Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Question for a friend

I have a friend who has a gifted 10 yo girl. I'm not sure of her LOG but I do know she's in 4th grade working on 7th grade math outside of school. She is in a gifted class (not a pull out) and they have her doing 5th grade math, the curriculum is Connected Math.

The issue is that the girl has no trouble doing the math problems but when it comes to writing the reflections she is not doing well according to the teacher (from what I understand the reflections are where they have to write paragraphs about how they solved the problems). The mom also tells me that when her dd doesn't understand something the teacher refuses to help her and sends her back to her desk to figure it out for herself.

My opinion is that doing math problems and writing about how you solved them are two different skills and just because you can solve problems doesn't necessarily mean you can put that into words on paper. I told the mom my opinion many times (this has been an ongoing complaint/issue for her) and I also told her I'm pretty certain her dd isn't the only one in the class that is probably struggling with this.

She had a meeting with the teacher about a week ago and left confused and frustrated. The mom didn't really say anything to the teacher, the teacher just spent the 45 min complaining to the mom about the dd... in front of the dd. She complained about how she is about 2 months behind in homework yet the mom wasn't even aware that this was the case b/c the dd didn't tell the mom. This is what the mom is the most mad about, why the teacher didn't let her know sooner that her dd was so far behind. The teacher is putting this on the dd but I think there comes a time where you need to involve the parent and 2 months is a little too long to wait.

My POV is the teacher is horrible and I'm not looking forward to when my 8 yo will be in her class.

Any advice for my friend?

WHOahhhhhh....


Um-- that's simply INAPPROPRIATE conduct, professionally speaking.

Wow.

I'd get my kid away from that teacher. Period, full stop.

So, here's how I evaluate these things - how important is this aspect of her grade? Will she still get an A if she just skips these answers? If so, screw it.

If she needs to complete these types of answers in order to get a good grade, then she and her mom need to go over how to answer them to the teacher's satisfaction. Yes, it's ridiculous and pretty pointless, given that the children CLEARLY understands the concepts, but sometimes you have to play the game.

We tend to pick and choose. My DS10 gets pretty much straight A's without doing all his homework. We try to emphasis at least doing most of the homework and turning it in, so he doesn't have zeros, but to be honest, I'm not going to stress out and cause havoc in my home over it. He understands what's being taught, and gets 100's on all his exams... when he gets into middle school, we'll focus more on how to play the school game so that he can get where he needs to in H.S.

I'm not sure what you mean by "complaining." It sounds inappropriate, but having a conference with the student present may be a way to discuss the problems both teacher and student are facing in a way that allows the student to be a part of the solution. However, the wording in your post sounds like this wasn't a conversation.

As far as the reflections go, is this a lack of understanding or a lack of compliance. If it's an issue of compliance, then I see three options:
1. Ask for fewer reflections. Perhaps only one for each problem type, if mastery is proven... but this is probably a long shot.
2. Teach that there are times when compliance is the best option... especially if there is a significant impact on her grade, and the student-teacher relationship is important for the future.
3. Teach that there are times when noncompliance is the best option... especially if there isn't a significant impact on her grade, and the student-teacher relationship isn't important for the future.

If it's a lack of understanding I'd ask the teacher to provide samples of good reflections that DD could analyze at home. Maybe telling her to "prove" her answer, or word it as if she's explaining it someone who doesn't understand how to work the problem would help too.

Good luck!

The complaining is what the mom said to me, I'm guessing it is how she felt the meeting went. The girl has this teacher (who is her math teacher) and a homeroom teacher who was present at this meeting. The mom said she felt the homeroom teacher seemed uncomfortable with how the math teacher handled the meeting.

She also had the girl do a handful of math problems at the meeting in front of the parents, I guess to show she is capable to do the math but incapable of doing the reflections. She does the reflections, she just isn't successful at them. The reflections are not the homework that is missing, so it's two different issues.

I will tell the mom your suggestions in regards to getting samples of a reflection the teacher is looking for and ways to approach it.

You're quite right -- doing math and writing about how you did math are not at all the same thing. You have to have a teacher who is capable of understanding the higher level of reasoning that a gifted math student uses; if the teacher doesn't understand the kid's process or the way it's presented in the writing, she probably just assumes it's wrong.

My DS writes some far-out explanations in his e-school algebra, on problems where they have to describe a process, but fortunately for him, the teacher seems to be able to follow him for the most part. Another teacher would assume he didn't know what he was doing and had just copied the answers from somewhere.

Easier said than done. We never had a problem in math, probably because we didn't use this curriculum. But my son has always struggled with writing down something that seems obvious to him. Teaching him to comply and just write something has been easier said than done. And teaching that it's OK to skip some assignments if they don't affect the grade can set a precedent I was never comfortable with. That doesn't mean I haven't taught him to triage homework on a particularly busy night. But there isn't always a good correspondence between usefulness of an assignment and how much it's worth. And sometimes it's hard to tell ahead of time how much weight a teacher will give an assignment.

The teacher not mentioning that your daughter was behind in classwork/homework for 2 months is inexcusable. It sounds like it's time to talk with the principal.

I agree that this is not always the best tactic. You weigh in various factors like the child's personality, inflexibility of the teacher, etc.

Not helpful but it seems to me "reflections" is just another way to punish and handicap kids who ate good at maths but not so good at language. I would suggest that all essays be accompanied by a mathmatical explanation.

Love it!