Teaching

[light-one]

Should every student get an “A”?

Math is an exact science and there is only one right answer. Either you know the formula or you don't.

If a student knows the formula, he/she will never get a wrong answer except for typos. If a student does not know how to solve the problem, then the teacher has failed to teach.

If a teacher has only one student that gets less than an “A”, then it could be the student's fault. Perhaps he/she missed too many days of school or has a difficulty paying attention. However, if the teacher has more than one student that earns less than an “A”, then the teacher has failed to teach.

Should a teacher that fails to teach, be allowed to teach?

[mattman]

Last year, my daughter earned a "C+" in 5th grade math. This year she has an "A". She has failed most of her tests, but she can bring them home and correct them for full credit (I do not agree with this). Homework takes a minimum of 45 minutes for usually 12-20 problems. There is a 80% chance of crying. She can do 15 problems correctly and then suddenly say that she does not remember how to do what she has just done. I do not understand how that works--how can you correctly answer 10 questions and then forget what you just did? It seems real. Math is the only subject that she struggles with. There seems to be a "loose" connection somewhere, but I do not know what to do to help her fix it. Ideas?

I do not feel her teacher has failed, but I do not agree that if you fail a test, you can take it home, get help with the right answers, and then get an "A". Do the administrators think that the parents will be so happy with the A, that they will not complain. Do they pass kids that cannot do the work so that the district (Alpine) can boast a 97% graduation rate? My 9th grade daughter tutors an 8th grader that cannot read (even 3 letter words!). They are not helping these kids by passing them.

[SempiternalHarbinger]

"They are not helping these kids by passing them."

They are not helping any children by failing them either. All that does is kill a child's self worth. Tests are so overrated and homework is more often counterproductive than productive. Our education system is so jacked up.

[Ezra]

Not to mention that it only teaches the things of the world. God is excluded from it.

Any place that the scriptures don't reighn paramount is bound to be currupt and serves not our Heavenly Father.

[Bee Prepared]

The desire to learn is innate and children should learn to love the process of learning. Learning is a gift!

My daughter was always in the advanced classes and at the beginning of one year, she expressed feelings of not wanting to be in
those classes. She was not learning with enthusiasm because of the hard push put upon these students. Stress interferes
with learning, so does coercion.

[HighFlyer]

It seems to me that light-one's question ("Should a teacher that fails to teach be allowed to teach?") is based on a questionable premise. Light-one maintains that every student should get an A in math because it's an exact science. That position, in my view, overlooks the fact that a student can learn valuable information about mathematical processes even if he/she gets a B in a math course. Consider the situation of a surgeon who is performing his first appendectomy. It's doubtful that his performance will be of a quality equal to his performance when he performs his 20th appendectomy. Hence, it's fair to say that while he got a B on his first performance and perhaps his second and third, he learned from each operation and eventually achieved excellence worthy of an A grade. It cannot be concluded, to continue the analogy, that the surgeon's medical school professors failed to teach him because he got a B on his first appendectomy.

I welcome comments.

[light-one]

In the inner city schools the teachers complain that the illegal aliens have to learn English before anything else and that their time is taken away from the citizens. However, schools receive funding based on enrollment numbers so I don't see why they don't just hire another teacher. I do not think holding a child back is a good idea. I think teaching the child is a far better idea. Maybe instead of teachers making $80 grand for showing up for 9 months should be changed to a $10,000.00 penalty for each child that doesn't pass the test with full comprehension of the material. Then, instead of a full benefits package beyond the exorbitant salary, the teacher could get a job during the summer months to repay the deficit incurred for failing to perform the job she/he was hired to do.

[Ezra]

It's a currupt system. There are no bandaids.

