4 ms·

I don't understand why the conclusion of [0] would make your blood boil. She isn't saying "accept what I am saying because I know best." She devoted an an entir

by jgrowl 11y ago

I don't understand why the conclusion of [0] would make your blood boil. She isn't saying "accept what I am saying because I know best." She devoted an an entire article explaining the rationale behind why the student was marked wrong and why it order matters in understanding the concept. She only devotes a couple of lines saying that you should understand what is being taught before jumping all over the teachers.

engi_nerd 11y ago
Because it's an appeal to authority. "I know it’s frustrating but respect the teachers. They are qualified experts on child education. They have the best intentions for the students in mind. This teacher made a decision based off a lot more information about the student and class setting than we can tell from a photo. We don’t have to agree with it, but we can respect it." ...Why, exactly? Because they're experts? That's hardly redeemed by the following, "If you are confused, ask them why they did something before you discredit a teacher on the internet."
- rayiner 11y ago
  I don't see it as an appeal to authority so much as an appeal to understand that the decisions are "based off a lot more information about the student and class setting than we cal tell from a photo."
  - engi_nerd 11y ago
    But that's all most parents are ever going to see. I have had coworkers, all degreed electrical engineers, show me some of their children's homework and ask me to figure it out, because they couldn't. Similarly, many existing teachers weren't trained in any of this, just told to go do it. The ideas behind common core are not bad ideas, but the execution has been woeful.
Shivetya 11y ago
Frankly it comes across not as learning buy obeying. You want to turn kids off permanently to learning just keep this up. The simple fact is not all kids are equal nor do they come from the same environment.
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  In US public schools, teachers are graded against hard milestones. If the kids in your classroom do not demonstrate "mastery" of this set of material, then you are a horrible teacher. Never mind if a child comes in severely behind in reading or math skills and you spend much of the year working to improve those skills. Most teachers actually can't, now, because their state mandates exactly how they will progress through the curriculum. Schools require teachers to file lesson plans. Don't follow the exact content of that lesson plan on a given day, because you find you need to cover something in more detail or cover something the kids already should know, but don't? You might be formally reprimanded if your administration finds out. My own mother, a career high school economics, accounting, and high-risk (meaning kids whose parents were extremely poor/in jail/other combinations of bad home situations) teacher, always said, "I am here to teach kids, not subjects."
slavik81 11y ago
Stuff like this is entirely arbitrary: > Notice that the second problem is marked incorrect as well. Why is it important that 4 x 6 is 4 rows of 6, instead of 6 rows of 4? Not only does this adhere to the definition, it also teaches students the correct order for diagramming matrices, which is rows times columns. This sort of slavish devotion to arbitrary conventions is really tiresome, and I think it promotes the wrong sort of thinking about math. Every time I see one of those questions going around like "4+8÷3(5)=?", it drives me nuts. People look at these equations and point to rules taught in school, or examples in textbooks. They see math as a set of rules, rather than a means of communicating. The fact is, an equation should never be written that way, because as shown by all the arguments about it, the intent of the author is not understood by all readers. The problem is that these sorts of questions just demand that students mechanically follow a bunch of rules.
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  Very well said. This is the sort of thing that drives me crazy.
SiVal 11y ago
Respect the Teachers. They are qualified experts on child education. They have the best intentions for the students in mind. As a parent who has had to deal with these "experts" for years, I can't help rolling my eyes at this nonsense. Respect the teachers? I certainly respect many individual teachers, some of whom are wonderful, but this is a demand that we respect the special expertise of a group that pays politicians enormous sums of money to block any attempt at evaluating that expertise. I have respect for groups of experts that vigorously weed out all but the top performers from their own ranks and willingly submit themselves to external competition to demonstrate their expertise, not those whose policy instead is to pay lawmakers to prevent anyone from removing the poor performers and to outlaw competitive threats to their monopoly.
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  I wonder what that external competition would look like? More charter/private schools with vouchers?

by jgrowl 11y ago

engi_nerd 11y ago

Because it's an appeal to authority. "I know it’s frustrating but respect the teachers. They are qualified experts on child education. They have the best intentions for the students in mind. This teacher made a decision based off a lot more information about the student and class setting than we can tell from a photo. We don’t have to agree with it, but we can respect it." ...Why, exactly? Because they're experts? That's hardly redeemed by the following, "If you are confused, ask them why they did something before you discredit a teacher on the internet."

rayiner 11y ago
I don't see it as an appeal to authority so much as an appeal to understand that the decisions are "based off a lot more information about the student and class setting than we cal tell from a photo."
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  But that's all most parents are ever going to see. I have had coworkers, all degreed electrical engineers, show me some of their children's homework and ask me to figure it out, because they couldn't. Similarly, many existing teachers weren't trained in any of this, just told to go do it. The ideas behind common core are not bad ideas, but the execution has been woeful.

Shivetya 11y ago

Frankly it comes across not as learning buy obeying. You want to turn kids off permanently to learning just keep this up. The simple fact is not all kids are equal nor do they come from the same environment.

engi_nerd 11y ago
In US public schools, teachers are graded against hard milestones. If the kids in your classroom do not demonstrate "mastery" of this set of material, then you are a horrible teacher. Never mind if a child comes in severely behind in reading or math skills and you spend much of the year working to improve those skills. Most teachers actually can't, now, because their state mandates exactly how they will progress through the curriculum. Schools require teachers to file lesson plans. Don't follow the exact content of that lesson plan on a given day, because you find you need to cover something in more detail or cover something the kids already should know, but don't? You might be formally reprimanded if your administration finds out. My own mother, a career high school economics, accounting, and high-risk (meaning kids whose parents were extremely poor/in jail/other combinations of bad home situations) teacher, always said, "I am here to teach kids, not subjects."

slavik81 11y ago

Stuff like this is entirely arbitrary: > Notice that the second problem is marked incorrect as well. Why is it important that 4 x 6 is 4 rows of 6, instead of 6 rows of 4? Not only does this adhere to the definition, it also teaches students the correct order for diagramming matrices, which is rows times columns. This sort of slavish devotion to arbitrary conventions is really tiresome, and I think it promotes the wrong sort of thinking about math. Every time I see one of those questions going around like "4+8÷3(5)=?", it drives me nuts. People look at these equations and point to rules taught in school, or examples in textbooks. They see math as a set of rules, rather than a means of communicating. The fact is, an equation should never be written that way, because as shown by all the arguments about it, the intent of the author is not understood by all readers. The problem is that these sorts of questions just demand that students mechanically follow a bunch of rules.

engi_nerd 11y ago
Very well said. This is the sort of thing that drives me crazy.

SiVal 11y ago

Respect the Teachers. They are qualified experts on child education. They have the best intentions for the students in mind. As a parent who has had to deal with these "experts" for years, I can't help rolling my eyes at this nonsense. Respect the teachers? I certainly respect many individual teachers, some of whom are wonderful, but this is a demand that we respect the special expertise of a group that pays politicians enormous sums of money to block any attempt at evaluating that expertise. I have respect for groups of experts that vigorously weed out all but the top performers from their own ranks and willingly submit themselves to external competition to demonstrate their expertise, not those whose policy instead is to pay lawmakers to prevent anyone from removing the poor performers and to outlaw competitive threats to their monopoly.

engi_nerd 11y ago
I wonder what that external competition would look like? More charter/private schools with vouchers?