3rd grade math - am I crazy or are they?

midmo · February 12, 2007, 11:47pm

NYMom, heterogeneous grouping is the straw that broke the camel’s back for us. In fourth and fifth grade, the classroom teacher did not teach science; instead a traveling science teacher came to each class once a week. (He was very good.) In 5th grade, science day for my son’s classroom happened to be the same day S went to the once a week “pullout gifted program”. The pullout program was no substitute for a differentiated curriculum but S loved it and it was the only day he enjoyed going to school. There shouldn’t have been any need to choose. because there were 4 other fifth grade classrooms that had science on a different day. The principal refused to switch him to a different class because she had “spent a great deal of time assigning students in order to ensure heterogeneous grouping requirements had been optimized”.

The independent school question is a tough one. We left S there for four years. At 10th grade, he returned to the public schools, where he has thrived, both in class and with lots of extracurricular activities he loves.

Whenever I start wishing I had that four years of tuition back for college, I remember what a difference it made when he enjoyed school and found friends with the same interests.

paying3tuitions · February 13, 2007, 12:54am

Heterogeneous classrooms, IMHO, help everybody except the gifted. I hope it’s a pendulum that will swing back. My own kids grew up in Ontario, Canada when there were still Congregated Gifted classrooms. Canada included GIftedness as a category within their national legislation for Special Needs learning, so it was protected by law that every district had to demonstrate some delivery of services to gifted children. It was weakening at the time (mid-l990’s), unfortunately.
NYMom, well it does sound like that teacher lacks imagination. Although she might be a good teacher for students other than yours, you have only one child to look out for (while she has many more). I hope she improves, or her principal comes to see her strengths and redirects her weaknesses, or like 1/3 of all who enter the field, she’ll leave teaching within 5 years, because it’s harder than anyone expects. (Like parenting) Thanks for your additional reply.

Princedog · February 13, 2007, 1:09am

Now I can understand if the explanation in the OP was judged unsatisfactory if the instructions stated “write 3-4 sentences”. But if they didn’t, should an 8 yr old really be expected to judge what is an appropriate length answer for the problem? Maybe so, I have no idea. It just seems like most kids wouldn’t have written the “model answer” gifted or whatever or not. It’s rather long. Even as adults we are given word counts, word limits, we aren’t necessarily just given free reign to guess and then be told “No actually you had to write 2000 and not 500 words to get full credit.” Now if it indeed said “write 3-4 sentences” and he wrote one then I might be concerned that he isn’t following the directions for whatever reason. This can be a real problem to overcome and probably not a good habit to get into.

Boys seem to mainly have this problem. It’s kind of funny because in my HL (IB) math class, out of 12 kids, 4 are girls. We tend to do worse than the boys too (although in last year’s HL II class the best at math was a girl). But occasionally they have some crazy derivation of an answer hidden somewhere on a page and don’t credit and we get credit for our half wrong answer because we set it up neatly so whatever steps are right are clear.

I think gifted kids can get through “regular” school all right, although I don’t know. We do have GT but I was never identified as gifted. I was above average, and I just kind of went along with it. I did help teach other kids, or went to the library, etc. It wasn’t until 8th grade that it became apparent I was a little more than above average (I’m not a genius by any stretch though LOL But I did catch up to or surpass people identified for GT) I’m above average in math but nothing special, just capable of the memorization really to be honest. Most of my ability is verbal and I have to say I really think our educational system caters to this. Even in elementary school. It seems like the system assume pretty early on that most people are going to be marginal in math and then sort of caters to that. It isn’t until high school where there’s much seperation. In my MS algebra class it was just completely random grouping and it was painfully obvious. But that meant a few of us just breezed through without even trying or paying attention (I sat in the back and read because even if she called on me it wouldn’t take long to figure out the answer). And like I said I’m really not even THAT good at recognizing mathmatical patterns, just at memorizing processes. But for most it was inadequate and they end up doomed to not go far in math because no one will ever explain it enough that they grasp it before they move on. I know a lot of people who just gave up at that point completely and it sort of became a self fulfilling prophecy that they didn’t understand.

paying3tuitions · February 13, 2007, 1:28am

Well, I think the OP’s kid’s answer wasn’t too short, but they were looking for some language that showed the child noticed BOTH place value (which he saw) and sequencing (which he didn’t refer to).

jbusc · February 13, 2007, 2:24am

Well, maybe I can comment…

I do some informal research with a professor who is quite particular about being very precise mathematically…for very good reason…and I’ve been working on it myself, even after taking several rigorous or “proof”-requiring courses. Knowing how to express reasoning properly is far, far more important than coming up with the answer in the first place.

