<p>Oh, I know, Much2learn. We got it with the older kids too. But it was…firmer in the delivery. One teacher went so far as to tell us that we shouldn’t waste our time and effort. The teachers who KNEW our D of course, had very different opinions. There’s a huge, huge disparity between the number of lower-income kids in the gifted programs in Seattle and those coming from middle to upper incomes. Race is related, but also unequally represented. It’s a whole other thread, but one I’ve seen play out in person over and over again.</p>
<p>I remember those parent nights at middle school and high school. The classrooms of the AP classes were full of parents. The ‘regular’ classrooms had very poor parent attendance. There is a correlation. </p>
<p>My younger D is on the advanced Math track. I don’t think she is gifted. She whines a lot about homework. But she got an A in the class & Proficient on the state test, so I think she’s at the correct level. </p>
<p>I share the OP’s concern that the teacher’s message will encourage giving up too soon. The teacher’s job is a lot easier if she has a smaller class with only highly motivated kids. Something needs to counter that incentive to push kids out.</p>
<p>“While the “hares” say “Yeah, yeah, I already saw this. . .let’s move on.” Well, they SAW it, but they didn’t DO it over and over until they mastered it. So the next time they SEE that type of problem, they only recognize it as something vaguely familiar, but don’t remember how to solve it.”</p>
<p>Yup. I see this all the time with SAT/ACT students.</p>
<p>The problem is that many times teachers, counselors, heck,just about everyone tends to give one size fits all advice. Those students who do not have advocates that are involved and knowledgeable are going to be at a disadvantage unless they do fit that one size. IT’s not just something that occurs just to students of poor/less educated parents. I knew some incredible parents when my kids were in school that were poor and not well educated, but they had made it their missions to find out what opportunities were out their for themselves and their children, and their kids fared better than those who came from homes whose parents were well to d and well educated, but took little interest in these things. The problem is that statistically, those who fall in the economically disadvantaged categories also often fell in to the less educated ones, and also were the ones that just didn’t know how thing worked the best for their kids. I knew the outliers who definitely were resentfully to be categorized , but yes, statistically that is the case.</p>
<p>i removed my children from the very good public school systems available to us, at great expense that wil affect the rest of our lives, because even being high income, well educated and much involved and knowledgeable about these things, dealing with the public school meant too much time lost in situations that I felt were not good for my kids. Private schools are not nirvamas, but the ones I chose were so much better in getting what I wanted and felt my kids needed to get during their k-12 years and were not getting at the public schools. Worth the expense? I don’t know. But it was better, that I can say. I wish my kids and I could have worked it out with the public schools. But we did not. </p>
<p>@cptofthehouse "IT’s not just something that occurs just to students of poor/less educated parents. "</p>
<p>That is certainly true, but they are disproportionately impacted. If you have a parent who is an engineer or scientist or almost any degree at all, they are much more likely to disregard poor guidance from a teacher than less educated parents.</p>
<p>My son was in the gifted program from kindergarten (may have been pre-gifted) but all the kids were tested again in 2nd grade. However, the gifted program was not related to strictly smarts, there was a large portion that related to creativity. There were a lot of straight A kids that could memorize anything and solve very of complex problems but demonstrated (at least test wise) little creativity. Most of the kids that were in the gifted program were good at applying knowledge without instruction. The straight A kids that were not in the Gifted program were usually in the “Bowl” clubs - Math Bowl, Science Bowl, etc. and very successful in those environments. A lot of the gifted kids were also in band and drama and did well in language arts. Calling 1 set of talents gifted does a disservice to all the kids. They need a better term.</p>
<p>No kidding. My parents would have brought some pain on any school that encouraged us to drop out of the top math track. Not THEIR kids!!</p>
<p>I agree. That is what I am saying; that the stats show that those who are in the poor/less educated category are also more likely to be in the category of not being involved and active. However, the real killer is that the alternatives are just not there for those who are poor/less educated. I moved my kids to private schools that cost what many families live on in terms of anual costs. Though informed and activated by what needed to be done, I could not make it happen in the setting of the public school, and those were all “good” public schools. without the money, and the know how to make the change, we all would have been stuck to deal with the issues, many that just were not going to be solved even by a parent who was knowledgeable and involved.</p>
<p>I can see what you mean OP. Math sometimes does require that extra effort. Plus I am the mom of turtles who have had their own challenges along the way. </p>
<p>At the public school, in the honors math classes, within the first two weeks the students have a quiz. A certain score is required for the students to remain in the class. The teachers do, however, emphasize to the students (and parents) that effort and time are needed to succeed in the class . Initially getting into the accelerated math program is test based. I think </p>
<p>I agree that the teacher should emphasize that hard work is needed for a middle school kid to succeed in algebra. But, I suspect these remarks came from the teacher seeing too many kids pushed into algebra 1 by overly optimistic teachers or by pushy parents when their kids didn’t get the recommendation. Our middle school puts the top 40% or so of students in algebra1 in 7th grade. Many of them really aren’t ready. They find it stressful. And subsequent experience shows that they are unable to write down extremely simple algebraic equations or perform basic simplifications. </p>
<p>" Algebra in 8th grade is plenty soon enough to get through calculus in 12th grade" Don’t assume that everyone has access to such an enlightened school as you evidently do. 8th grade? Our 7th graders taking algebra1 are not on track to complete calculus. Students who want to complete calculus have to double up on math classes, (and many of them do). This is a direct result of too many kids who are not ready being pushed into algebra1 in 7th grade and school administrators not having the guts to just say no. If the weakest kids who we allowed in to algebra in 7th grade need 7 years of instruction to get them through calculus, we’ll just make everyone take 7 years of instruction. Never mind that they only have 6 years of schooling left. So I have some sympathy for a teacher trying to deliver a message that perhaps no one else is willing to.</p>
