 25% Cs, 15% Ds and Fs, regardless of the original, numerical grade.
What do you know about the teacher? Has s/he taught at your school for long or does s/he come from another school district (where perhaps grading was more stringent)? Or did s/he come straight from college, perhaps an elite college or grad school, and isn’t used to grading patterns at the High Schol Level?
You may also want to get a “real” (solid) number on how many students are getting D’s. You said, apparently, it was 3/25. If that number is fairly solid (or even slightly exagerated but not by much) it means there’s either a problem in the way the questions are asked or in the way they are graded. (We’ll assume the teacher’s good and that your daughter is diligent).
If the teacher tells you all is perfectly fine, that 3-6 students out of 25 passing the class is to be expected then indicates there’ll be no curve for the yearly grade entered on the transcript, go ask the principal whether curving can be applied, being non confrontational and making sure the principal knows you respect the teacher and that you realize that even with the curve your daughter will get a low grade, but at least it’ll be placed in context and will “make sense” - because if 22 kids are getting Ds, which Ds are for “understood basically nothing”, which Ds are for “understood somewhat”, which Ds are for “incomplete understanding”? Frame curving as a way to “put a perspective” on/“give meaning to” all students’ grades, not necessarily result in your daughter’s grade increasing. If you criticize the teacher you may alienate the teacher and the principal, but if you frame it right it may actually serve all students.
Finally, your daughter should probably take Geometry in another context over the summer, as has been suggested, and I would have suggested the D.McKellar books if someone hadn’t beaten me to it already. :)</p>
<p>You said that her weakness is pop quizzes. This might mean that she doesn’t understand the material well, and needs specific preparation, such as before a test, or an open textbook. Des she spend a lot of time studying? Currently I am taking Honors Geometry, and my classmates and I average only a few hours per week. If she studies for more than 6 hours, she might benefit from a different method of learning. Try Khanacadamy’s videos, private tutoring, or an online course.</p>
<p>sg12909, she studies roughly about an hour per night, give or take, probably 4x per week. She does her homework every night, but sometimes has trouble with that too. As previously stated, she also attends 5 tutoring sessions per week, so it’s not for lack of trying. I think some of the posters hit the nail on the head that she just isn’t grasping geometry. It has been mainly the pop quizzes. One time, the teacher let them use their notes during the quiz, and she still failed, along with a majority of the class, according to my D. The thing that struct me the most odd, was when she went to one of the tutoring sessions in the morning, and she brought her homework from the night before that she was having trouble with, and that’s when I got the text from her that stated, “mom, 3 teachers and 7 kids couldn’t help me figure this out”. I don’t know at this point where the teacher is getting HER material from? Ugh… I have another appt today at 3:45. We’ll see…</p>
<p>Good luck. Can you ask her whether she thinks her book covers the material well? That could be another issue to bring up.</p>
<p>Does that mean that all these people couldn’t figure out the problem(s) themselves and thus couldn’t help her? Or that they all tried one after another to explain the question(s) and no matter what they tried, your daughter couldn’t understand?
If that’s the latter, it’s very possible your daughter is “blocking”, she’s so “hurt” by the situation that her affective filter is way up and her brain reacts by blocking any new geometry information. I don’t know whether she can withdraw and re-enroll in another place (different location, different kids, different teacher, different approach) so that she can start again on the right foot?
Her text could be understood as “see, mom, I’m stupid at this, stop telling me I can do it, I can’t”. That’s unyone could have lost their confidence with a whole year of sliding to a D.
If that’s the case: Drop the tutoring sessions since they’re not doing any good. Let her work at her pace, using Khan Academy and the mcKellar books. Dedramatize things with her - it’s okay to withdraw, it’s okay to take a class again, the problem’s only temporary and once she’s decreased the pressure she puts on herself, things will get better.
But first, make sure that those numbers are correct; your daughter might be exagerating a bit to make herself feel a bit better about a situation that clearly overwhelms her.
