Tell me. Am I retarded or is the teacher at my kid's school?

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#1

I am an idiot. I qualify to be a president.
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze3nvj6/Blender/homework.jpg

My 7 year old son answers “C”, which is six. The math teacher puts an “X” next to the answer, because it is the wrong answer. When I was in school, the teacher used a red pen.
No, the teacher didn’t just make an error on my son’s paper. All of the kids in the classroom got the same error.

I have noticed that this isn’t the first time that the school has churned out crap like that. I saw another math assignment, and the grammar is horrible. They begin sentences with “And”. I am not an expert at Grammar, but as a rule you don’t start sentences with that kind of conjunction.

I have seen my son bring home homework sheets, with corrected lettering, by the reading teacher. No, not the kid’s lettering. The lettering from the book publisher. What kind of company publishes and prints school books with typos, that the teacher has to correct, in order for the kids to learn properly?

The list contines. Especially the incident where they teach the kids incorrect lettering, but that is another topic…

#2

So how many shells does Eva have, according to the teacher?

I had an english teacher 2 years ago at vocational school, who was totally clueless. It happend more than one time I had to correct him in front of the class and make him look like an idiot. That’s usually not my style, but but by insisting he was right (and he was not) he kinda made himself look like an idiot.

I think I would hand the test over to the school director and ask him for the correct answer.

#3

That is pretty bad, although I guess it is just the teacher not spending the time to read the question, and relying on an answers book. Shouldn’t happen though.

I also agree that on something like a maths test “and” should not be used to start a sentence, although in literature it is allowed, so long as the writer is aware of the ‘rule’ they are breaking, and the effect it will have on the style.

So glad I am out of the mass education system…

Alex

#4

The teacher says 4.

How many shells does she find in all?

Okay, in all of what? In all of the shells found? Or is it in all of the days that she found shells? In either case, the total should be 6.

Here’s another pet peeve of mine, but my main concern today, is the math subject. I just happened to notice this, mabye somebody can corret me on this. Notice the word “does” in yellow (above). Shouldn’t it be “did”, not “does”? “Does” is the act of finding. “Did” was the act in finding the shells during the course of two days.

#5

I think does is fine. Did refers to a singular event, whereas does refers to a plurality of events (the two days).

eg:

How many shells did she find last week?

How many shells does she find? (on those two days)

Did could probably also be used, but does is not incorrect.

Alex

#6

Aha, I see. Thank you.
But aren’t they making it singualer by lumping it as “one” by saying “…in all”? Therefore it is no longer plural?

I think my strengths are better
in the math department, than grammar.

#7

either:
(1) The teacher actually thinks that the answer is 4. In this case they should not be a math teacher.
(2) The teacher trusted blindly an incorrect answer in an answer guide. This is ok if the teacher is busy, but should be the exception, not the rule.
Plus, the teacher didn’t notice that all the kids answered the same question wrong the same way. This is usually a good indication that your answer guide is wrong. Not noticing this is also not acceptable.

Go do the principal of the school, and get them to slap this teacher around with a clue-by-four. Threaten to take your school fees elsewhere. Get the parents of the other kids in the class in on the deal.

When a teacher teaches a subject they don’t know, relying simply on a teaching aid, the students are at a disadvantage. They can’t ask the teacher for help if they’re having trouble, and the teacher can’t correct any mistakes in the teaching aid. EVERY textbook and teaching aid has mistakes in them, especially in maths where even a typo can render an equation incorrect - it’s up to the teacher to spot them and correct them, before they get taught to the class.

#8

phlip Thank you for the reply. This was actually a math test, and my son lost 14 points because of that “incorrect” answer.

#9

Aha, I see. Thank you.
But aren’t they making it singualer by lumping it as “one” by saying “…in all”? Therefore it is no longer plural?

I think my strengths are better
in the math department, than grammar.[/quote]

My response would be that the “in all” refers to the shells, not the days. Therefore the days could still be plural, but the shells are a singular total…

But I’m really not that certain about that one, you’d have to ask an English specialist (seemingly not one of the teachers in your son’s school :wink: )

Still, that isn’t a problem that is ever going to affect anyone much in life, whereas the maths is.

Alex

#10

I have only ever had problems with this sort of things in 2 highschool subjects, as in all the others the teachers were generally very knowledgable. Infact we barely used text books at all, in maths we had a text made by the teachers themselves. This may be because i lived in a small university town, so the standards were reasonably high, but still.

Physics was not good though, the teacher only had a elementry grasp of the subject, and doggedly stuck to whatever assumptions they had made on various things, based on the text, no matter how you proved otherwise.

