(no subject)
Sep. 16th, 2022 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnWELP my kids have been in school... three?... weeks and I have a rant!
I happened to ask A. about his math class today because I'd heard from a friend that A. had been placed in math class with her kid and our conversation made me curious about what math they were doing. A. told me that they were doing more complicated multiplication, and he further told me, in his calm but insistent and somewhat annoyed voice (that kid really does have superior emotional regulation) that his teacher had said he'd done a problem wrong and that he'd really done it right.
So I asked him to write it out for me. This is what he wrote:
(99*497) + (1*497) = __ *497 =
He further explained that the right side of the first equality was his explanation of how to do the problem, not what his teacher said. (He knew that in the blank space went 99 + 1 = 100, and then he could do the problem.) He said his teacher said that was wrong because there were parentheses, so he should do the multiplication of 99 and 497 because that was inside the parentheses. ("But it works!" he said about his method.)
(I think maybe she was trying to see whether he could multiply 99 by 497 -- which I don't think he knows how to do -- but then why not just give him that problem?)
Now, my children are famously unreliable narrators in the sense of being very good at leaving out context (this is the same child who said that his teacher takes balls from him, and we later learned that it was a game that his teacher was playing with all the kids during recess that involved them grabbing balls away from each other) so I should keep my mind open that it might be a misinterpretation or that additional context might make it okay. But... I really rather don't think there's additional context here that makes it okay. I mean, I think the additional context is that (I know from school gossip) his math teacher wasn't originally hired as a math teacher and got pulled into the job at the last minute, because you know, staffing.
We of course told him he had done it correctly and cleverly, and I am additionally pretty happy that he understood he had done it right even though the teacher had told him it was wrong. But ARGH. If I didn't have to work full-time right now (I have to work full-time right now) I would SO be spending some time teaching in our school, because they SO need help with lower-grade math. (Upper-grade math at this school has a lovely awesome teacher. Lower-grade math has been foxed by lack of good math staffing for YEARS. Fortunately for E, the lower-grade math problem happened literally the year after she went to upper-grade math.)
I happened to ask A. about his math class today because I'd heard from a friend that A. had been placed in math class with her kid and our conversation made me curious about what math they were doing. A. told me that they were doing more complicated multiplication, and he further told me, in his calm but insistent and somewhat annoyed voice (that kid really does have superior emotional regulation) that his teacher had said he'd done a problem wrong and that he'd really done it right.
So I asked him to write it out for me. This is what he wrote:
(99*497) + (1*497) = __ *497 =
He further explained that the right side of the first equality was his explanation of how to do the problem, not what his teacher said. (He knew that in the blank space went 99 + 1 = 100, and then he could do the problem.) He said his teacher said that was wrong because there were parentheses, so he should do the multiplication of 99 and 497 because that was inside the parentheses. ("But it works!" he said about his method.)
(I think maybe she was trying to see whether he could multiply 99 by 497 -- which I don't think he knows how to do -- but then why not just give him that problem?)
Now, my children are famously unreliable narrators in the sense of being very good at leaving out context (this is the same child who said that his teacher takes balls from him, and we later learned that it was a game that his teacher was playing with all the kids during recess that involved them grabbing balls away from each other) so I should keep my mind open that it might be a misinterpretation or that additional context might make it okay. But... I really rather don't think there's additional context here that makes it okay. I mean, I think the additional context is that (I know from school gossip) his math teacher wasn't originally hired as a math teacher and got pulled into the job at the last minute, because you know, staffing.
