VA math changes - ways to speak out

[Anonymous]

Letting teachers know about this now might help generate a sufficient backlash to reverse things. These plans to eliminate tracking have been in place for at least 6 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
On the flip side, how would his life meaningfully change if he didn’t take AP Calculus until 12th grade?

I don't know. How would a kid's life meaningfully change if the kid was reading chapter books in K, but then got stuck doing BOB books for the next two years? The powers that be never want to force kids into language arts programs that are remedial for them, but they're certainly eager to do so with math.

I was another one of these kids. I took AP Calc class in 12th grade, but only because in elementary school/middle school, I'd estimate I had approximately 4 years of math where we didn't learn anything new, we just repeated stuff from the previous grade. Here's how this affected me:

-I would come home crying, because I wanted so badly to learn, and I loved math, but the years where we didn't learn new content was rough. My mom took pity on me and would sometimes teach me things like change of base math, imaginary numbers, etc. in elem. Just so I'd get to throw some new concepts into my head. I didn't lose my love of math, but, in hindsight, I can see how high the risk of that was.

-I resented a lot of the kids in my classes. I saw them as dumb; they couldn't get all this stuff that was super intuitive. They needed years of repetition. I needed to be shown one single time. And after that, all the repetition was boring as hell, and it made me angry that we had to go over it again and again and again. To be brutally honest, I still have a short amount of patience with people I view as dumb, and it causes me high levels of stress to have to deal with those people. I might be a nicer, kinder, less judgemental person without years of this treatment during formative years.

-When I finally was able to take honors in 8th grade math for the first time ever, it was a godsend. We finally moved at an appropriate pace, and while I still didn't need all the review for all of the topics, it was orders of magnitude better. I wasn't stressed and angry all the time about not learning anything.

-When I was in elem, I was in fcps' GT program. (My parents opted not to send me to the center, so I got 1 hour a week pullouts.) Again, this time was a godsend - we didn't learn 'accelerated' content, we just learned different topics (ie, curriclum on the brain, or engineering, or the stock market, that just wasn't covered in the normal curriculum.) But that one hour a week, where I got to learn ANYTHING new, and wasn't put through mind-numbing repetition for the 100th time on a topic, was absolutely crucial to my mental survival.

-In HS, when I opted to take classes that weren't for the highest learners, the kids would pester me to find out what 'magic' studying I would do (none), or resent me for blowing the curve, or just in general for knowing the material that had been presented to us. And yeah, I'd do the entire group project for all those classes, because the other kids wouldn't do anything, or would submit something that was obviously not going to get a passing grade- so it was up to me to do all the work, because I was the only one who could (or would) do it well. This situation seems to have fostered mutual resentment. I was lucky in that, I didn't care that much about popularity or what other people thought of me - but lots of teenagers do, and you can see where, in this situation, peer pressure would easily be enough to get some smart students to stop performing so well, just so they'd be better liked.

So yeah - the kids may survive the curriculum in whatever form. Shouldn't we want them to thrive though? Shouldn't we want to unlock every student's potential? Reduce their mental stress and anxiety that are fostered by dragging them along at a snail's pace?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why assume the work won’t be challenging in different ways?

Well, the classroom teachers on this thread and the ones I know IRL are stating that they won't be able to challenge the top kids in heterogeneous classes. There's only so much a teacher can do if the lesson is on adding two digit numbers, some kids are still struggling to add single digit numbers, while others mastered this skill in preschool. The only examples that have been given are group projects and drafting the advanced kids to act as teachers' helpers. That might be "challenging in different ways," but it won't be challenging in the right way.

Also, we have asked VDOE to provide us more information on the resources they are planning to provide to teachers, or more in-depth examples of what differentiated content looks like under their plan, or asked them simply to state that under the new curriculum, students will be able to be pushed at a pace/rigor currently provided by accelerated options, and they have refused to answer these questions during their town hall events (and when we email them, we get very politically/wishy-washy language). So they appear to be ducking the issue, which again, leads us to believe they don't have answers to these questions - which yeah, means our kids on both ends of the ability/achievement spectrum are going to get kicked to the side and ignored.

[Anonymous]

I was good at math and have children who are good at math, and I don't actually care about Calculus. MOST kids, even smart ones, don't need it.

I just object that we can't even have an "honors" level for each of these grade level math classes that moves a little faster and goes a little more in depth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Uh yeah this notion that the quick kids will effectively become teacher assistants once they learn the material is exactly what many of us are mad about!!!

The best way to master content is to be able to teach to someone else.

This is a common myth.

