<p>missypie, I totally hear you! We’ve had a few of these and it really sucks!</p>
<p>Missypie, at this stage of initial contact with the teacher, you definitely don’t want to be be belligerent, or accusatory. The worst thing you can do is to make the teacher defensive. Don’t go in with other parents either, though you may want a few other trustworthy parents to know that you are going in. Don’t even have the attitude of “I can show you” or “I will go higher up” because in the end, you want a solution.</p>
<p>I know of cases where parents proudly “got rid of teachers” and ended up with whatever could then be hired in November, that was unemployed, and then getting rid of that one, and so on. In the end, the students paid the price .</p>
<p>When my son had the teacher that gave a lot of irrelevant assignments, he actually did worse than usual! He’d make A’s on the tests, but was sabatoging his overall grade by doing a poor job on his “math ornament” or “math poem” or not having every assignment neatly in order in his math notebook. (And yes, there were times he took a zero on a homework assignment, then came back with a 100 on the test. Go figure.)</p>
<p>Finally, I asked the teacher what we should do- he was considering moving up to AP level the next year, and I felt like maybe he was not ready. I think she was a little taken aback when she realized (on her own) that here was a kid who was acing the actual math tests but because of the rest of the non-math stuff (and partly because of his own irresponsibility), his parent felt he wasn’t ready for the next level. In a very indirect way and without confrontation, it made her look a little closer at some of her policies. He ended up with an A ;). </p>
<p>But the point is, by expressing concern that my son might not be in the right “place”, I got the point across but in a non-confrontational way. She didn’t feel we were directing blame on anyone, just wanting her advice on what to do and where to go.</p>
<p>So true, choc. The “drop of honey technique” is definately the way to go. I would definately go in acting as if it’s your D’s fault even if you know that this is bull.
Very smart, Doubleplay!</p>
<p>^^^
Always better to get people to do what you want, and make them think it was their idea.</p>
<p>I’ll have to take my husband with me. He’s much nicer than I am.</p>
<p>Well, here’s some anecdotes from my 3 kids’ high school experience: </p>
<ol>
<li> The pre-calc teacher tells all of the parents at back-to school night that their kids are going to struggle early in the year: “They’ll be getting D’s and F’s on the first few tests. But almost all of them will turn it around and be doing fine by the end of the semester.” If he hadn’t been up front about it we might have been in the same situation as Missypie.</li>
<li> All the kids got straight A’s in middle school. I’d venture to guess that the entire class’ GPA dropped at least a full point from the 8th grade to the 12th. Annoying - but it’s the middle school teacher’s bad in my opinion, not the HS teachers.</li>
<li> The most avoided English teacher in my kids’ school certainly might come across in a similar manner as this math teacher -and she’s the best thing that could have happened to my two kids who had her. She’s quirky, superficially full of herself, opinionated, and not easy to approach. But she’s also an excellent teacher, in my opinion. Just not real huggable. </li>
</ol>
<p>So hold off on forming any hard and fast opinions just yet. There may be an explanation for the events that you’re not aware of. Keep your powder dry, and go through channels.</p>
<p>missypie,</p>
<p>I totally feel for you. My S has also been having problems in Geometry, and math is usually his forte (has won quite a few Math contests, etc.). At the beginning of the year his teacher told DH and me, “I don’t think your S is going to find Geometry as easy as other math.” A few days ago she gave a test. Our S said that everyone had turned in their test except for one boy (whose test was face down on his desk), and several of them began whispering. The teacher specifically singled out my S and took 20 points off his test for talking.</p>
<p>We told our S to be on his best behavior and learn his lesson. We also told him that if he was upset, he needed to talk to the teacher directly. He refused because he said she would just penalize him more in the future. Frankly, I’m a bit angry (20 points seems excessive), but he has to deal with it! ARGH!!!</p>
<p>But I talk to the other 9th grade parents…parents of kids my daughter was in middle school with, kids whose math grades were worse than my daughter’s in middle school. EVERYONE is breezing through Geometry…no worries…except the kids who have this guy. Sure, there are classes that have us all worried (e.g. AP Human Geography). But the only ones who are struggling with Geometry are the ones who have this teacher.</p>
<p>This is a question, not a flame. What is the difference between pre-AP Geometry and Geometry? As an AP teacher myself, I often encounter students who go through some difficult adjustments with regard to work habits, commitment, test difficult etc. Most eventually adjust and are fine, but early on things can be a bit ugly, especially since mine is the first AP course students are allowed to take in our system.</p>
