It's also a huge problem because I don't really get the current teaching methods. Cookie and the Pork Lo Maniac have to do their math with a model that requires them to Explore, Plan, Solve, and Explain. I mean, I get that it's preparing them for higher-level math problems. I just don't love that it now takes Cookie 20 minutes to diagram out some kind of crazy problem-solving map when she can actually solve the problem in her head. If she can solve it her head, shouldn't she be rewarded for that? It feels vaguely punitive to make her write out a four-part detailed explanation of how she explored the problem, decided how to solve it, solved it, and then write an essay-format answer. I mean, the answer? Was 42. Is the essay format really necessary?
We all know why it's necessary. Because it's on the standardized testing. In our case, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. The acronym is TAKS. Because TASK would have been a bummer.I hate these tests. While I appreciate there may be some need to objectively measure students, teachers, and schools, it's gotten a wee bit out of hand. When we still lived in Pennsylvania, the test prep books my daughters had in third grade were called "Buckle Down, Pennsylvania!" Nothing inspires children to become excited about learning like being told to buckle down. Whee!
Let me tell you, if I had to take this year's fourth-grade standardized math test, I would not be proceeding on to fifth grade. Here is how I tend to show my work:
I was not an ideal math student. I'm also not the ideal math tutor, especially for The Pork Lo Maniac. I had to have Cookie explain the math mapping to me, so that I could bungle through it with her twin sister. Here is how it played out:
1. Explore. Stare at the problem for five minutes. Eat some Goldfish crackers.
2. Plan. Ask Cookie if she knows what the heck we're supposed to do. Cookie becomes annoyed. Finally figure out what the problem is asking.
3. Solve. Do subtraction by counting backwards on our fingers.
4. Explain. Uhhhhhhh. This is where we run into the problem. What are we supposed to do, draw stick figures of ourselves counting on our fingers?
Ugh. My daughter is only in first grade, and I find myself scratching my head at times. It's crazy what they teach them in school now!
ReplyDeleteDude, you are scaring me. My kids are still toddlers and I am dreading this.
ReplyDeleteThey expect students to explain their stratagies in Arizona too. I had to try to pry this information from Kindergarteners and teach them how to draw a picture to explain. Even kindergarteners get it "I thunk it in my head".
ReplyDeleteI'm a 4th grade teacher, and even I look at the math I'm supposed to teach and think "Really? How is this going to help?"
ReplyDeleteLOVE, LOVE, LOVE this!!
ReplyDeletesigned, 37 and struggling with 3rd grade math :)
I've got a 7th grader and a 5th grader. Almost everything they've done this year in school has to do with review for the MEAP (Michigan standardized). It's amazing that so much of school has been drilled down to measuring our kids against one another. And yet I don't think any of them are "smarter" than we were!!
ReplyDeleteOH HOW I HATE THIS!!!!!! My son (3rd grade) is learning the same thing...we had a dreaded math homework assignment last weke that brought us both to tears.
ReplyDeleteThey have taught him to "make numbers easier" before proceeding with actual math. Ok, so take 400-276. 400 isn't easy to work with so they are to make it a usable number (subtract 1 for example). Then do the math, then fix what you took out of it (add 1 back).
And THEN there is explaining your math...what a joke. One night his homework asked "why did you choose these numbers" to which he wrote "because they were the first ones that worked"....yes, let's go with that!
my 10th grader just moved into geometry. she lost me in 8th grade. We have enough trouble showing our work, much less drawing and explaining how we got there. It's like what exactly do they want? because they don't show us the steps they take in the example problems, in any form essay, diagram or otherwise!
ReplyDeleteI'm all about the math. It's the new reading curriculum I don't get. Last night the kids were given a reading list (for spelling) of new words. There were three lists in varying difficulty. ALL kids were to do list two. Those are words the boy could spell in Kindy. He is NOT allowed to do the harder list. I DO NOT GET IT.
ReplyDeleteThis so doesn't make me look forward to the future years of homework.However, it is mildy amusing since I currently don't have to deal with it. They should issue excedrin for the parents with this homework!
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I had to Google what a "least common multiple" wa, last night so that we could help my stepson with his homework. Goes to show you how often I've needed that useful information since the fifth grade.
ReplyDeleteUghhh,I too am living the math nightmare. I have now hired my 20 year old son to "tutor" his 7th grade brother in math. I pay him very well because I can't figure the math out. How did this happen? I mean I have a college degree, how can I be unable to complete 7th grade math?
ReplyDeleteThe detailed explanation method may not prepare them for careers in astrophysics but it sounds EXACTLY like everything that goes into writing a grant proposal and subsequent project reports. So they can go into the non-profit sector.
ReplyDeleteI've been dreading this for a while. My boys are toddlers so I have a bit before they get into that but my sister is 12 and I've been the person she calls for help with her homework for years. I don't understand why she continues to call me because I know I haven't been of much help to her since first grade. I don't understand half of the work they have her doing.
ReplyDeleteOur math homework session ended in tears last night. Surprisingly, the tears weren't mine this time.
ReplyDeleteAnd I finally gave up and told her that I wasn't good at math in school. 'Cause I wasn't, and Girl Child started to think she was stupid. She's not. Dang math. :(
I am very scared. My oldest is in 3rd grade and we are already struggling:( Even my husband, whom I lovingly call the Math Geek, wonders what the new terminology is all about. They want them to know how to do the work in their head, yet two questions later they want a 2 page essay on how they got the number. Isn't that what showing your work is?? I tell my son to show his work and write the problem out and he looks at me like I am speaking a foreign language to him. For a mom who has always hated math this is going to get tough!!!
