They’re not interested in results of their teaching methods.  In public school, homework was passed to fellow students to mark, so the teacher never saw the students’ progress or who was struggling, and in highschool the poor kids weren’t given back test papers so that teachers could use the same test over and over.  This spelled out plainly to me that educrats at all levels weren’t the least bit interested in how kids were doing.  Of course we parents objected to this at both school levels, and insisted that teachers crack down and begin doing their jobs.  Not very pleasant memories—especially for us, after having our children in competitive schools systems in Asia!

I can attest to what Bev has stated. I tried, but was mocked at, or at the very least I heard edubabble that more or less timely feedback is not on the agenda.

Today, my 17 year old told me what the math teacher wanted the advance math students to do, from now on. But before I tell you, the other part which is the good part, the class will not be moving onto the next topic, until everyone in the class has master it. How would the teacher know? Giving out small tests. Feedback, good but why must the student score 100 percent? I asked my 17 year old, she says she doesn’t know why, but she is peeved that she has to do the same work that she has down cold, until Tuesday. I told her it be good practice, but she responded, I know how to work with fractions, but her classmates can only do it very well working with decimals.

The crux of the problem, a math curriculum of the K to 12 that obsesses working with decimals, and virtually have wiped out fractions out of the math curriculum. The majority of students in my child’s grade 12 math class, have a serious gap in mastery of fractions,and have mastery of decimals down cold.  The teacher is asking all students from now on, everyone must work with fractions, including graphing fraction variables My 17 year old, but that is nuts, using fractions when graphing, when it is much easier to used the decimal equivalents when graphing. Using fractions in calculating, does not bother my child, since she has always been the only one to used fractions exclusively, and the final solution is in the decimal equivalent.

She had to explain to the math teacher, why it was nutty to do so, but she did get to keep her 100 percent. My child, said more than likely I be talking to her, only to state I like the regular quizzes, not moving until everyone in the class has it down cold, the valuable feedback for both teacher/students,  and than comes the big but on fractions, the questionable math curriculum, and instruction methods.

I just get this funny feeling, that the math teacher is working by the script of the school board’s math consultants, who seem to have funny ideas on how students learned math, and gain knowledge. I think I will be whipping out the WISE site web address for the teacher. There is hope for her, since she has Khan Academy as the go to site for help. That is a first in our school, and just maybe I can get the math teacher to step outside where other educators of the professor kind, fractions are of the utmost importance and key to advance mathematics