We of course told him he had done it correctly and cleverly, and I am additionally pretty happy that he understood he had done it right even though the teacher had told him it was wrong. But ARGH. If I didn't have to work full-time right now (I have to work full-time right now) I would SO be spending some time teaching in our school, because they SO need help with lower-grade math. (Upper-grade math at this school has a lovely awesome teacher. Lower-grade math has been foxed by lack of good math staffing for YEARS. Fortunately for E, the lower-grade math problem happened literally the year after she went to upper-grade math.)
no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:15 am (UTC)The teacher hiring pool has seemed weak in the last couple years, even at the elite private school level. It's really frustrating. We've had more people leaving for other jobs at the last minute, and the people we've hired recently don't make me feel nearly as inadequate as my more spectacular colleagues hired before the pandemic. And I know elementary school teachers tend to be weak in math to begin with, which is such a shame.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 01:33 pm (UTC)Of course, we can't have better teachers because we don't pay them enough or spend on facilities. My partner's kids missed the first three days of school because of a teacher's strike; the cost of living has skyrocketed here (large USA city) over the last two years, but wages haven't kept up. Classrooms are packed and climate control is very inadequate. No wonder they're not getting the right people.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 03:04 pm (UTC)I am reminded of the one time I outperformed expectations on an exam problem in college physics (you know how badly my college physics was taught and how badly I performed), and it was because I realized that what the prof had included as a throwaway remark in the description (Sth like "The total work in the system equals 0") meant the problem could be framed as two simple fraction-adding equations with two variables to solve for, as opposed to this complated mess of physics formulas, and as a result I was the *only* one to finish the problem and get the answer right.
The prof at least had the decency to say that he'd underestimated the amount of time that it would take even the best students (not me!) to brute-force the math, which was what he'd been intending, and he said well done to me for noticing that his throwaway line led to a much more elegant solution that was actually doable by freshmen in the time allotted.
He didn't tell me I'd done it wrong! D:
I wish you could teach math, you would be great at it!
no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 12:37 am (UTC)but then why not just give him that problem?
Yeah, this. Okay fine about order of operations, but given the operands, instead it's O RLY.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 02:24 am (UTC)I've heard that about the teacher pool here too from a couple of different places -- even before the pandemic it was not exactly easy to find math teachers, and now it seems almost impossible.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 04:10 am (UTC)...but then again when you leave it to the education folks they come up with great plans like teaching physics in the 9th grade (someone -- maybe
And heh, I like Common Core actually! I have specific problems with some of the implementation details, but I like a lot of things about it conceptually -- like you say, what the curriculum is actually for. (One of the things that is so great about Art of Problem Solving/Beast Academy -- which does follow Common Core -- is that it's all designed by actual math people.)
We live in a high COL place too and I honestly don't understand how teachers live here unless they have a spouse who has a better-paying job. If I got paid as much to teach as I get for my current job, I'd try teaching... but otherwise it doesn't seem very attractive!
no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 04:12 am (UTC)Heh, thank you for the support -- being really interested in math pedagogy is not really the same as understanding classroom management for 4th graders who (it seems from A.'s report) vary widely in skill and motivation. But at least I would be able to help out the teacher (who presumably knows those things very well) with, well, the actual math part...
no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 11:58 am (UTC)(Also I graded AP Physics 1 the first year they ran it and it looked like a shitshow.)
no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 10:19 pm (UTC)classroomteam management for engineers and DBAs who vary widely in skill and motivation, lol), and so it's win/win all around.(K)
Date: 2022-09-18 10:25 pm (UTC)I used to wish I could just get the classroom teachers to read the Beast Academy guidebooks from end to end.
And yes, the classroom teachers were being paid $60K/year in a place where a standard 2-bedroom apartment rented for $3K/month.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-19 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-19 04:28 pm (UTC)WTF. The parentheses HAVE NO FUNCTION in that line--why on earth are they even there? I mean, multiplication already has higher priority than addition!
And also, parentheses in math are NOT for telling you what action you should take, they're for changing the priority of operations. I mean, even if you have something like a*(b+c), you do not have to perform the addition b+c as your first step! You could rewrite it to ab + ac instead if you wanted.
ETA: Also, I enjoy math rants, please keep them coming. : )
no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 03:47 am (UTC)I think it's a district thing under our awful superintendent. I found out just a couple of weeks ago from a coworker who also teaches a class in computer science at one of the local high schools and whose daughter is a sophomore. She is a smart kid and her dad is obviously technical and she took AP Physics, as directed, in the 9th grade and did fine in the class relative to her peers. And got a 2 on the AP. BECAUSE FRESHMEN HAVE NO BUSINESS TAKING THE PHYSICS AP. (Her dad reported to me that now she has a complex about physics. I ASK YOU. WHY.)
no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 03:48 am (UTC)Re: (K)
Date: 2022-09-20 04:36 am (UTC)And yes, the classroom teachers were being paid $60K/year in a place where a standard 2-bedroom apartment rented for $3K/month.
...wow.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 04:57 am (UTC)Buuuuut yeah someone here doesn't understand the function of parentheses, and it's not my small child :)
Haha, I am glad you enjoy my math rants! I feel very validated by people sharing my outrage :)
Re: (K)
Date: 2022-09-20 05:41 am (UTC)Me: What's 3 pencils plus 4 pencils?
Students: 7 pencils
Me: What's 3 ducks plus 4 ducks?
Students: 7 ducks
Me: What's 3 tens plus 4 tens?
Students: 7 tens
Me: What's 30 plus 40?
Students: 70
Me: What's 3x plus 4x?
Students: 7x
Me: What's 3 fives plus 4 fives?
Students: 7 fives
Me: What's 15 plus 20?
Students: 35
Me: What's 3 ducks plus 4 cows?
Students: 3 ducks and 4 cows!
Me: What's 3 hundreds plus 4 tens?
Students: 340!
etc.
It varied depending on my mood, and got used for the distributive property, units, variables, etc. I think the original inspiration was Fred. Was I going to send you the Fred books and then forgot?
no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 09:56 am (UTC)I have no regrets about leaving the school where I taught AP Physics C, which is, in contrast, a perfectly reasonable class. Especially the part where nobody is trying to get me to spend a week locked in a room in Kansas City grading things.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 08:32 pm (UTC)Huh, now I am curious about how Swedish schools do this.
Re: (K)
Date: 2022-09-22 04:26 am (UTC)I did do a similar thing with A. after he told me all of that, because I wanted to make sure he understood what was going on -- I asked him if 3 sevens plus 2 sevens (or something like that) was 5 sevens, and told him that sevens were just like... crackers! Then I asked him about 3 sevens plus 2 eights and asked if you could do the same thing.
A: ????
Me: It's like 3 crackers and 2 candies... you can't really. Or then would they have to be crandies?
A: CRANDIES! *thinks this is the funniest thing he's ever heard*
You told me about the Fred books! I don't know that you were going to send them to me, though. They sound awesome.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-22 04:27 am (UTC)I took AP Physics C back in the day and thought it was extremely reasonable! And it actually meant something in terms of college mastery!
no subject
Date: 2022-09-22 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-22 04:32 am (UTC)I mean... possibly because I personally learned order of operations relatively late (if I remember correctly), I use parentheses in a somewhat slapdash way -- I'll mostly use them where order of operations is unclear, but I'll occasionally use them in situations where they're redundant without caring too much. I mean, I wouldn't do that if I were writing a formal document! And, huh, I just realized that I'm more likely to use it for something like (3x3) + 2 than I am for 3.3 + 2 (where it seems more wrong) or 3z + 2, which obviously would be very weird to use parentheses for, lol. So it clearly has something to do with when I learned it!
no subject
Date: 2022-09-22 06:53 pm (UTC)I'll mostly use them where order of operations is unclear
Now I'm just nitpicking your comment, for which I do apologize! : ) But in which situations would you say that the order of operations is unclear? The only examples I can come up with of expressions which are unclear without parentheses are expressions with operations which are not associative, such as the expressions x/y/z and x^y^z, which genuinely are not defined unless you use parentheses. But that is not about the order of operations, which regulates priority among different operations. In expressions where you're mixing addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, the very point of having an order of operations is to make sure that the expression is always well-defined.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-22 07:29 pm (UTC)(Also, when I said 3.3 above, I meant 3 \dot 3, not the number "three and three tenths," which also in my brain made sense in context but uh, yeah.)
no subject
Date: 2022-09-22 08:50 pm (UTC)