Our prophets explained that only good honest lds should teach our children. We used to have a church run school for our children to attend. But the early saint aginst the warnings of the prophets opted for the government run schools. They wanted the ways of the world over the ways that the lord wanted for our children. Which where the same patterns that the people of Enoch did.
Even with all the warnings and guidance from the prophets they opted for the public schools. Even with the threat from the prophet that he highly doughted that anyone who sent their children to be taught at public school would make it to the celestial kingdom themselfs. John Taylor.

We were promised that if we followed the pattern of the people of Enoch we would be like them. And you can see we are not even close.

Now they don't even talk about it. And we see prophecy fulfilled in 2 nephi 28:30

Taking about how to patch something that was broke from the begining isant going to make it not broke.

A good book to read on this is

Reviled educational princaples by jack monnett.

It's a history of education in the church from joseph to presant.

Sounds kinda dull but it's really inspiring I had a hard time putting it down.

[light-one]

I ordered the book "Revealed Educational Principles & the Public Schools"
Thanks

[deep water]

First off I will say that the best education a child could get is from an interested parent.
Second off the second best education a child could get is from a interested teacher backed up by an interested parent.
Third off the third best education a child could get is from an uninterested teacher and an interested parent.
Fourth off the fourth best education a child could get is from an interested teacher and an uninterested parent.
Fifth off the fifth or last best education a child could be stuck with is an uninterested teacher and an uninterested parent.
If you actually look at what a teacher's class is made up of you might get a different perspective. Where I live, the class might change by two or three children in the school year. Some might speak no or little english. Then you take 30+ cats and try to herd them in the same direction at the same time. Then you take away all the things that you can use to herd cats with. In the mix you will have a mixture of first through fifth children. The government requires all the children reach the proficient level in education for their year. That makes the teacher work with the slowest children much more than the high ones. In fact sometimes they use the smarter children to try to help the lower children. Then you add in the child whos parents had a huge fight the night before, or the parents whose children sneak out. Then you add in the children who had parents who were on drugs while they were having children. Get the picture. A teacher has 7 hours a day with their class. 7 hours x 60 min. = 420 min. divided by 30 = that is 14 min. for each child for individual needs. Checking papers, making lessen plans, going to meetings, and meetings just to tell them they are not doing enough.
For some reason teachers have become the whipping post for the nation's ills. As you can tell my wife is a teacher. Her day starts at 7:30 and some days she does not get home until 8:00 or later. 6:00 is her normal time to get home. She lives 2 miles from the school. I do not remember many holidays that she does not go to her school to catch up at least one day. Every year or two the way she teaches changes as the district buys one program then another, and the teacher has to teach to the new way some high paid Dr's new untried teaching method. Not only all this, but the public no longer looks at a teacher as a valuable asset in the community. Someday soon the ptb will take the children out of the home and put them in a state run home and teach them what they want. Think it will not happen here. Check out Germany before WW2. Yes my wife works 9 months a year. She gets paid for 8 hours a day. She donates 2 1/2 hours a day. Her and several other teachers have even set up a rotation where they serve one unpaid Saturday once a month to help those who need more one on one to help to keep up to the class. She makes 47.000 a year. Out of that 47.000 she pays for her retirement, and health insurance for her family, and her taxes. Her bonus is a 25.00 gift certificate a year. Teachers in our lds dominated state generally qualify for public assistance if they are the only bread winner. All this for a master degree + 6 credit hours every 3 years. Yes someone who works at Micky D might envy her at lunch time. But it is far from a life of ease. If you want to complain look at the problem. You and me and especially the Department of Education. I see NO need for the thousands of people who go to the DOE everyday that justify their job by railing upon those in the trenches doing the actual work, under their supervision.

Light-one I can see you have not looked at math recently. It is no longer an exact science. Look at some story problems. One day, several years ago, my daughter ask for my help. I read the story problem. It had 5 answers and she was to find the correct one. As I looked at it, all 5 were correct. There was not an incorrect answer. All were equally correct. She had to choose the one the book said was right or she was wrong. Outcome based education. Go figure. I thought that she wasn't being taught math as much as she was being taught that the teacher or authority was the only one who had the power to say what was correct. Brainwashing.

