As the subject says, my junior is in honors pre-calc. He has a notoriously tough teacher. Math doesn’t come easily to him, yet he is determined to stay at this level.
He gets 100% grades on all homework. All of it.
The teacher has written that he is a big participator in class, understands the work, proves it at the board.
He goes to the teacher’s office hours after class every day. He does the problems there.
And then he gets to the tests and tanks.
He currently has a D+ average; it was a B- but he failed the last big test with a 41 out of 80.
I am not able to help him with my pitiful math ability.
This is what he texted me today when I asked how I could help:
“I don’t know what more I can do
When I’m with him in conference every single day
And I’m doing homework through rehearsals
And I’m studying math constantly to the point where other homework is being neglected
And I still come to the test and don’t know what I’m doing
Everyone else seemed to have done better on this
I just
I don’t know what I’m doing wrong”
I feel horrible for him. I’m wondering at this point whether it’s psychological. And how on earth to handle this.
(He has never had this testing problem in any other class; he’s taken the ACT and while his score wasn’t great, it was average.)
So sorry your son is struggling. My guess (and this is just a guess) is that he might have some deficits in his understanding of some of the math or is not used to the “honors” part of this class which usually goes beyond applying the principles and techniques to solve a problem but rather encourages synthesizing knowledge and coming up with novel techniques of approaching problems. It sounds like your son’s teacher requires this type of “stretch” thinking more so on his tests than his assigned homework, which I don’t agree with from a pedagogical stand point. Has your son ever mentioned that he runs out of time when taking the tests? That might explain the discrepancy between homework and test performance. In any case, would it be possible for your family to get him some one-on-one tutoring? It can be invaluable for situations like your son’s where some digging in to understand what’s going on is necessary. It could also be that your son doesn’t really get his teacher’s teaching style.
Here is a link to an awesome math instructor that has helped many math students (including my own) through his YouTube channel.
Thanks for this. We’re having a long talk with him this weekend and probably also with the teacher next week. I’ll be asking questions along the lines you raise.
He had some sessions with a math tutor at the beginning of the year, but they didn’t mesh at all for whatever reason.
Does he get to look over the test after it is graded and see what he does wrong and then have someone tell him the correct way to do it? At one point my S21 was having similar issues and the problem was the teacher was asking different questions on the test and he didnt understand how to approach this and since the school didnt give back tests there was no way to figure it out. We had to have him go after school and go over the test with the teacher, and have private tutoring.
If he is trying this hard, doing all the right things, and is failing the tests, he needs to drop down to regular level precalc.
Some people are great at drawing. Some aren’t. Some people are great at music. Some are tone deaf. Some people hit the wall in somewhere in math and have trouble with it. I had a 99th% SAT math score, yet I hit the wall in college Calculus 2nd semester. My sib who was smarter than me and more math/tech inclined than me realized in multivariable calc that he could still do the math, but no longer understood why it worked. He knew that soon after that, he would no longer be able to do the math, if he didn’t understand why it worked.
Let him drop down to regular level and stop killing himself over it!
We are in a similar situation here. How does it look when applying to colleges if a student drops down a level of math second semester? Is it better to stick out the honors level math and try to squeak out a C with extra help and tutoring? Or is it better to drop down and earn an A or B? Either way my current junior - who usually makes the high honor roll - is feeling like a failure.
Does he have good peers in the class that he can discuss things with? Sometimes peers are better teachers because they’re learning vs the teacher who is “old hat” at it all.
Is he looking to head into a math heavy major?
I’d seriously consider dropping down to regular pre-calc. Colleges like to see students in their niche, not almost failing at something that isn’t. His psyche will take a hit having to drop down, but it would likely take a bigger hit if he’s doing all he can and still gets a bad grade - then too, he said he’s neglecting his other homework. That’s not good.
As a math teacher, I fully respect that not everyone “thinks” math. It’s often enough just to know how to do it rather than be able to reason it out ahead of time, which can be what happens in honors classes. It depends upon the class.
As long as the student is working with me and tries their best, I don’t care if they’re in my lowest class or highest. For a non heavy math major, I’d still write an awesome LOR if the student showed me they were awesome. Many times colleges are looking for personalities who will do well, not just the highest master of every subject. An A or B in Pre-Calc beats a D- in Honors Pre-Calc.