However, this particular situation sounds ridiculous. First, it’s third grade - not a junior or senior course in Abstract Algebra.

Second, that kind of problem (able to achieve a solution but can’t explain in detail how) reeks of boredom, in the sense of the work is too easy. The answers probably just flash through the kid’s mind so fast that they can’t slow down to explain in words. Or perhaps verbal skills aren’t quite at the same advanced level that math ability is.

So you might have a capable (perhaps even gifted) kid at math who will never advance fast enough in school at that subject, because they’re unable to score highly on assignments (due to stupid reasons) and so the school/teacher/etc will just mark them as average and move on. Possibly at some point, the kid will get so bored with the assignments that they’ll become disruptive and be labeled with “ADD”. Who knows.

So obviously, no one here (especially not myself) can say precisely what your kid needs or has trouble with. Maybe it’s exactly as the teacher says and he just needs to learn to do the assignment. Maybe the assignments are ridiculous and your kid needs more advanced material. Who knows, really.

BTW: as an aside, I don’t think that the “explanation” that they gave as a sample solution is very good in the first place, actually. Certainly acceptable for 3rd grade, but I don’t see it as being significantly better than whatever shorter answer was written.

mini · February 13, 2007, 2:27am

He should just say the Jolly Green Giant whispered the right answer in his ear.

jbusc · February 13, 2007, 2:41am

I think your experiences are not unusual, though there are of course vast differences among any individual boy or girl, either way.

I don’t think that’s unusual either, actually I think that’s very common. My school district was one with lots of high-achievers, sends lots of people to colleges everywhere, from Ivies down. So obviously every parent wants their kids in the honors classes, and if a gifted program existed, they would want their kids in that too. End result? They don’t do anything special for anyone.

Also ridiculous, especially if it was paid for out of your pocket. I essentially forced my school to pay for my EPGY up through pre calc, and to give me an off-campus pass for one period (they wanted me to take an extra class on-campus instead, and I didn’t accept that at all)

While EPGY is not for everyone, by far, it’s certainly an excellent option for anyone to consider for highly able math students, that should be investigated.

NYMomof2 · February 13, 2007, 7:37am

Paying, Isn’t the concept of sequencing implicit in a question that requires numerical ranking? Why should it be necessary to re-state the problem?

Princedog, The instructions were simply “Explain how you decided who the winners were.” My son asked me how he was supposed t know that more writing was required. I thought that the fact that half of the paper was taken up with lines for this answer should have been a clue. But I think the whole exercise is dumb.

Mimi, I love your suggestion, but won’t mention it to my son. All we need at this point is for them to decide that he is delusional!

3togo · February 13, 2007, 8:05am

I haven’t read the whole string but I think I understand the motivation of the grading (while not agreeing with the specifics … the child’s explanation should have been good enough).

I also “got” math and never wrote down or explained my work … and got everything right. I used to get in fights with my Algebra I teacher who would not give me a A+ because I would not explain my work even though all my anwers were correct … he marked me down for no explanations and asked how he knew it was my work … my answer; I finished 10 minutes before everyone else. I made it through HS not showing work … actually, never doing any work other than taking tests.

Then I went to college and got totally smoked because I had no idea how I was solving problems and how to apply those strategies to tough problems (ones I could not do in my head). To me that is the goal of the teaching approach described by the OP although the implementation is too harsh.

Ultimately I realized the Algebra I problems I dealt with were too easy; I was enumerating possible whole integer solutions in my head and this was much faster than following the standard approach … so I loved Alegra I but didn’t really learn the true lesson. In hindsight my teacher was right for trying to make me show my work … but would have done me a great service by giving me tougher problems for which my method would not have worked and which would have forced me to follow a more logical solution approach. (BTW - this would not have been a lot of extra work for the teacher … all it would have taken was problems with non-integer solutions). So the the teacher was right but the structure of the assignments only lead me to the correct behavior if I did it because “it was good for me” and not because the assignments naturally led me to the correct approach.

binx · February 13, 2007, 8:17am

I actually think pulling in the psychologist to observe is a good thing. Hopefully the psychologist will recognize a “normal” kid and be able to help the teacher. My d’s first grade teacher (her second year of teaching) pulled in a psychologist for my d. The problem – my d scored highest in the class on a standardized test, but had a significant discrepancy between subscores. The teacher was convinced the highest score was an outlier. The psychologist was able to show what the problem was (d had an auditory processing problem - and maybe related to some ADD - without the H, and learns by doing – her scores almost always were lowest on the first set, then higher, then highest, regardless of which subject was tested first, as she figured out “how” to take the test.) The psychologist was also able to set the teacher straight about d’s abilities and how to teach her. Best thing that ever happened. The fact that the teacher had insisted on a conference with all of us meant the psychologist got to explain it to her in front of me and the principal. Acknowledging this learning style has made a huge difference, because D was able to learn how to overcome it on her own without needing help. I think the rest of her school years could have been quite frustrating otherwise.

sly_vt · February 13, 2007, 8:18am

The math-genius son of a friend of mine had this problem in 2nd grade. He came home and told his mom early that year: “Mom, my teacher is really stupid. I have to explain how to solve math problems to her.”