I think half of the problems in this area are from the rigid following of texts, which at that level are unreliable at best.

In fairness, people often fail to realise just how busy most teachers are, and knowing several teachers personally (one highschool and 2 preschool) it isn’t a 9-5 job, they frequently work (unpaid i might add) 2 or 3 hours a night at home, so i think you can make allowances for errors, and it’s not like univursity were all your tests actually contribute to some global, permanent mark.

Also, that question seems to be a grammer mistake rather then a maths one, what the question was trying to ask was “whats 2 doubled?” not “Whats the sum of 2 and 2 doubled?”, so the wording (to me) is the part at fault, not the teachers math skills. Though the wording isn’t ambiguos at all to me…

#11

find out who publishes the book and ask them what they think.

i’m interested to know how this turns out.

Alltaken

#12

I just left highschool, and I remember a test I did this year in math that had an extremely badly worded question that everyone got wrong, I think the math teachers should think of the questions, and let the english teachers write the questions :wink:

Mystery

#13

I still don’t get it.

English is not my mother tongue, but ‘in all’ means ‘total amout’ to me. If the question is really referring to how many she finds on Saturday, ‘in all’ is highly misleading.

This could be something for an application/IQ test (in which case I would have failed), but definetely not for 7 year olds.

#14

The language, as Alex pointed out, is pretty standard. Your teacher missed this one.

There’s an excellent chance to teach your kid about real world experience here. As this kind of misunderstanding is very common you can show your son how to handle the situation.

#15

I don’t think that’s the bit that whoever made the answer guide misunderstood.

Something like “Eva finds 2 shells on Friday. She doubles that number on Saturday. How many shells does she find in all?” which would be (A) 2 + 2 = 4

#16

I don’t think that’s the bit that whoever made the answer guide misunderstood.

Something like “Eva finds 2 shells on Friday. She doubles that number on Saturday. How many shells does she find in all?” which would be (A) 2 + 2 = 4[/quote]

But you misstated the question. It’s she finds double the number.
Friday: 2 shells.
Saturday: double of 2 = 4
2+4=6
I checked my work:
http://img319.imageshack.us/img319/9544/calc1fr.png

#17

The wording is 100% accurate, although a bit antiquidated. (It seems to me the question was written in the late '60s or early '70s.)

In elementary schools, teachers are often not required to have anything but a degree in elementary education. What that means is that they need not study math, English, science, nor anything else --only teaching. This does not excuse them from being able to complete simple math problems though.

My whole life I’ve had really good teachers, but I’ve known of a few really bad ones. Your child’s teacher does not appear to be one of the good ones. Part of math (and something your child should in fact be learning) is how to translate between words and math. When your child hits college he’ll need it. If his teacher cannot perform at a second grade level then he should not be teaching.

Complain to the principal and the PTA. Show them the paper. If necessary, make copies. Circle the top two shells and label them “Friday”. Circle the bottom four which your son correctly drew-in and label them “Saturday”. Label the word “shells” as “subject/antecedent” and draw an arrow from the word “all” to the word “shells”. I’d use a red pen. Ask why a full grown adult can’t do the problem that all the children did correctly.

Don’t take it lying down. I hate arrogant, snotty, ignorant, listless, bullying teaching. Good teaching comes only from an interest in the children and and interest in the material being taught. Were that interest there these kinds of mistakes couldn’t happen. Even if the teacher was just having a bad day, as already noted, the fact that all the students got this wrong should have sent a red flag up for him to re-check the problem.

It’s perfectly OK to begin a sentence with a conjunction, as we do it all the time in speach. It is frowned upon for children learning language because they are still learning correct speach patterns. The use of the word “and” (or “but” or whatever) signals a complex thought --which is (at 7 years old) still a bit difficult to construct outside of a single sentence. As they move into 6th or 7th grade their teachers will allow them to begin using “and” at the beginning of sentences because their thoughts are becoming more cohesively complex. In otherwords, they will be able to begin constructing thoughts that require more than one sentence to express.

#18

But you misstated the question. It’s she finds double the number.[/quote]
Exactly my point. I said that might have been the part that whoever got the question wrong misunderstood.

#19

6 is the answer, it also points to a deeper mental problem with the teacher, if most of the kids got the same answer the teacher should have question “authority” ie him/herself or the question guide, unquestioning obedience to authority… and he has just taught that to your son.

#20

But you misstated the question. It’s she finds double the number.[/quote]
Exactly my point. I said that might have been the part that whoever got the question wrong misunderstood.[/quote]
Ok. Sorry. :expressionless: Guess I’m stupid too. :stuck_out_tongue: