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conulyThe first problem had a cut-out segment of a thermometer with the tens marked and the ones done as lines. Ana was supposed to "estimate" the location of ten lettered spots on the thermometer. So she did estimate, but very badly. I'm not sure how she came up with some of the numbers. I looked at it, erased everything, and asked her what the lines meant. "They didn't say I could count!" Well, she can count, but her estimation skills aren't that great. We went over that as well, and I'm not sure which set of answers was really asked for.
Then she was supposed to "use a thermometer" (an actual one, the little diagram didn't have the correct range) to "find the change" in various temperatures. "I can't do that, we don't have a thermometer!" Well, we do, but it's a digital one and useless for this purpose. If I want to find out how warm it is outside, I don't want to squint at some mercury, I just turn on NY1, which has the added bonus of telling me how warm it's going to be. Or I open the window and wave my arm outside, same difference. Given that some of these problems went into negative numbers, which she hasn't been taught yet, the least they could've done was included a number line! Back in first and second grade number lines were included ALL THE TIME and hindered her from actually memorizing simple facts, but now that they're useful again they just assume we all have thermometers hanging around for this purpose?
I said "Ana, just subtract." "I'm supposed to use a thermometer!" "Ana, listen. What's the difference between 56 apples and 24 apples? 32, right? It's the same thing." We managed to get through the ones with negative numbers fairly competently as well, and she immediately grasped that you go down to zero and then add the under zero number. She had learned that much. Argued with me about putting a plus or minus in front of the answers, but I told her that otherwise the answers were meaningless. "My teacher didn't tell us that!" Well, I'm sure she meant to, and you rarely get in trouble for doing more, so hop to it.
Then, the kicker, she had to choose between two answers for approximate temperatures of various things - a lake, an ice cream, hot tea, and something else. Some where in Fahrenheit and others in Celsius. Well, Ana DOES know the boiling and freezing points of water in Celsius, which I pointed out is also called centigrade because centi means a hundred (never too often to make the point that we can work out what words mean by analyzing them). But she didn't know human body temperature, or ANY markers in Fahrenheit. Shouldn't this be down pat before they start guessing and estimating other things? Shouldn't some of the questions be reviewing the facts that let us know what answers are reasonable before they're thrown into the deep end? There is nothing wrong with this sort of work, but shouldn't they have the background solidified FIRST? Why did I have to tell her these things?
Then she was supposed to "use a thermometer" (an actual one, the little diagram didn't have the correct range) to "find the change" in various temperatures. "I can't do that, we don't have a thermometer!" Well, we do, but it's a digital one and useless for this purpose. If I want to find out how warm it is outside, I don't want to squint at some mercury, I just turn on NY1, which has the added bonus of telling me how warm it's going to be. Or I open the window and wave my arm outside, same difference. Given that some of these problems went into negative numbers, which she hasn't been taught yet, the least they could've done was included a number line! Back in first and second grade number lines were included ALL THE TIME and hindered her from actually memorizing simple facts, but now that they're useful again they just assume we all have thermometers hanging around for this purpose?
I said "Ana, just subtract." "I'm supposed to use a thermometer!" "Ana, listen. What's the difference between 56 apples and 24 apples? 32, right? It's the same thing." We managed to get through the ones with negative numbers fairly competently as well, and she immediately grasped that you go down to zero and then add the under zero number. She had learned that much. Argued with me about putting a plus or minus in front of the answers, but I told her that otherwise the answers were meaningless. "My teacher didn't tell us that!" Well, I'm sure she meant to, and you rarely get in trouble for doing more, so hop to it.
Then, the kicker, she had to choose between two answers for approximate temperatures of various things - a lake, an ice cream, hot tea, and something else. Some where in Fahrenheit and others in Celsius. Well, Ana DOES know the boiling and freezing points of water in Celsius, which I pointed out is also called centigrade because centi means a hundred (never too often to make the point that we can work out what words mean by analyzing them). But she didn't know human body temperature, or ANY markers in Fahrenheit. Shouldn't this be down pat before they start guessing and estimating other things? Shouldn't some of the questions be reviewing the facts that let us know what answers are reasonable before they're thrown into the deep end? There is nothing wrong with this sort of work, but shouldn't they have the background solidified FIRST? Why did I have to tell her these things?
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Date: 2013-01-07 10:17 am (UTC)(Of course, if they don't have separate science classes, this point is moot. In which case the answer might be "The teacher is just doing this by the book, and the book is obviously not all that good." Wait, actually that's the answer either way...)
no subject
Date: 2013-01-07 12:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-07 05:07 pm (UTC)... yeah, maybe that was a bit much to assume. *ducks*