New Math & NCLB in the US
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
In complete agreement with you there. The worst part about the teacher's recursive answer is that I wouldn't be surprised if she forced rote memorization of the first 5 even numbers and that rule, and didn't actually teach what makes a number even or odd.
I once got into what became a philosophical debate about whether numbers exist or not... The divisibility by 2 was relevant though I don't remember why.
Don't...don't get me started.
Just trying to figure out prime numbers and factors, and whether or not our number system should be based on integers will drop you down a huuuuuge rabbit hole.
--Patrick
Necronic
Staff member
Man, all this talk about bad professors got me thinking about one that I absolutely hated.... It was a math intensive/engineering class (not that math intensive but it needed a fair amount.) It was multiple choice, 10 questions on a page, and we weren't allowed scratch paper so we had to write really tiny next to the questions. He wouldn't give partial credit, which wasn't the worst thing since it was multiple choice, but he did arbitrarily remove part of your points if he thought you didn't show enough work. I have absolutely nothing against a hard class. Give me hard tests, I enjoy it, it separates the men from the boys, and it actually is a credit to the teacher. But its very obvious when a professor is making something difficult for the sake of making it difficult, because he either isn't smart enough or is too lazy to make it challenging in the right way. Not sure if that makes sense.
On the one hand, I want to rally behind your flag and join you in denouncing a teacher for questionable teaching practices. On the other, I wonder if he didn't actually do an excellent job of showing what life would be like in the real world. Ugh.
--Patrick
When I was a kid, I got placed in a remedial reading group because they didn't believe that I had read all the books they assigned me. I've been inhaling books for as long as I can remember.
My mother went in and had a "discussion" with the teacher. I ended up having to take a special test where they had me read a book that I'd never seen before to prove to them that I wasn't just memorizing what was being read to me at home.
Man, I had a similar experience. At school, they tested reading levels and when I was 10, I was reading at a college level. The school questioned the tester (a volunteer) if she had coached me or prompted me, and I had to take it again.
Meanwhile at home I was reading long novels in a day or two, and a short one every day. My mom would take me to the library and at first she'd let me only take out one or two books because I "wouldn't finish them" in the two weeks; she was quickly letting me take out a dozen at a time!
When I was in first grade, we got to go to the library for the first time, and we were assigned the "first grade section", which had the Dick and Jane books and similarly easy reading material. When I complained, my teacher said that I could pick any book I wanted, and if I wrote a book report to prove that I understood it, she'd write me a note to the librarian to give me access to the higher level reading material.
After spending a day reading and reporting on the Mouse and the Motorcycle, the coveted all-library pass was mine.
It would have been so much easier for that teacher to just shoehorn me into the little boxes that all the other kids were in. I owe her a lot for going out of her way to circumvent the bureaucracy on my behalf.
When I was in the third grade I changed to a public school about two month after the year started. The school had a program called Accelerated Reader, where every book in the library was worth a certain amount of points based on the length and reading level. You could check out the books and then take a test on them to earn the points. When year ended I was 2nd in the school (K-6). My secret? Grabbing as many of the children's books as I could, gaining points 1/2 point at a time in between the larger stuff. Looking back I think it was one of the first signs that I was meant to be in engineering.
The library was restricted? That's really odd. In my K-6 school, they of course had recommended sections, but you could take out anything you wanted without any "special" dispensation of any kind. Not a LOT there that was engaging though that wasn't non-fiction. I will credit the library (though it was a teacher, not a librarian) for introducing me to Tolkien though. Blew through the Hobbit and LotR in about 2 months. Later on, I could re-read them in about 2 weeks if I was wanting to.
I was never restricted to certain sections in our library... Though I did get in trouble once because I put a book back in front of, instead of behind of, the book it was beside.
I was referring to the city library, which was within walking distance of my house. Restricted books were things like The Complete Book of Breast Care, for instance.
--Patrick
Our library was parted in two - one side children, young adult, youth, and all that; the other side everything adult - novels, encyclopediae, non fiction, and so on. Going into the adult part under 12 years old was supposed to be "with parental guidance" (there were plenty of horror stories and some mild pornography, but also all those kinds of non fiction books you might now want a nine year old to read...). Still, it wasn't illegal or against the rules to go in and get something. My parents asked me to first got hrough the YA and teens sections and read everything interesting there, by the time I was 11 I had read everything there I wanted to read twice so they let me run wild in the other part. Much more fun 