The Daily Journal

Posted 3/14/2008, 10:50AM, by TAhrens

For whatever reason, math has always come easy to me.

As a kid, I was really into baseball and that helped with figuring decimals and adding, problem solving, etc. I wasn’t Einstein but I didn’t struggle with math at all.

When something comes easy, it makes it difficult to teach. At least, that’s what I’m finding out with my third graders. Both Tyrece and Tyra struggle with the basic concepts of math, especially as it pertains to money and time, which are totally foreign concepts to them.

Each can look at a clock and tell me what time it is. But if I ask what time will it be in 20 minutes, neither has a clue how to figure it out. It’s basically the same with money.

Tyrece scores higher in math, but when I think to my third-grade years with my beloved teacher Mrs. Shaw, I just don’t see that he is where he needs to be.

Tyra, on the other hand, is the greater source of frustration. She can add three-digit numbers, but that’s about it. Subtraction is hit or miss. She can do some multiplying, but basically, it’s a deer-in-the-headlights look when I ask math questions.

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On Monday, we had the biggest explosion in the house since the broken window incident of 2005, which happened the day I received my earnings from winning my fantasy baseball league. I went from buying fun things to buying a new window that my son broke while doing flips on the bed.

She started a sheet of 15 problems with dimensions (inches into feet, feet into yards, etc.). After 45 minutes, she brought me her work and each problem was wrong. Not just regular wrong, mind you, but way wrong, not-even-close wrong.

An hour later, I walked her through the first 12 problems. It was 6 p.m. and I had made arrangements to speak to a basketball player regarding a story for the next day, so I told her to try to get the final three on her own and after my call, I would check them and help.

I deliberately left the answer sheet by the microwave. The teacher sends it home but it’s third-grade math and I never use it. After I unloaded her book bag, I put it face down. I was hoping I was wrong, but I had suspicions.

I went upstairs to make my call in peace and as I finished up, here came Tyra up the stairs. She handed me the sheet, and the final three had the correct answers. I was pretty sure what happened but I dangled the rope out a little more.

“All right, Tyra. Good job. You got all of those correct.” She smiled, proud of her work.
I continued: “Let’s go downstairs so I can see how you did it on the scratch paper.”

Her smile left quickly. “I didn’t do it that way. I …” She stopped, not knowing what to say.

Back in the kitchen, she ran through a myriad of ways that she got the correct answer, culminating in “I just remembered the answer from school.”

I offered to let her show me the work and she said she couldn’t because she just remembered the answer. I took the homework away and asked her the first question she did on her own — How many inches are there in 7 1/2 feet?

Nothing, but a very attitude-filled “I told you: We DID IT at school.”

I exploded, demanding she tell me that she cheated. She refused, cold-staring me right in the face and saying she didn’t. Every point I made that I knew she cheated, including the fact that the answer sheet was now right-side up, brought even more defiance.

She was sent to bed right after supper (at 7 p.m.) and I opened the door every five minutes and asked her if she cheated. Finally at 8, she admitted it.

I think she will be grounded until high school graduation. Until then, I am confined to nine more years of frustrating math problems.

Comments

I always did well in school and had a few times where teachers asked me to help other students. It was not the thing for me. I didn’t understand how they didn’t understand! Not everyone is cut out to be a teacher which is why I get annoyed with the school system my kids are in. They have homework every night starting in first grade. I didn’t have homework until 6th grade. I have a very difficult time sometimes with my son and we just get frustrated with each other. If I wanted to be a school teacher I would have been one.

Posted by Jill on 3/15/2008, at 8:50 am

Mrs. Tim says — AMEN JILL!!! I thought we paid our teachers to teach. It sucks that we have these frustrations with the twins. I think the teachers should be the one spending the time teaching this and it should just be an easy review, especially for third grade, at home. I understand that we need to help teach our children, but I never remember our parents having to do nightly homework with us from first grade on. We never got it until we were older and more responsible.

Posted by TAhrens on 3/17/2008, at 12:05 am

Mrs. Tim says — AMEN JILL!!! I thought we paid our teachers to teach. It sucks that we have these frustrations with the twins.>>>>

Hey Tim & Mrs. Tim ( sounds weird calling you that

As a former teacher I have to disagree. Teaching dows not stop at the school door.
Parents are needed in the teaching process, too. Theparent is the head teacher from day one of their child’s life. When they hit 4 or 5 then they get additional teachers; but you are still the head teacher. You are the one that needs to make sure that they are getting the best education they can get by reinforcing what they are leaning in school.
I am pretty sure the teacher is explaining in class how to do the problems. I doubt that she would be sending things home that she hasn’t spent time on at school. She is probably checking that each is doing the problem correctly, but with 24 kids in the class she might not realize that some are struggling as badly as they are or that they may be getting help from their neighbors to get the right answers in class. .

When the child brings homework home. it is to reinforce what they should have learned that day in class. It is a way to get parent participation in their child’s education. When you see a child having a lot of trouble with their homework it is time to call the teacher and talk to her about the frustrations at home . It could be that the teacher is going too fast, not explaining as well as she should, or that the child is zoning out the lesson. You and the teacher need to work together to get to the base of the problem.

If the twins are really having a lot of trouble with math and you find that they hate having you teach them( my oldest comes to mind), you might want to consider a tutor for them once or twice a week. Talk to the teacher or even a counselor at the junior high or high school to see if there is a good math student who would like to make a few bucks a week.

Keep it cool and if ya need some ideas of fun games to play so she won’t even know she is studying let me know.

Posted by Aunt Anita on 3/17/2008, at 6:29 pm

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