<p>Where I’m headed with this is that if there are significant differences in rigor between the two, your D and others may well be struggling early on as they go through this process.</p>
<p>One approach–it’s certainly reasonable to conference with the teacher to find out why your D is getting 100s on homework and low marks on the tests. See what the teacher’s explanation is–tests require more independent thinking? Gee whiz, maybe tests don’t accurately reflect homework and vice versa? Is he planning to curve the tests because they actually cover more than the homework and allow for math “geniuses” to make As? </p>
<p>Maybe the teacher has noted the discrepancy, maybe not. Maybe he’s an egotistical b****** who delights in showing how much smarter he is than his students. But I think you have to start with asking for the teacher’s take on this.</p>
<p>The parents who have suggested coming in with a nice approachable attitude are smart. Too many educators are faced with parents who believe their child can do no wrong. It is quite possible the teacher is in the wrong here, but you need to approach every meeting with every one at the school in a manner designed not to put them on the defensive, but rather looking for a way to assist your child in improving.</p>
<p>I deal with a lot of corporate BS bureaocracy and school bureaucracy and find it to be the same, people are prone to jump to being defensive- if you take the blame or the responsibility for the issue on yourself, they can relax and help you and even sometimes “fess up” to the company errors!
’
So, do not attack, start out mellow in attituse, give them no excuse to paint you as one of “those” parents of perfect children.</p>
<p>Tests really should reflect that which has been presented to the students. If the teacher is including problems on the test that are above and beyond those in the math book, he should create a representative “problem set” for the students to work on, and get help with, prior to the test.</p>
<p>In our hs, there are usually two honors teachers for each grade’s math level (and another 2 or 3 for the non-honors track). I’ve observed some surprising discrepancies in how the honors-level teachers approach what is supposed to be the same math curriculum. </p>
<p>The more challenging teachers apparently give test questions that ask for math concepts to be applied in different ways than have been covered in class or homework assignments. It’s the same material, but presented in different ways that certainly favor the unusually math-talented kids. It sounds to me as if this may be the OP’s daughter’s situation. I personally don’t understand assigning math homework that obviously doesn’t prepare students for the upcoming test. It doesn’t make sense that a conscientious student could get 100s on homework (and, therefore, believe she’s mastered the material) and then not be able to earn a “B” on the exam.</p>
<p>I’d certainly ask this teacher how he thought the poor test grades would affect his students’ GPAs and, therefore, future class placement and even college prospects. GPAs are important, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. This is geometry, not advanced calculus. There shouldn’t be a “one A, two Bs, the rest Cs” curve for tenth graders.</p>
<p>My kids were lucky - the one who could work ahead in applying concepts wound up with the teacher who wanted that, and the others wound up in the more traditional testing situation. All honors-level math students, all of whom scored strongly on our state assessment, SATs, etc. </p>
<p>If the OP’s d is somehow stuck with this situation (and I certainly hope she won’t be!), perhaps she’ll find some encouragement in the likelihood that she’ll get used to the teacher’s approach, and her grades will improve with time.</p>
<p>yes, take the smart approach but print out whatever you can</p>
<p>wharfrat - I think “pre-AP” is probably a class for students selected for their high ability in math who are anticipated to progress to AP Calculus eventually. Our school has a similar system in 10th grade for math (not geometry in 9th though) which includes a class a level above Honors Algebra 2, called “Honors Math 1”. Similarly, we have “Pre-AP English” in 10th grade, which is a level above “Honors English 10”. The material is taught at a higher level in these classes than in the other levels of these classes.</p>
<p>First of all, does he hand the tests back with the points marked off? If so, it should be relatively easy to compare to the homework. Sometimes teachers won’t hand the tests back. This is suspicious, especially when the whole class is failing. He should be going over the test with them in class.</p>
<p>If you have to set up a conference, maybe you can say that your daughter doesn’t understand his testing system and would appreciate meeting with him to go over the mistakes she made on her test.</p>