[Sweetwater14]

The desire to learn is innate and children should learn to love the process of learning. Learning is a gift!

My daughter was always in the advanced classes and at the beginning of one year, she expressed feelings of not wanting to be in
those classes. She was not learning with enthusiasm because of the hard push put upon these students. Stress interferes
with learning, so does coercion.

Bee Prepared's concluding statement has the ring of truth. Forced learning is counterproductive. It's not uncommon for it to cause students to view education as a negative experience. Students do best in a warm, inviting environment in which they are treated with respect. That should be obvious, but sadly, it isn't obvious to an alarmingly large number of teachers.

[brrgilbert]

Should every student get an “A”?

Every student can get an "A." By reinforcing the correct things in the "step by step" development of "mathematical" concepts, the student can develop confidence in themselves and; therefore, the ability and motivation to master more complex scenarios. Each correct "step" toward the formulation of the "single" and "correct" answer should be acknowledged and rewarded. In this fashion, the "student" can progress from "F" (Damnation); "D" (Shadow of Comprehension); "C" (Comprehension); "B" (Understanding); to "A" (Mastery.) The process is the same: 1. Recognition; 2. Association and 3. Emulation.

Should a teacher that fails to teach, be allowed to teach?

A Teacher is not a teacher if they fail to teach, they are a student. Can a Teacher be a teacher and a student at the same time? ;) If a Teacher is a student at the same time, they are learning by doing. There are lessons that only experience can teach.

[JohnnyL]

However, if the teacher has more than one student that earns less than an “A”, then the teacher has failed to teach.

Ha ha, don't I wish that were the case, both as a student and a teacher....

[fallspice]

Last year, my daughter earned a "C+" in 5th grade math. This year she has an "A". She has failed most of her tests, but she can bring them home and correct them for full credit (I do not agree with this). Homework takes a minimum of 45 minutes for usually 12-20 problems. There is a 80% chance of crying. She can do 15 problems correctly and then suddenly say that she does not remember how to do what she has just done. I do not understand how that works--how can you correctly answer 10 questions and then forget what you just did? It seems real. Math is the only subject that she struggles with. There seems to be a "loose" connection somewhere, but I do not know what to do to help her fix it. Ideas?

I struggled with this very same thing in school. They started doing the "you can turn your test back in for credit" when I was in high school. The problem is that I missed out on learning some study skills that I would have learned otherwise. I went to BYU and struggled with the testing center A LOT and started testing with the accessibility center, but wouldn't follow through with it because of pride. I ended up becoming a special ed teacher for three years and decided to do grad school in another field. In preparation for the GRE, I found that my reading comprehension scores were extremely low. This surprised me because I've always been an avid reader. I spent months teaching myself how to take assessments and ended up with a great score.

What I learned being a special ed teacher is that there are a lot of really intelligent children that have average intelligence or much higher (mine is 125), but they struggle in one area (usually defined as a learning disability). The problem is sometimes kids are really smart and even though they have a deficit in one area, they are smart enough to learn how to compensate for their deficits in other ways.

I don't mind math, but I do really struggle with it. In college, I typically took a math course twice. I would audit it the first time and then take it for real the second time. I've taken some classes in grad school where I have to look at linguistic units as data, much like math, and I struggled a lot more than other people. However, I've definitely gained a testimony that our weaknesses can become much stronger. I ended up with one of the highest scores in the class.

I would recommend a few things:
1) See if you can get a tutoring company to help out so she doesn't associate these painful situations with your relationship.
2) Get an outside of the school district psychologist to do an academic evaluation of your child. If the psychologist feels like the school system should evaluate her math skills after that, fine, but I would use the information for tutoring purposes and to see where your child has strengths and weaknesses. A good psychologist will sit down with your child and explain the scores to you and the child, separately, or what have you.