ReplyDeleteI just had a conversation with my daughter's teacher about this. I asked her why in the world are they adding two or three extra steps to basic math? Her answer, because it is required on the state test! My daughter looks at a problem and can solve it in her head, but because she didn't map it out or show her answer in three different formats, she got poor grades on her homework. I asked the teacher how they expected parents to help with homework when the teachers don't send home math books or instruction sheets that explain these new methods that we never learned 20 or 30 years ago? Her answer, they don't supply each student with math books for third grade, it is just covered in class. Google is our new best friend for math homework. I sit right next to my daughter with my laptop so we can figure it out together... and then I have my 6th grader and my 7th grader double check our work.
ReplyDeleteI'm 44, got a near perfect score on the math portion of my SATs, and am considered by some (mainly myself) to be a genius. Yet when my 5th grader approaches me to help her wth her math homework I go into convulsions and sometimes fake a seizure to avoid it. This is not math. Its more like studying Nietzsche and astro-physics while on a bad LSD trip. Argh!
ReplyDeleteI hate that they're doing this to kids. When I was in high school teachers called it "showing your work" and there was a teacher who required us to not only show it, but to show it the way SHE showed it. I literally failed her tests because they were times I didn't find the answer the "right way." I ended up failing the second semester of the class and retaking it. Who cares how it's done as long as they get it right?!
ReplyDeleteWe have "math night" coming up at our school this month. Maybe they're going to teach all the parents how to help their kids? I'm hopeful.
ReplyDeleteI just had to say that this post made me glad we homeschool! I do not understand how you do not go screaming into the school systems that you will not take it anymore. Those standardized tests are a joke and really only measure how well the teacher teaches kids to take tests. My goal is to make sure my kids understand how to do the problem. if they come to the correct answer it doesn't matter to me how they got it, so long as they are getting the answers right and understanding how to do it we move on.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of crap is one of the many reasons we have decided homeschooling ir the right choice for us. My step-dad is a teacher, and he said they are told to teach only what the kids need to know to pass the state test. :(
ReplyDeleteGood luck at Math night....In our school, math night was simply a way to show parents how to incorporate math into your daily activities with the kids.....Literacy night is way better...we actually get to read books and make bookmarks....
ReplyDeleteWe are there too ;-( 3rd grade math. I am all about teaching kids to think it through in ways that make sense for them. Everyone learns differently. I am still going to teach my son how I do it because I want him to learn math, I don't particularly care by which method he learns it. I want him not only to learn math but to be functional with it in life. SO, we'll see how the year goes but we often put lame answers for the "why did you choose to add the numbers in this order?" question too...ugh!!!
ReplyDeleteI can't help it. I'm having one of those moments where, for many reasons, I am SO SO SO glad that we school our 4 at home. I get to choose a math curriculum that makes sense and my kids and I ALL LIKE! (I, too, was an English Major!) Thank you for brightening my day!
ReplyDeleteI really, really, really am still stumped that you have to learn to write an essay to explain your work on a math problem. I thought the nice thing about math is that is HAS a right answer (you know, 2 + 2 = 4). Now they're being "tolerant" to math by including English??? Do they test sentence structure on your math essay? What's next? Creating a math problem that explains the main theme of the book in English class next? Yeesh....
ReplyDeleteI am so very glad that, once again, I am not alone! I cringe every time my fifth grader says, "Mom, can you help me with this?!", while doing his homework. I always pray that he is not referring to math but 95% of the that is exactly what he is referring to. *Dammit!*
ReplyDeleteHee - hee. I teach fourth grade! I have students who write "I just did it" or "I looked at the problem" or, my favorite, "?" on the how I solved it portion of papers. :>) I want them to understand how they found the answer, but I feel their pain and confusion when it's an easy problem. 2 times 2 is 4 - what's there to explain?! Oh, and we have the Buckle Down books too - complete junk. They're boring and horrible and I refuse to subject my class to them this year!
ReplyDeleteLiving the nightmare. It gets worse. My oldest learned things in fifth grade science class that were not even known when I was in college (sub-atomic particles and there jobs). Enjoyed the lament...
ReplyDelete"I mean, the answer? Was 42."
ReplyDeleteLove it. The answer to the Ultimate Question is always 42, right?
Nothing makes kids love learning more than an unnecessarily laborious process! I don't care if they try and sell kids on it with that chick from the Wonder Years...math sucks!
ReplyDeleteHere, the language arts (aka English) programs are just as mind-numbing. Asked to read a biography, you know, the non-fiction kind, my son struggled with one of the response questions he needed to answer afterward. "I don't get it...the question says, 'Predict what happens next'". I told him he can't, it's non-fiction, it's factual -- there is no plot. "But if I write that, I'll get in trouble!", he tells me. So *I* wrote it on there...and the teacher marked it WRONG. There was a phone call...not pretty.
haha the answer is 42. But what is the question? I hope I'm not just a huge nerd and you were making a Hitchhiker's reference.
ReplyDeleteSo.freaking.funny. My first grader had a problem this week...if you know that 2+6=8, then how does that help you solve 6+2? Seiously? Guess what, we know the answer without the first little factoid!
ReplyDelete@Anastasia -- Yer welcome.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling this is going to be an exercise in anger management for me.
ReplyDeleteMy 4th grader came home from school with one math problem she didn't finish in class - she was in tears. I read the story problem and said this is algebra, how come you're doing algebra in 4th grade? She said Moo-om, we've been doing algebra since first grade, we just don't call it that, but you're always solving for an unknown number. Hmmph, well, OK.
ReplyDelete