The Last Person.....

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Kacey said:
It depends on what they're doing - if they show their work and get it wrong, then I can give partial credit for trying (instead of guessing), but no work and I can't do that. If it's right and the directions called for showing work, then I take off for that - the reason is, many times, how the student gets to the answer is as important as the answer, especially in early grades (I teach middle school - but my special ed kids are using a 3rd grade book that matches their current abilities) when teachers are trying to develop an understanding of the basic operations - too many kids can compute when given problems, but can't apply, because they don't understand what they're doing - just following memorized steps. Also (not that I'm saying you do this - but it is rampant in some places) if the student shows the work, it is much less likely that answers were simply provided by the parents - even if the parent dictates the steps (and stranger things have happened... I had one parent really upset when I wouldn't accept her son's make up work in her handwriting, even though she said he'd told her what to write...) the student will learn something from hearing the steps and writing them down, even when they are dictated - but just writing the answers without showing work makes it hard for a teacher to know if the student really did it. If he doesn't need paper to computer, then he could write the problem and the answer... if the teacher won't accept that either, I'd go have a friendly chat, maybe ask her to watch him complete his work to see that he really is doing it that way and doesn't need to write it down - but honestly, it's going to be an issue for years, so it might be in his best interest to learn to write his steps now, because he's going to have to in the future.

And some of this, too, isn't the teacher - with No Child Left Behind tests, some of the credit is for showing your work - in Colorado, it is possible to get more points for showing how you got a wrong answer than not showing how you got a right answer... so we are strongly encouraged to get kids in the habit of showing their steps, even if they can do the work in their heads...
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His teacher knows that he can do the math. That's not really the problem. Second grade doesn't have a lot of homework so most of what he is doing is right in front of her. In fact he sits in the front of the class. When she is passing out papers he gets his first. By the time she has finished passing the papers to the back of the room, he is finished.

There is some sort of standard test that they do twice a year to evaluate where the children are in their work. Not only are they expected to write out the way they come up with the answer, they look for thinking outside of the box. A child with get more credit if they take more steps to come up with an answer. Example: 19 + 7. My son will look at that and say 26. They want him to say that he took 1 away from the 7 to make that a 6 and make the 19 a 20 so that he is now adding 20 + 6 to get 26. Personally, I think that is stupid.
 
gonna be a Busy day for me , I got a call last night from one of my old band buddies. He invited me to a jam today with members of the old Amboy Dukes- Ted nugent's old band. Journey to the center of your mind fame. At the jam will be guys from many old Michigan garage and feature bands. Plain Brown Wrapper, the quion, Spectrum and me >Dead Silence. Should be fun. Have to go dust off the ol' bass and see if I can still pluck a string or two.
 
fnorfurfoot said:
There is some sort of standard test that they do twice a year to evaluate where the children are in their work. Not only are they expected to write out the way they come up with the answer, they look for thinking outside of the box. A child with get more credit if they take more steps to come up with an answer. Example: 19 + 7. My son will look at that and say 26. They want him to say that he took 1 away from the 7 to make that a 6 and make the 19 a 20 so that he is now adding 20 + 6 to get 26. Personally, I think that is stupid.
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Like I said... some of this is being imposed from outside the classroom, by people who are a) trying to do research into how kids think so they can modify instruction; b) haven't taught in a classroom in years, if ever, but think they know better; c) are trying to prove that all the ills of the world come from poor instruction in the public schools; d) are trying to prove that being able to take a test will, in some fashion, correlate with success in life; e) any combination of the above.

As he gets older, as I said, he will need to show his work to recieve credit - because there are too many ways to cheat (parents, calculators, computers, etc.) - and as with way too many other things, the few that cheat cause rules to be created that hurt those that don't. Have him write the problem (even if it seems silly to rewrite it - and it is) to get in the habit of showing his work later when he will be doing multi-step problems, and document every time he is dinged for not showing it - because schools, like so many other endeavours, run on statistics... so you'll need some. If you can prove he's being unfairly dinged on his grade for not showing his work when he's doing it mentally (a skill more kids need to have) then you'll have a better case than if you go in with just your opinion (however justifed) that he's being made to do unnecessary work.

Your channels for complaints are: teacher; principal; school board; state representative. Alternate channels include parent/teacher associations, school guidance counselor (if there is one), public forums (e.g. newspapers, public events, etc.), etc.

Ye gawds... I've been putting real content into the Last Person thread... feel free to PM me if you have more questions, or start another thread and let me know where it is!
 
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