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<p>I would be inclined to think that this is just as much of a problem. I know in my high school, even when teachers did not recommend students for higher level classes because they were too high level for some students, many parents refused to believe that their special snowflake was not actually all that special</p>
<p>@mathyone, I’m curious, what is the math curriculum in your district? In my district, students taking Alg 1 in 8th grade followed it with geometry, algebra 2, pre-calc, and finally calc in senior year. What other classes do students in your district have to take to make the math sequence take so long?</p>
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<p>I agree this is a problem, and not only for the kids who are being underrated – it’s also a problem when parents push their kid too hard and the kid ends up a stressed-out mess, cutting themselves, developing an eating disorder or worse. Some of the teachers who give out advice about the advanced math classes not being “for everyone” may be trying to spare some of these kids that kind of experience. </p>
<p>My D1 knew a girl whose parents punished her any time she got less than an A. I just don’t understand that kind of parenting.</p>
<p>What parents need to do is work to provide their kid with a learning environment that is both supportive and challenging and that lets them experience the fun of learning. Some kids never want to push themselves and need a little more challenging; others are prone to push themselves too hard in order to win approval and need to be taught that it’s okay to slack off and have fun sometimes too. </p>
<p>“What other classes do students in your district have to take to make the math sequence take so long?” The usual year of algebra2/trig is stretched over 2 years to remediate algebra deficiencies. AB calculus is a pre-requisite for BC calculus, so that’s a 2 year sequence for what many schools do in a single year. </p>
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<p>Algebra 1 in 7th grade is two years advanced. When I was in middle and high school, only the occasional top student in math was put in algebra 1 in 7th grade (and such a student found the course to be an easy A); the other good students in math started algebra 1 in 8th grade (one year advanced).</p>
<p>So it makes perfect sense that if a student is struggling in a math course that is two years advanced, then it would be a good idea to back off to the one year advanced track. The one year advanced track will still reach calculus in 12th grade.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus
I think I agree with you. My only uncertainty is over the definition of “struggling.” I think that defined by a typical cc parent, then I agree. As the teacher suggests that it should not be harder than his homework for other classes, I disagree. His homework for other classes this weekend is to draw a family tree with his parents and grandparents. It should be harder than that.</p>
<p>I would expect the kind of student placed in algebra 1 in 7th grade to find math to be his/her easiest subject, and the one that s/he is least worried about getting an A grade in.</p>
<p>Of course, if the school is in an area full of tiger parents inappropriately pushing their kids into courses more advanced than they should be, that may not be the case. But if that is the case, then the inappropriate pushing is the problem.</p>
<p>I have seen this phenomenon at work in our district as well, but it effects the middle class too, particularly the non-Asian parents. Teachers–and not just math teachers–routinely understate the REAL time and effort required to succeed in their subject. For example, they will project that an assignment will take a half hour to complete when really it will take an hour at minimum, and even more to do it with excellence. With my first kid, I felt really confused in the middle school years. I had thought he was very bright, but the number of hours he spent each night on homework always went well above the 1.5 - 2 hours the school told us it should take. And this was particularly the case in math. At back to school night the message was that if your son or daughter took longer than that certain hour estimate to do their HW, then something was wrong, eg. the student was misplaced and was not ready for the material. Baloney! The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the Asian kids were prepping in math for years at Kumon and via other tutoring, so when they breezed through, that made it seem that the other kids who needed to learn the basics first did not belong. By freshman year of high school my son was tracked in all honors classes, did very well, and ended up at an Ivy league school. In contrast, the parents who bought in that if their equally intelligent kid was taking 1.5 hours to do the algebra HW rather than the 45 min. the teacher estimated, then he needed to drop down a level, ended up in regular classes and had their college options affected.</p>
<p>The statement that algebra 1 homework should not be harder than any other middle school classes doesn’t even make sense. If this were true, it would mean that this school system teaches their high school classes at a middle school level.</p>
<p>I think a lot of this can be addressed with common sense. If Johnny is taking a long time to do the homework because Johnny doesn’t understand how to do the problems and is often struggling, confused, needing help, and not mastering the material after having completed the homework, then probably Johnny is misplaced. If Johnny’s teacher assigns 75 essentially identical problems which really do take a minute to do each, and Johnny has to plow through it all, then the only issue is why the teacher feels an excessive amount of repetition is needed. A lot depends on the instructional set up as well. At our school, high school level math classes are double blocked in the middle school. They are getting 90 minutes of instruction every day. With this huge amount of class time, it really shouldn’t be necessary to pile on more than 30 minutes of homework. The kid who has a 45 minute class would obviously need more homework and have to put in more time at home to master the same material.</p>
<p>^Your last point would not apply in our district. Those with 90 minute blocks would typically have math class every other day and would cover twice the material of a 45 minute class, whose students would have class daily. The homework given should be exactly the same, except that in the shorter class it would be given in the form of two halves rather than one larger assignment. </p>