Tutoring rant, part II

[cahn]

1. I have lunch with a coworker once or twice a month, and this time his wife came along. His wife was a member of the school board for many years, so I grilled talked to her about the science sequence I mentioned here. She tells me that this whole terrible physics-in-ninth-grade thing is a statewide thing, possibly galvanized by federal testing requirements. ARRRRRRGH. Her guess was that it was instituted because someone somewhere believed that kids were intimidated by physics and not taking it and not learning it… so… their solution was to have everyone take it earlier in the curriculum. WELL, GUESS WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THIS SYSTEM.

(For the record, she was also very much against this science sequence. I haven't talked to anyone who is FOR it.)

2. Our local high school has a block schedule; they take three or four classes each semester for an hour and a half each instead of six-seven classes for 45 minutes each. I have been told by coworker's wife that most people really like this system, and I believe it. I think in particular that for strong students who can easily handle that kind of information density, it's probably a great thing.

For C. it is a disaster, especially for physics, because we are barely keeping up with the flow of information. I'm struggling to keep us up with the stuff they do in class, so that I have been completely unable, except in small bits around the side which she then promptly forgets, to teach C. the things she actually needs to know to do physics (that is, math: fractions, decimals, the concept of a base ten system in general, manipulation of abstract variables *throws up hands in despair*).

2a. What can you do when you ask what two divided by four is and the pupil wildly guesses 1.3? I JUST. I think had I known what an uphill job this was going to be, I would not have taken it on. Except that this is apparently the kind of thing I can't help but want to try to help with.

3. Things I would really prefer not ever to have to do again: attempt to explain the concept of the universal gravitational law being directly proportional to mass and inversely square proportional to distance to someone who does not understand/remember fractions or the concept of abstract variables or that multiplication is the opposite of division. aaaaaarrrrgh.

Comments

(From K)

[(Anonymous)]

Um, what happens to C if she drops physics? I know high school students don't have the kind of latitude that college students do -- and I'm speaking from my resident tutor perspective here -- but ideally she'd drop the physics, take some kind of biology class next semester, and just do intensive math tutoring, either with you, a school program, or a service like Kumon. (Seriously, I don't know much about Kumon workbooks for things like fractions and decimals, but if they're decent, I'd make C go home and work through a workbook every couple nights. That kind of thing would be a much better use of her physics class time than "physics.") For algebraic manipulations, the dragonbox app might be a good supplement. (D likes it, the math folks at the elementary school attached to her preschool like it; I'm not exactly sure what it's good for, but it is cute.)

Also, did Madame School Board say what the options are for reversing this policy? Can local school districts flout the state policy?

Re: (From K)

[cahn]

I asked her mom about this yesterday, and apparently this is not really an option. This was not explicitly said, but I suspect that she would like to apply to the UC system, in which case she'd better follow the CA curriculum.

Part of the problem is that I don't think she or her mom really realizes how bad her math problem actually is, because she does really well at things with a visual component, and since they're graphing in her math class right now, she is actually doing fine in math class. And in general there is the attitude of, "Okay, let's get through this semester and then we don't have to worry about it." The other thing is that this kid is way overscheduled. She is not taking either math or science next semester (block schedule), but I'm estimating the odds at near zero that she would do any math on her own time, or that her mother would pick that particular battle. Although yes, if this were my kid or yours, we would be doing exactly that, and that would absolutely be a battle we'd pick :) (But if it were one of our kids we would have seen the problem developing much earlier.)

I don't think there is much hope for reversing or flouting the policy until someone higher-up notices that it's a disaster. Local school districts, as far as I know (I am not an expert), are pretty tied to state curriculum, especially if it's itself tied to testing results. (You probably have more of a rant than I do on educational testing; this is the first really terrible result of it that I've seen in person.) And of course kids with a strong math background will do fine, so the very people who are most likely to protest are those who don't have much of a clue. (Except physics teachers, but who listens to physics teachers?)