Be sure your son is correct about grades and that there wasn’t a curve, of course.
Drop him down to the regular class. This is taking up too much of his time and he has other valuable things to learn/do. This isn’t a failure, it’s a smart assessment of how his resources are being allocated and a strategic decision to reallocate.
If he is really struggling I don’t see how, in good conscience, they can keep him from dropping down. He is doing everything right and still having difficulty and it would be unfair to penalize him. It’s ok if kids aren’t in every single honors section possible. My S22 is in college prep math as opposed to honors with everything else honors or AP and it is working out just fine.
Explain and ask. Make sure they know what he’s tried. At our school there are basic deadlines, then there are case by case situations. It will matter that he’s put forth effort, but the teacher should be able to confirm that - and that it’s in his best interest.
There have been times when I’ve been asked… not many, but more than once.
I’m with @helpingthekid73 . Have him do corrections on the math tests he does poorly on and see where he went wrong. If the teacher doesn’t pass the test back and already offer this, maybe he can bring it up in his office hours sessions. If he is able to understand the work on the tests I would definitely have him do Khan Academy (I find that Sal explains it in very easy to understand ways).
Then maybe do some work on anxiety. It sounds like he might be having some test anxiety and that is making his brain not work right when it comes to test time. I have this happen to me from time to time where I can feel myself getting anxious and I just can’t think straight. “Calm” is a pretty good app to check into. I like to do yoga as well (I like “Namaste Yoga with Kate Potter” free on YouTube, but he might like one with some guys). I can’t do all the poses, but the breath work is great for anxiety. It lowers your blood pressure too.
He’s already doing great with the homework and meeting with the teacher. Have him do Khan Academy before the test and learn some anxiety-reducing breathing techniques.
If dropping down isn’t possible, maybe try another tutor?
I also wonder if he could make the time with the teacher more valuable. It sounds like your son is focusing on the “how” rather than the “why”. He definitely needs to master the how, but maybe the teacher is seeing that as a given by the time the test rolls around. Maybe he needs to ask when he would use this or how to test his understanding. Or if there are more practice problems where he can test his grasp of the material. He may want to sit with the teacher and a test and ask " can you see if there is one concept I am consistently missing?" (This is what a good tutor usually catches.)
It does sound like he’s putting an enormous amount of time into “practicing badly”… The short version of all this is “what fundamental thing do I not understand.” To use a silly analogy, it would be like spending hours at the driving range but holding the club with one hand.
DS made a similar miscalculation in class selection junior year. Killed himself for low B s in the 2 stretch classes and didn’t have time to knock it out of the park in the ones that played to his strengths. The year was a GPA killer and exhausting. If there was a silver lining, it was that throughout college, and even now in his career, he learned the need for balance.
As long as there is a non honors Pre Calc class. My kid’s school only has Honors Pre Calc because it is the only one that prepares for AP Calc. If you don’t take Honors Pre Calc your only alternative is Trigonometry and Statistics or go straight into AP Statistics.
ETA I believe it is a disservice to kids not to offer a regular level Pre Calc class in terms of college admissions. Many universities want to see Pre Calc in a student’s transcript, but when Honors is the only choice it puts the class out of reach for many kids.
D20 was never a math kid and we can trace it back to elementary school where her school was repeatedly the pilot class on some new curriculum. We ended up taking her to a private tutor in 10th grade to work on her skills. Three valuable points that have really stuck with me are:
Math really is based on building a good foundation and there are places along the way where pieces are missing
Math could be seen as another foreign language because if you don’t understand the vocabulary, it is so hard to understand it (Calculus and Pre-Calc are where this really shows!) and
Some kids just are not Math kids and that is OK. They will still find a college that is excited to have them!
We found working with a tutor so helpful just for things like boosting her confidence, not necessarily in math but more helping her to not tie her value as a student to that one weakness. In case it helps to know, she is at a T20 LAC and is extraordinarily happy to know she can earn a degree from there without having to take another math class.
That sounds like my D22! She is so much not a math kid. Just really does not enjoy it at all and that’s okay. She’s a word kid, loves writing. She doesn’t love Spanish, but it comes fairly easily for her. Math is just not her thing and she is very excited about going to college next year and taking whatever “math for liberal arts majors” class she can do and then never taking another math class ever again.