If her numbers are correct, meet with other parents: you can’t be the only one who’s concerned. Use the strategy of asking for “curving” the numerical grades into yearly letter grades corresponding to a level in the class" (whatever kids got the top 10% scores get an A, whoever is in the next 20% gets and A-, next 10% get a B+, next 10% get a B, etc. - regardless of scores. If the top 10% got a 78 that’s an A, if the next 20% got a 73 that’s an A-, if the next 10% got a 67 that’s a B+, etc. In some engineering classes, where a top grade might be a 67, a 51 can be a B-…)
Sidenote: aren’t phones forbidden in your daughter’s classes/school?</p>
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I would not read too much into this without more context. I have a math degree (never took geometry, either in hs or in college). If she were just to walk up to me with a question from 3rd quarter Honors Geometry, I could not help her on the spot either. That’s not to say that the material is the problem, just that I am not familiar enough with it to jump into a problem at that level.</p>
<p>Geometry is geometry. It’s not a “soft science”. Sure there are different ways to reach the correct answer, and that should be acceptable. So a different outside tutor shouldn’t create any problems. So the go arguement seems silly to keep going back to the problem for tutoring.</p>
<p>Can you get several parents together to chip in for a good tutor? We had a college math student tutor my daughter. Did wonders. </p>
<p>Another thing, is how is she grading? When I was in hs, we got points for the formulas. So if we had made an additional or simple mistake but did all the formulas correctly, we didn’t fail the test. </p>
<p>Again try and get a few other parents together for a tutor.</p>
<p>Jamminj, I am sorry your daughter is going through this. I agree with the posts that suggest putting your daughter in a regular geometry class and I agree with the reasons given why to do so. It’s instinct to question the teacher when your straight A student doesn’t do well in a class, but sometimes the student is just in the wrong place. Geometry is the first non-arithmetic math course most students take, and it’s a complete gearshift from algebra. It’s much more conceptual and abstract. Some students need a slower pace when learning that type of material for the first time. I don’t doubt that the teacher is being short, impatient, and even snobby with your daughter. I know a lot of honors teachers are, especially if they’re younger, but it sounds like your daughters situation is beyond worrying about that. </p>
<p>That said. Is switching her to regualar geometry an option for you this late in the school year?</p>
<p>The thing that jumped out at me from your original post was that your daughter burst into tears when she saw the D on her report card. She must have known she was getting a D or that it was a possibility. Math grades are an average of homework, quiz and test scores, and extra credit if the teacher gives it. All my kids know or can know what their math grade is at any point during any semester if they want to figure it out. And if concerned can always ask the teacher as can you, via email or a phone call, I’m sure. At our school there are midterm comments and a student with a C- or lower will get a midterm grade and detailed comment so the student and parents are warned in plenty of time that a less than passing grade is coming and they can take steps to remedy it. Even if your school doesn’t have a similar warning system, your daughter saw a lot of papers coming back with very low grades on them. This would be a good opportunity for you to have that talk with her, so this doesn’t happen in the future. The teacher will be out of her life in a few weeks and you will figure out how she can learn the geometry she needs to. I had this issue with one child who was an absolute straight A student and then came home with a C in Algebra II one marking period. My concern was less with the poor grade than that she hadn’t addressed it earlier. After lots of emotion, it turns out that she was 1) feeling scared and helpless about her poor performance in the class 2) afraid of my reaction, and so on. Turns out it was also a notoriously terrible teacher, who was fired before my next child got to that class, but at the time we focussed on what we could change, and it was a great learning experience for my D and for us as a family, in terms of communication, expectations etc. With help, she eked out a B in the class but that wasn’t the real success.</p>
<p>@ nynightowl - Yes, I agree with you. She did know she was slipping. She was nervous about how I would re-act. She does receive interim reports and we knew she was not doing well, however, that is why we started the tutoring. The other reason for her outburst of tears was because when she got the interim report, which was a 70 (D), she thought in her head that she picked up the grade quite a bit with the help of tutoring. She had some quizzes in between the interim report and actual report card that ranged between 82% and 90%, so in her mind she thought that would bring her grade up to at least a C. But after speaking with the teacher at the conference, she informed me that those quizzes aren’t given much weight. After the 2nd conference yesterday, the GC and my D have agreed that even if she ends up with a B this last 9 weeks, she still should re- take a summer course because she has zero confidence in her ability to do geometry on future tests (act & sat) right now. The only other positive so far is that the teacher has been more attentive and going over things with her to make sure she’s grasping. I guess I’m to blame for not stepping in sooner when her grades fell from B to C to D. Although, I did e-mail and send in notes to the teacher with no response after the C, I didn’t follow up and make “noise” until the D.</p>
<p>Also, for many of my teachers (that I knew in public HS), a B or C wasn’t necessarily anything to worry about. For them, as long as the kids passed, they weren’t going to call home. They would have responded if the parents reached out, but to them, in an honors section, a B or C was perfectly fine (especially if it was in line with the child’s past performance in their class).</p>
<p>Isn’t 20-20 hindsight great? Quit beating yourself up.
If she makes a B (or even scrapes by) the last nine weeks, I wouldn’t have her take a summer class–some things are just better left in the past. Just celebrate that it’s over!..she’ll live very happily without knowing geometry (I’m perfectly happy as an example and I ended up in a science/math heavy major). The stress just isn’t worth it. Enjoy the summer because there aren’t that many of them. And as others have said I wouldn’t worry about the SAT at all. Not everybody (or rather nobody) is good at everything.</p>
<p>Maybe she shouldn’t be in honors Geometry? Maybe encourage her not to overload her schedule and stress herself out. It might just be the teacher, but HS math gets increasingly challenging. If she is not understanding the material now, she will be at disadvantage when she takes higher level math.</p>
<p>As for retaking the class in the summer, it would be based on how her HS deals with the grade for the original class and the summer school class on her transcript. Do both grades get reported or does only the higher grade get reported. If both grades get reported and included in the GPA, then I would only retake geometry in the summer if the grade was a C- or lower. If only the higher grade shows up, then maybe consider retaking even if the grade is higher than a C-. Don’t worry about taking geometry for sat or act prep. Those questions are pretty easy so she could only study the parts that will most likely show up (triangles etc) at the time that she is studying for the SAT/ACT</p>
<p>Crazy update… 2 things. One, my D told me that a pop quiz was given and all but 3 students failed, upon which the teacher explained she was going to disregard the quiz and re-teach the material… wow… that’s a first in this class. Two… my D now has a 98/A indicated on the interim report a few days ago… now I’m really like HMMMMMM??? Maybe the squeaky wheel really does get the oil?? OR… ???
you guys can finish this one…</p>
<p>That seems incredibly odd. In a very good way…but that is a hell of an increase to get in a couple weeks.</p>
<p>That’s good news in either case!</p>