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conulyFor English, I had to convince her that there is no law saying that paragraphs must have a minimum number of sentences. "You mean that a paragraph can have ONE sentence, Connie???" Yes, Ana, that is what I mean, and please don't insult me by claiming you weren't rolling your eyes at me when you definitely were. I pulled up a random article from CNN to prove the point. I don't know who started that silly story or why people keep lying to kids, but it pisses me off.
For the math portion she had to correctly identify the associative trait of multiplication and explain how she knew that 60 x (3 x 4) is the same as (60 x 3) x 4. And "associative property, duh!" is not an acceptable response. She righteously complained that she HATES those that have one small problem, but then you have to do a whole paragraph of writing, and I concur. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure she needs to be able to regurgitate the phrase "associative property!" on command provided that she understands the concept (which it turns out she didn't, but more on this in a bit). It actually angers me that so much of the test is multiple choice, for MATH, and so her class tests are multiple choice to "prepare them", and her homework is multiple choice, and they cover a number of topics that are utterly useless for her at this age at the very real cost of getting real practice in things she SHOULD be learning. They have too many topics to even test on every one at the end of the year, and the ones they can cram into the test get one or two questions each. Which are multiple guess, or else require an essay.
Ana wasn't sure which property this was, so we looked it up and defined the term. But, oh no! Ana forgot the answer in seconds, and didn't want to think! I told her that since she knew the concept, she could just think it through.
The answer Ana wanted to write then was "the associative property is when you multiply three or more numbers and do reverse psychology". I put the kibosh on that for not making any sense, and also because when you try to define terms on tests with "this thing is when", nine times out of ten you end up babbling and not, well, making any sense. Something about trying to fit a definition into a grammatical sentence with that intro leads to sloppy thinking. I justified it with prescriptive grammar, but that's the problem there. Outside of a poem we wouldn't say "a cat is when it is furry and purrs", and that's just going to apply to thought and representative government and the associative property of multiplication as well.
Ana threw a fit, because she had already written "it is when" and had to erase. The horror. Several tries later, during which I finally screamed that she could NOT write her answer because HER ANSWER WAS WRONG and she might as well write that the associative property is BATMAN because she'd be as likely to be correct if she did!!! (not my best moment, I'll admit, but it saved us from having to wake Eva from her nap) I realized that Ana somehow had gotten the impression that all these properties of addition and multiplication are something you do, some form of mathematical trick, rather than describing essential facts about how numbers work.
Well, of course she had. They should have just told her those facts and given her examples like 2 x (3 x 4) = 24 and (2 x 3) x 4 = 24 rather than giving her a list of names with neatly balanced equations on both sides. The terms could have waited. I can't help but wonder how many of her classmates are laboring under the same strange misapprehension, and the hilarious thing is that there is no way the standardized test is going to catch this! At least I am forewarned for when Eva is in fourth grade. Joy of joys.
For the math portion she had to correctly identify the associative trait of multiplication and explain how she knew that 60 x (3 x 4) is the same as (60 x 3) x 4. And "associative property, duh!" is not an acceptable response. She righteously complained that she HATES those that have one small problem, but then you have to do a whole paragraph of writing, and I concur. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure she needs to be able to regurgitate the phrase "associative property!" on command provided that she understands the concept (which it turns out she didn't, but more on this in a bit). It actually angers me that so much of the test is multiple choice, for MATH, and so her class tests are multiple choice to "prepare them", and her homework is multiple choice, and they cover a number of topics that are utterly useless for her at this age at the very real cost of getting real practice in things she SHOULD be learning. They have too many topics to even test on every one at the end of the year, and the ones they can cram into the test get one or two questions each. Which are multiple guess, or else require an essay.
Ana wasn't sure which property this was, so we looked it up and defined the term. But, oh no! Ana forgot the answer in seconds, and didn't want to think! I told her that since she knew the concept, she could just think it through.
The answer Ana wanted to write then was "the associative property is when you multiply three or more numbers and do reverse psychology". I put the kibosh on that for not making any sense, and also because when you try to define terms on tests with "this thing is when", nine times out of ten you end up babbling and not, well, making any sense. Something about trying to fit a definition into a grammatical sentence with that intro leads to sloppy thinking. I justified it with prescriptive grammar, but that's the problem there. Outside of a poem we wouldn't say "a cat is when it is furry and purrs", and that's just going to apply to thought and representative government and the associative property of multiplication as well.
Ana threw a fit, because she had already written "it is when" and had to erase. The horror. Several tries later, during which I finally screamed that she could NOT write her answer because HER ANSWER WAS WRONG and she might as well write that the associative property is BATMAN because she'd be as likely to be correct if she did!!! (not my best moment, I'll admit, but it saved us from having to wake Eva from her nap) I realized that Ana somehow had gotten the impression that all these properties of addition and multiplication are something you do, some form of mathematical trick, rather than describing essential facts about how numbers work.
Well, of course she had. They should have just told her those facts and given her examples like 2 x (3 x 4) = 24 and (2 x 3) x 4 = 24 rather than giving her a list of names with neatly balanced equations on both sides. The terms could have waited. I can't help but wonder how many of her classmates are laboring under the same strange misapprehension, and the hilarious thing is that there is no way the standardized test is going to catch this! At least I am forewarned for when Eva is in fourth grade. Joy of joys.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 04:58 am (UTC)Why do they still ask you how to spell words, if you'll never tell them? Do you do that 'leading question' thing to help them guess their way? If they've figured out the mechanics of phonics, at this point you might find it facilitates their learning more if you do spell the words for them, and have them spell them back to you.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 05:04 am (UTC)Because it doesn't seem to bother them when I do this, and it mostly works. I chunk it up sound by sound, and they go "oh, right". I have no idea why it works, and I kinda wish it worked to chase them towards the dictionary instead, but they both can spell once I divide up the sound by phonemes. I'm fair and spell really tricky words like phlegm (a word my sister taunted me with for years), though when I spelled it for Ana the other day I told her why that g is there.