If you want to think about the logical fallacy, consider that "If they can't teach it well, they don't know it well enough" - why then do we certify teachers, especially for elementary school? Certainly most adults know things like addition well enough. Shouldn't they then be able to effectively teach everyone? And if that's the case, then why is anyone falling behind at the elementary level (certainly we don't have a glut of certified teachers who just don't know the material well enough.

Here are some resources if you'd like to see what the research has said about the topic:
-https://www.nagc.org/blog/peer-tutoring-and-gifted-learners-%E2%80%93-applying-critical-thinking-lens
-https://wku.edu/gifted/resources/ksba-toolkit-items/fact-fiction.pdf

Collaborative learning can be very beneficial to many students. I’ve posted links earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
There are many benefits of collaborative learning:
https://www.edutopia.org/stw-collaborative-learning-research
https://teaching.cornell.edu/teaching-resources/engaging-students/collaborative-learning
http://ijepr.org/panels/admin/papers/157ij10.pdf

Overall, collaborative learning / group work can be more engaging.

Are there bad group work experiences? Sure. There are also bad direct instruction experiences. Rather than just avoid all group work, find ways to make it more productive and effective. There are tons of resources available.

Kids won’t be “sent off to computers” - they will be engaged with their group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
On the flip side, how would his life meaningfully change if he didn’t take AP Calculus until 12th grade?

I don't know. How would a kid's life meaningfully change if the kid was reading chapter books in K, but then got stuck doing BOB books for the next two years? The powers that be never want to force kids into language arts programs that are remedial for them, but they're certainly eager to do so with math.

Why assume the work won’t be challenging in different ways?

How would you like, as an adult to only be allowed to read Nancy Drew books? I guess that would indeed be would be challenging . It's a big challenge to stay engaged when bored out of your skull.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

-I would come home crying, because I wanted so badly to learn, and I loved math, but the years where we didn't learn new content was rough. My mom took pity on me and would sometimes teach me things like change of base math, imaginary numbers, etc. in elem. Just so I'd get to throw some new concepts into my head. I didn't lose my love of math, but, in hindsight, I can see how high the risk of that was.

[...]
So yeah - the kids may survive the curriculum in whatever form. Shouldn't we want them to thrive though? Shouldn't we want to unlock every student's potential? Reduce their mental stress and anxiety that are fostered by dragging them along at a snail's pace?

See, the thing is that smart kids usually have a more pleasant life when they are older. Equity demands that we make them cripplingly miserable when they are younger. If we can give them a few lasting psychological scars, so much the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why assume the work won’t be challenging in different ways?

Well, the classroom teachers on this thread and the ones I know IRL are stating that they won't be able to challenge the top kids in heterogeneous classes. There's only so much a teacher can do if the lesson is on adding two digit numbers, some kids are still struggling to add single digit numbers, while others mastered this skill in preschool. The only examples that have been given are group projects and drafting the advanced kids to act as teachers' helpers. That might be "challenging in different ways," but it won't be challenging in the right way.

Also, we have asked VDOE to provide us more information on the resources they are planning to provide to teachers, or more in-depth examples of what differentiated content looks like under their plan, or asked them simply to state that under the new curriculum, students will be able to be pushed at a pace/rigor currently provided by accelerated options, and they have refused to answer these questions during their town hall events (and when we email them, we get very politically/wishy-washy language). So they appear to be ducking the issue, which again, leads us to believe they don't have answers to these questions - which yeah, means our kids on both ends of the ability/achievement spectrum are going to get kicked to the side and ignored.

It's pretty well known what they will do. You see this on rec sports teams. Coaches are advised that instead of having a specific target, kids are asked to try and beat targets that meet their goal. So say they managed to dribble thru 12 checkpoints in a minute while another kid did 20. Then next time the first kid has a target of 12 while the other has a target of 20.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Letting teachers know about this now might help generate a sufficient backlash to reverse things. These plans to eliminate tracking have been in place for at least 6 months.

They’re not going anywhere. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Voters elected an administration which supported this proposal. I don’t get the outrage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Voters elected an administration which supported this proposal. I don’t get the outrage.

Ignorance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Voters elected an administration which supported this proposal. I don’t get the outrage.

Ignorance.

Huh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I realize this is not the point, but that page has some terrible "infographics."

Quotation marks because color + arrows + boxes does not actually equal infographics.

Oh good. I feel much better. I'm not the only one who found the "information" rather poorly illustrated.
Yet am I still missing something? I'm not seeing any narrative explaining the plan or the changes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realize this is not the point, but that page has some terrible "infographics."

Quotation marks because color + arrows + boxes does not actually equal infographics.

Oh good. I feel much better. I'm not the only one who found the "information" rather poorly illustrated.
Yet am I still missing something? I'm not seeing any narrative explaining the plan or the changes?

100% convinced they are burying it and refusing to release a narrative due to anticipated backlash.