[Bee Prepared]

It seems to me that light-one's question ("Should a teacher that fails to teach be allowed to teach?") is based on a questionable premise. Light-one maintains that every student should get an A in math because it's an exact science. That position, in my view, overlooks the fact that a student can learn valuable information about mathematical processes even if he/she gets a B in a math course. Consider the situation of a surgeon who is performing his first appendectomy. It's doubtful that his performance will be of a quality equal to his performance when he performs his 20th appendectomy. Hence, it's fair to say that while he got a B on his first performance and perhaps his second and third, he learned from each operation and eventually achieved excellence worthy of an A grade. It cannot be concluded, to continue the analogy, that the surgeon's medical school professors failed to teach him because he got a B on his first appendectomy.

I welcome comments.

My comment is, are you new here? What is the meaning of your name? Are you from Colorado?

[Sweetwater14]

Bee Prepared is light years awry in trying to associate me with marijuana use.

[mattman]

Fallspice--

Thank you for responding to my post. By tutoring company, I assume you mean something like Mathnasium or Sylvan, correct?
As far as the psychologist, do they have to have a certain credential to help, or will any child psych help? We actually just spoke with the principal about some testing. He felt my daughter didn't need the full testing, because she does not have severe disabilities.
Once again I appreciate someone giving me advice.

[fallspice]

Mattman,

I would look for an educational psychologist in the area that focuses on educational testing. The school can do this, but often by the time they get it done, your child will have fallen behind more. After receiving info from the educational psychologist, you can have the school system use that private outside testing if y'all feel any special education services are needed. A school system can still use their own reports, and make you wait for testing, but generally they won't spend more time to re-do <I>that</I> specific testing if someone has already done it! If money is an issue, I would wait until the school can do it because this often can cost around $300. However, being a special ed teacher, I would want the full testing if you have the money because it can help you see the "big picture" on her current skills.

If you're in Utah, there were a lot of people who said they could give this testing and could not. It caused a mess when they brought this info to the school an we were like "this isn't legit." This person ideally needs to have at least a masters degree. If you shoot me where you live, I would be happy to look up some companies for you that sound like they would fit the bill.

Mathnasium or something like Sylvan would be great. The test from the psychologist will be really helpful to teachers in a well-trained center (if they can't read your test scores at the center you choose...then I might keep hunting) because they will be able to see your child's strengths and weaknesses very quickly and then help her bridge the gap. The main thing I see though is that when children struggle with school, and they have parents that are working so hard to help them (which is amazing!) that they can often develop a combative relationship. If that is overpriced in your area, I'd go for a patient high schooler in your ward, etc. if you see that it is impacting your relationship.

It sounds like you are an awesome parent and it is great that you are working so hard to keep her up. Remember to communicate with her that the testing, from anywhere, is for the purpose of seeing what she is really good at and what she is struggling with to help her more in school. Make sure you really talk about her strengths a lot!

Good luck!!

[mattman]

I think I sent a PM. I pushed submit, but there is nothing in my outbox. I'll try the email link. Thanks!

[marktheshark]

Should every student get an “A”?

Math is an exact science and there is only one right answer. Either you know the formula or you don't.

If a student knows the formula, he/she will never get a wrong answer except for typos. If a student does not know how to solve the problem, then the teacher has failed to teach.

If a teacher has only one student that gets less than an “A”, then it could be the student's fault. Perhaps he/she missed too many days of school or has a difficulty paying attention. However, if the teacher has more than one student that earns less than an “A”, then the teacher has failed to teach.

Should a teacher that fails to teach, be allowed to teach?

Given my wife is a teacher, I know your attempting to attach such strict absolutes is heavily errant.

If more than one kid gets less than an A it means that not everyone is of equal intelligence or at the same level of understanding. It has nothing to do with a teacher's failure to effectively teach (most of the time).

People have a wide variance of degrees of aptitude in understanding certain topics or categories. Mathematics seems to be the most obvious because it's cut and dry.

Also, a kids attitude, attendance, attentiveness and desire to learn have a massive impact on concept retention and their grades. The teacher has very little control over these things even if they give an incredible effort to inspire.

Placing all blame or praise on the teacher for a student's performance severely lacks common sense.

[fallspice]

Should every student get an “A”?

Math is an exact science and there is only one right answer. Either you know the formula or you don't.

If a student knows the formula, he/she will never get a wrong answer except for typos. If a student does not know how to solve the problem, then the teacher has failed to teach.

If a teacher has only one student that gets less than an “A”, then it could be the student's fault. Perhaps he/she missed too many days of school or has a difficulty paying attention. However, if the teacher has more than one student that earns less than an “A”, then the teacher has failed to teach.

Should a teacher that fails to teach, be allowed to teach?

Given my wife is a teacher, I know your attempting to attach such strict absolutes is heavily errant.

If more than one kid gets less than an A it means that not everyone is of equal intelligence or at the same level of understanding. It has nothing to do with a teacher's failure to effectively teach (most of the time).

People have a wide variance of degrees of aptitude in understanding certain topics or categories. Mathematics seems to be the most obvious because it's cut and dry.

Also, a kids attitude, attendance, attentiveness and desire to learn have a massive impact on concept retention and their grades. The teacher has very little control over these things even if they give an incredible effort to inspire.

Placing all blame or praise on the teacher for a student's performance severely lacks common sense.

As a former special ed teacher, whose job performance and how I was treated at work often depended on my student's test scores, I applaud your statement. I often had students who were illiterate, at 8th grade, and yet it reflected on my job and performance.

[FSM]

Should every student get an “A”?

Math is an exact science and there is only one right answer. Either you know the formula or you don't.

If a student knows the formula, he/she will never get a wrong answer except for typos. If a student does not know how to solve the problem, then the teacher has failed to teach.

If a teacher has only one student that gets less than an “A”, then it could be the student's fault. Perhaps he/she missed too many days of school or has a difficulty paying attention. However, if the teacher has more than one student that earns less than an “A”, then the teacher has failed to teach.

Should a teacher that fails to teach, be allowed to teach?

Very good question. The answer is however harder and should depend on each case. I will think about this one.

[fallspice]

Should every student get an “A”?

Math is an exact science and there is only one right answer. Either you know the formula or you don't.

If a student knows the formula, he/she will never get a wrong answer except for typos. If a student does not know how to solve the problem, then the teacher has failed to teach.

If a teacher has only one student that gets less than an “A”, then it could be the student's fault. Perhaps he/she missed too many days of school or has a difficulty paying attention. However, if the teacher has more than one student that earns less than an “A”, then the teacher has failed to teach.

Should a teacher that fails to teach, be allowed to teach?

Very good question. The answer is however harder and should depend on each case. I will think about this one.

I think you hit the nail on the head, evaluation of the teacher/student should be done individually on a case by case basis.

[worthit]

Wow. I just found an answer in regards to 1994 conference that spoke many times about teaching children. The church, as a 501-3c "cannot actively participate in any activity that is in opposition to the public school system." I wondered why their comments so heavily recommended parents teaching their children in the home, yet lacked clarity. In particular, Neal A Maxwell taught "Parents are responsible for the teachings their children receive, whether they are present or not." He went on to encourage parents not to delegate the education of their children to the "so-called experts". His comments, though I recorded them as I listened to conference live, were edited out of the Ensign and subsequent recordings.

Now it makes sense.

[worthit]

light-one,

Should every student get an “A”?

What are they getting an "A" in? Parents and caring adults
are easy to take advantage of, in the assumptions made about the
content of what is being taught.

What are they getting an "A" in? Math, How to be Homosexual?
English death literature? Desecration of American History? Honing your competitive nature?
Ridiculing religious beliefs? Worshiping Obama?

What is the subject matter? Or does the GPA matter more?