He never respected the teacher because of that. It was very frustrating for the parents, because while they sympathized with their son, they also tried to curb his arrogance and explain the reasoning behind the teacher’s requests.

My daughter is not a math genius, and some of her high grades in math probably came from being able to get partial credit in problem solving. Our problem with standards-based math programs is how unprepared she was for the SAT, when there is no partial credit and the approach to problem solving is very different from what she learned in school.

I have no suggestions for handling this situation; others have given some wonderful advice. All I can do is sympathize. Our school system also insists on homogeneous classes until high school. I taught for two years – differentiated instruction is incredibly difficult to do.

mathmom · February 13, 2007, 8:24am

Turning math assignments into English assignments is the thing I like least about the new new math. My son regularly complained that he couldn’t explain what was obvious. I’d encourage out of level testing to convince the school that your child is ready for something more advanced. When Mathson was ready to start middle school I went in to advocated for a grade skip in math. Their reply was that at least a dozen kids had done better on the standardized testing which thanks to NYS’s learning standards contained plenty of explain your work. I finally persuaded them to give him the final exam for 7th grade math. He was entering sixth grade. He did very well on it and they allowed the skip. (Meanwhile I regret I didn’t insist on a double skip - oh well.) My confindence was vindicated when he got the second highest score in the school on the AMC8. It’s a relief to finally be in math classes that actually do math.

Marite is right that there are reasons for math majors to learn to explain their work. But the language of proofs is quite different from the kind of dumb explanations elem. school teachers are asking for.

And yes, my kid is the one wearing the t-shirt that says, “Document my Code? Why do you think they call it code?”

northeastmom · February 13, 2007, 8:28am

NYMomof2, The way you describe the situation, it seems like your son’s teacher is rather rigid, and has very defined boundries as to what is proper performance, and behavior. She doesn’t seem to allow for much latitude. I am sorry that your son has had stomachaches, and bouts of tears. It sounds stressful for him at times. Perhaps you can get more accomplished to make the last few months of the year a bit happier for your child now that she has called in the school psychologist. Perhaps you could discuss the issues from your perspective with the psychologist. Perhaps the teacher might be more open to suggestions from the school psychologist.

The part about the turtlenecks being warn backwards really is disturbing. It seems as though she is looking for things to backup her concerns about your son. Wouldn’t most young children wear them backward sometimes? I know that there are adults that have warn them backwards. Adults on occasion will put on a shirt inside out, backward, or misbutton, so I think one can make allowances for young kids.

VeryHappy · February 13, 2007, 8:30am

This is exactly how I’ve described my son’s understanding of math – the exact words!!!

For some people, it is just innate. For others, it must be learned.

paying3tuitions · February 13, 2007, 9:13am

OP wrote, in our dialogue about whether the test was wrong to consider her son’s written answer insufficient (graded 2 not 3) when he wrote the one sentence, “I looked at the thousands and the hundreds.”

“Paying, Isn’t the concept of sequencing implicit in a question that requires numerical ranking? Why should it be necessary to re-state the problem?”

My reply: It’s implicit to US but the test is for kids 8 years old (or more to the point, for administrators of teachers of kids 8 years old!!)

I believe the test wants explicit evidence that the child is aware of both place value and sequencing. If he had written, simply, “I looked at the thousands and the hundreds. The 6 in the hundreds place for School #2 is more than the 4 in the hundreds place for School #3.” (or any other thing like, “the 6 in the thousands place for a school is better than 5,000 in that other school…”) then the scorer would know that “more/less” or sequencing had entered into the child’s thinking.

To your little guy, what I wrote above is SO OBVIOUS (the concepts of more or less, sequencing the greater number above the lesser number) it didn’t seem worthy of mention. But remember this: all those concepts were taught to the rest of the class as week-long lessons or units as recently as Grades 1 and 2. So it’s still real “rocket science” for some, making them aware of their thinking about it. Yes, it’s implicit to your child and to us, but that’s what the test was seeking, I believe.

