Honors classes - are they teaching or bragging?

[Anonymous]

Went to DC high school back to school night where you meet each teacher and listen to a little blurb about their class. Most were lovely! My daughter's honors math teacher literally got up (after 85% of the students had outright failed her first quiz on the first partial chapter) and said "This is honors mathematics. We move fast. The kids are confused. We won't slow down". She then went on to tell us all the wonderful technological advances in the mathematics department this year and finished with "But I'm old-fashioned and will teach as I normally do".

I was shocked! When 85% of students fail your first quiz, that's a reflection on you, the teacher. She turned it on the kids.

[Anonymous]

That's DC as in Dear Child, not DC as in Washington

[Anonymous]

She sounds like a real tool. Just keep an open dialogue with your DD about this class.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps the first quiz was an assessment or a pretest? A quiet reading of the riot act? These can be useful tools.

Pay attention, but don't be sure she's a bad teacher.

Not sure of the grade or the course, but it isn't obvious to me what all the modern bells and whistles add to the learning in mathematics.

[Anonymous]

Where was this?

[Anonymous]

It really depends. She may have designed the quiz to be hard to have it be a wakeup call for the kids. I had a chemistry teacher who did this. You tended to flunk all of his quizzes, but he also told us in the beginning -- "your final grade for the year will be your grade on the statewide exam (these were NY Regents). So don't sweat it. I'm teaching you college chemistry like you'd get it in college. I want you to think, not freak over test scores".

And sure enough, by the time we got to the end of the year and took the Regents exam, we all passed with flying colors and got our As for the year. We hadn't really realized that he had taught us the HS curriculum along the way -- when I took the Regents I remember looking at each problem thinking "this is the preliminary part of the problem -- where's the real question?" He was an odd duck, but I still think of him with fondness and remembered actually learning something in his class.

[Anonymous]

The new policy is teach a part of the chapter, give a quiz on it. It was not a review, assessment, designed to be hard or anything of the sort. That's why I was surprised. My DC looked her up on rate my teacher and seems the reviews are similar to what she experienced.

The department has the book online with all sorts of videos and other online resources for the students to use and the teachers to also use as resources. This teacher says she won't teach with them. She's an older woman, probably at the end of her teaching career. I think she's ready.

[Anonymous]

On the bright side, my DC's English and Spanish teachers were most impressive, as was her Chemistry teacher!

[Anonymous]

I've found that by high school around here, a lot of the math/science teachers are not people who were teachers first, but instead people who studied and went on to careers in math and science, and for whatever reason wanted a change of pace and started teaching later in life. Thus, they're not nearly as skilled at teaching, and a lot of their techniques can be really suspect. Keep a close eye on how she's doing in the class, and if her grade really starts to slip, switch out to a non-honors class. For colleges an A in a regular math class will look much much better than a D in the honors class.

[Anonymous]

17:27: I will have to contradict you there. Colleges look at the level of rigor that class entailed and will questions why she chose the "easy" class if she can really do more (they would look at her past math classes).

OP: The truth is that too many parents think their kids belong in honors classes and force them into one before they are ready. Of course as parents we all should want our children to do their best and push them to reach their potential, but some parents are clouded by the love for their child to see what their abilities are at that moment. The parents don't normally care about the growth their child makes in the subject, but expects their kid to get straight A's, because somehow they can't see the achievement of going from a C to a B. Then when their DC doesn't EARN the A, it is ALWAYS the teacher's fault.
I wish more schools would switch out of the letter grade system and do something that actual tracks what they have learned, and their growth over the year. Then, maybe the helicopter parents will stop harassing their poor kids and their teachers over letter grades - which are pretty irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

17:27 here. I'm not saying that colleges don't consider Honors classes and level or rigor AT ALL, just that if the difference is D in the honors or A in the non honors, admissions won't think "Oh that teacher must be awful" but instead that "oh that student could not handle that class" and that won't be a favorable assumption. If the difference is closer, say a B or B- or even a C+ in the honors class, then I would say stay with it, that the favor they put on the advanced class will outweigh the slightly lower grade. It's all a balancing act in making sure you take challenging classes without sacrificing too much of the grade and getting in over your head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:17:27: I will have to contradict you there. Colleges look at the level of rigor that class entailed and will questions why she chose the "easy" class if she can really do more (they would look at her past math classes).

OP: The truth is that too many parents think their kids belong in honors classes and force them into one before they are ready. Of course as parents we all should want our children to do their best and push them to reach their potential, but some parents are clouded by the love for their child to see what their abilities are at that moment. The parents don't normally care about the growth their child makes in the subject, but expects their kid to get straight A's, because somehow they can't see the achievement of going from a C to a B. Then when their DC doesn't EARN the A, it is ALWAYS the teacher's fault.
I wish more schools would switch out of the letter grade system and do something that actual tracks what they have learned, and their growth over the year. Then, maybe the helicopter parents will stop harassing their poor kids and their teachers over letter grades - which are pretty irrelevant.

So 85% of the class don't belong there? When 85% of the class fails, it's always the teacher's fault. Always.

[Anonymous]

10:39:
The answer is yes. Many may not be ready for that honors class.

Currently, I have at least 25% that failed SOL's last year in writing and reading in my honors class. That's not my fault, and no amount of differentiation is going to bridge their gap in reading and writing. Obviously I will try my hardest, but I know that in reality I may help them them gain a reading level or two within a year.

Be honest. There has got to be a minimum threshold for these classes - a baseline. If they can't even do math, reading or writing at the basic level for their age/grade then they probably should not be in an honors class this year. It can be a goal for next year (with extra hard work to catch up).

[Anonymous]

Is it an "open enrollment" honors class?

[Anonymous]

To be fair, honors classes move faster and cover more material than the regular classes. There is a higher bar to hurdle in these classes and students do need to be prepared for the extra work that is expected. Students get an extra half point toward their gpa in recognition of the fact that these are more difficult classes.
If the teacher were to have to slow down so the class could keep up, it would no longer be an honors class.