<p>Sometimes there are poorly designed tests. For example, the other geometry teachers could be giving 5 hard questions on a test of 30 questions, while this teacher could be giving 5 hard questions on a test of…5 questions. Which would leave very little room for error, even though technically the teachers might be going over the same material and testing them on questions that incorporate all of it. It’s possible that the homework questions are more straightforward. It’s possible that in this case, the students are relying on the answer keys to help them solve the problems, because they aren’t being the taught the material. This is obviously the teacher’s fault, but may explain the homework score discrepancies.</p>
<p>It might also be a good idea to include your daughter in the conference. She can verify or refute what the teacher says and on the flip side it also can be a great way to figure out if you’re daughter is being completely truthful. I’m not accusing her of being deceitful but in my years in the classroom I have seen too many instances of this. </p>
<p>Kids do what kids do, they tell the version of the truth that casts them in the most sympathetic light. It isn’t that they lie, but they do tend to leave bits and pieces of the story out in order to gain a sympathetic ear. This doesn’t make them guilty of being anything but a kid. A parent’s natural reaction is to want to support and defend their child, just be sure to go into a conference with an open mind and a desire to find out what each of the parties involved can do to help your daughter improve her performance. You, the teacher, and your daughter each have a part to play in that effort.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Try to drop all of that kind of reporting from your discussion with the teacher. It will not add to your credibility one bit. Most often at age 13 kids report back stuff like this, which could be a single, isolated although memorable comment. Do you really believe he “spends the class time” this way? It’s not easy to impress or motivate a room full of l3 year olds, so if he claimed he was smart to them, well, okay, it’s not effective but it doesn’t constitute an absence of teaching.</p>
<p>If you focus on the content of the course and how the kid isn’t getting it, what more could be done…that’s all legit. If you throw back a comment he made like the MENSA remark, which didn’t offend or put down any student, you are wasting each other’s time and diminishing the power of your position.</p>
<p>Kids say things to manipulate their parents to side with them against the teacher when they’re having academic difficulty; you know that by now, right?</p>
<p>In a conference, stick with what you KNOW to be true (that your kid isn’t getting the math; that the average of the class marks is very low). Stay away from what you don’t know to be true (that the teacher teaches poorly in the class or monopolizes class time to laud his own IQ). You will have more credibility.</p>
<p>I don’t know about being “nice” but be factual, fair, kind, and optimistic to find a solution. THEN, if you don’t, go up to the next level. At the next level the very first question they’ll ask is, “Have you talked with the teacher?” and you need to answer “Yes” or they won’t even talk to you.</p>
<p>While the administrators always defend the teacher while talking to the parent, as soon as the parent leaves, the teacher gets called right in to the administrator to be told what the parent is saying about them, and be given a chance to present their side of the story, too. A good administrator defends his staff to the parent, so don’t be surprised or think it means you’re not going to be able to effect change.</p>
<p>So…yesterday, the geometry teacher talked to the class about their poor test grades (the test where the class average was 61). He told them that if they got a poor grade, they must be mentally ■■■■■■■■. Seriously… he kept using the phrase “mentally ■■■■■■■■” over and over again to them.</p>
<p>He must already be receiving comments, because he also told them that if they don’t like his personality, they can just sit and read the math book all class period. He said, “That is how I learned math. By reading the book.”</p>
<p>BUT, hats off to my 16 year old son who has figured out the problem. While our daughter wasn’t home, he went into her geometry folder to see if he could figure out what was going on and I think he nailed it. What he found was pages and pages of wonderful notes…but no problems. </p>
<p>It turns out, the guy is lecturing and almost never doing sample problems. I asked my daughter and she said he has done a problem on the board a few times. I asked if anyone in class ever asks him to do an example and she said yes, but most of the time he refuses and tells them to read it in the book.</p>
<p>Can you imagine trying to learn math without the teacher (and the students) working problems at the board? When I think back to my high school math classes, what I remember is the teacher standing at the chalkboard, doing problems on the board pretty much non-stop. There were never traditional lectures, like you’d get in history class.</p>
<p>So, now we at least know that we can ask him to demonstrate each concept on the board. Progress.</p>
<p>In bad news, one of the good geometry teachers (whose tutorials my daughter was going to) is pregnant and just got put on bed rest, so there is one less source of help.</p>