Can you see, then, why your child’s answer scored a 2 rather than a 3, (where scoring 3 is best possible)? He gets the two for naming the place value (“hundreds” “thousands”) and manipulating it correctly in the answer.
Since he didn’t MENTION (I don’t say he didn’t deal with it mentally, but he didn’t mention…) any of his thinking about “more or less” or “higher or lower” or (SO OBVIOUS): “the 8 is more than the 5…” they don’t know WHAT HE THOUGHT ABOUT when he “looked at the thousands and the hundreds.”

I think you have a good “total take” on your son’s math issues and the teacher, but this particular example isn’t your strongest case.

Hence, Marite’s suggestion here that the real problem was the problem was too easy for him. I wonder what would happen if, just you and him together, he had to discuss a trickier reversal of the numbers than you found on the test; or perhaps 5 place values, or something like 4,692; 4,962…

One more thing I wonder: some kids that are bright don’t like to write long, in general. Does he also write briefly in stories? He might just feel he’s said “enough” which isn’t saying it all. Just a thought. And remember, he’s just a kid; if a bird fluttered outside the window right at that moment of the test, it might have been a lot more intersting than writing his second sentence, even if he had formed the thought in his head.

I’m sympathetic to your set of concerns for your son. I’m just exploring here. I do not mean to offend in any way. If we were talking together, you’d know that from body language and tone, which are absent in a chat site.

Best wishes.

reflectivemom · February 13, 2007, 9:54am

I’m disagree with the points made by Marite and Tokenadult that writing the type of explanation “suggested” by the original poster’s rubric may benefit the student as he/she advances in math…

Elegant proof writing is the antithesis of the writing displayed in the example. The best proofs are distilled to the absolute minimum required for complete exposition - no more and no less. Extraneous words do more to detract than inform. The type of writing suggested by the OP’s example will have no impact on developing this skill.

Forcing someone to proceed sequentially through a left-brained linguistic based process instead of using their more effective visual spatial right-brained strategies may actually harm their further development.

NYMomof2 · February 13, 2007, 10:10am

Of course I’m not offended, paying! I greatly appreciate your comments, which have given me a great deal of added perspective on my son’s current issues.

You make a good point, reflectivemom.

Northeastmom, I am also disturbed that the teacher gives equal weight to serious issues (daydreaming all day) and what I consider nonissues (often wearing a turtleneck backward). Both in her written lists of my son’s problems, which mix both categories, and in her oral explanations to me, in which she describes everything with equally doom-soaked tones, she makes no distinction. I do have some hope that the psychologist will see through this. I’ve never met her, but she’s been there for years and I’ve heard that she is very good.

NYMomof2 · February 13, 2007, 10:12am

I’m also worried that a true problem or two may be hidden in this haystack. I do have a concern about his reading comprehension, which seems to lag his decoding ability, and it is possible that his (according to the teacher) inability to follow oral directions is a sign of an underlying problem in auditory processing. I’m sure that there are no major problems, but there could be a minor one that should be addressed.

berurah · February 13, 2007, 10:23am

NYMom~

I’ve not read this entire thread, but I, too, have a third grade son whose assignments sometimes baffle me. I personally detest the questions wherein a very obvious answer must be explained in excruciating detail. Your son’s explanation seems perfectly fine to me.

I get even MORE aggravated with my 7th grade son’s literature book/questions–OMG, I just want to throw the damn thing out the window! :eek: ONE question might have six or more parts: What was character X thinking when s/he took this action. Why do you think s/he was thinking that? What do YOU think about character X thinking blah-de-blah? Do you feel character X was justified in his her feelings? Why or why not? Provide specific examples. If YOU were character X, what would YOU think and why? Be sure to include all thought processes. Now, proceed to question TWO, which is really composed of questions 8-43 :eek: .

Some things just ARE! ;)

~berurah

nebcat · February 13, 2007, 10:27am

If you think turning Math into English is contrived…5 years ago, our local public school system had a substitute teacher cover for a 4th grade regular classroom teacher out on a semester-long disability due to difficult pregnancy. The sub was an accredited elem art teach…Instead of word explanations, “show your work” became “decorate your work.” Actual English lessons were to be “illustrated.”. Few parents objected until they realized that the art portion was being counted as a significant part of the grade in non-art classes. One child had a wonderfully researched & written mythology theme paper on the signs of the Zodiac marked down to a “C” specifically because his Zodiac illustration lacked “detail & effective use of color” (he sketched it in pencil, using the star-map version of each sign because his drawing skills were not that good. The actual writing had no corrections, and only the comment “interesting” on it.) Once a contingent of parents argued with the administration, the “art” component was no longer considered for the grades, but the parents nearly had to go to the school board to get the art-based grades changed that were already in the book.

3rd grade math - am I crazy or are they?

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