Was a line crossed by admin?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks all, appreciate the feedback (and understand that my feelings were not realistic). We are at that point where we feel like there is nothing productive that can come from DS being with this teacher for the remainder of the year; it's that serious. In any other subject we would just shrug and move on but the foundational nature of math makes it hard to take that approach. Tutoring 1-2x a week doesn't seem good enough. We didn't want the meeting with the AP, but it was suggested by the counselor.

If tutoring twice a week isn’t helping, this problem seems bigger than just a single teacher.

It's mainly been 1x a week, took awhile to find a good tutor with availability. The problem is the teacher literally is not teaching/providing zero instruction most days.

That is a very odd claim about a teacher and does not ring true at all.

OP here; I'd likely feel the same way if I read this but this is what has been reported by my DC (and others)...kids who in other subjects will clearly say we worked on xyz lab, teacher taught this.

I believe you. Quick question. Is this teacher a follower of the Modern Classroom approach? My DS had a teacher that sounds very similar to this one for Pre-Calc. She literally never got up in front of the class and taught anything. She used pre-recorded videos, sometimes of her, sometimes not, doing a few examples. Then she would record herself filling out a notes packet while remaining seated the entire time. They would do knowledge checks on the computer and could move on to the next set of videos in the Unit when they passed the Knowledge Check. If you hadn't made it through them by the test, oh well. He never scored above a C- on any of the tests. It was such BS. To retake the test, you had to complete the original test perfectly, do a remediation packet perfectly, then retake the test. It was such an insane amount of work that if you did it, you were forever behind in a cycle of failure and remediation packets. So most kids just took the Cs. Complete BS.

Teacher here with 25 years of experience. I regularly attend professional development opportunities and I take continuing ed courses at night. I also mentor new teachers.

I have no clue what the “Modern Classroom” approach to teaching is and your description above simply sounds like a teacher who is checked out.

Are you suggesting this is some big educational movement?

I am sorry to say it is an educational movement and not a checked out teacher … as far as I can tell it is being adopted by schools with a naive belief in ed tech and who feel like it allows kids to “move at their own pace” in a classroom with mixed abilities. It also connects to an unwillingness to track kids at all, even in MS/HS math.

An example: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/mastery-based-self-paced-modern-classrooms/

It is purportedly “mastery based” and “self-paced”. It does not work at all.

Yeah, I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it. Our district is all about it. It’s dumb.

But back to the original point, the teacher should be included in the meeting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks all, appreciate the feedback (and understand that my feelings were not realistic). We are at that point where we feel like there is nothing productive that can come from DS being with this teacher for the remainder of the year; it's that serious. In any other subject we would just shrug and move on but the foundational nature of math makes it hard to take that approach. Tutoring 1-2x a week doesn't seem good enough. We didn't want the meeting with the AP, but it was suggested by the counselor.

If tutoring twice a week isn’t helping, this problem seems bigger than just a single teacher.

It's mainly been 1x a week, took awhile to find a good tutor with availability. The problem is the teacher literally is not teaching/providing zero instruction most days.

That is a very odd claim about a teacher and does not ring true at all.

OP here; I'd likely feel the same way if I read this but this is what has been reported by my DC (and others)...kids who in other subjects will clearly say we worked on xyz lab, teacher taught this.

I believe you. Quick question. Is this teacher a follower of the Modern Classroom approach? My DS had a teacher that sounds very similar to this one for Pre-Calc. She literally never got up in front of the class and taught anything. She used pre-recorded videos, sometimes of her, sometimes not, doing a few examples. Then she would record herself filling out a notes packet while remaining seated the entire time. They would do knowledge checks on the computer and could move on to the next set of videos in the Unit when they passed the Knowledge Check. If you hadn't made it through them by the test, oh well. He never scored above a C- on any of the tests. It was such BS. To retake the test, you had to complete the original test perfectly, do a remediation packet perfectly, then retake the test. It was such an insane amount of work that if you did it, you were forever behind in a cycle of failure and remediation packets. So most kids just took the Cs. Complete BS.

Teacher here with 25 years of experience. I regularly attend professional development opportunities and I take continuing ed courses at night. I also mentor new teachers.

I have no clue what the “Modern Classroom” approach to teaching is and your description above simply sounds like a teacher who is checked out.

Are you suggesting this is some big educational movement?

I am sorry to say it is an educational movement and not a checked out teacher … as far as I can tell it is being adopted by schools with a naive belief in ed tech and who feel like it allows kids to “move at their own pace” in a classroom with mixed abilities. It also connects to an unwillingness to track kids at all, even in MS/HS math.

An example: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/mastery-based-self-paced-modern-classrooms/

It is purportedly “mastery based” and “self-paced”. It does not work at all.

Yeah, I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it. Our district is all about it. It’s dumb.

But back to the original point, the teacher should be included in the meeting.

I agree that the teacher should be included if they are trying to address supports that need to be added to the classroom but there is also a place for meeting directly with the admins do express unhappiness with the curriculum and format. The teacher may not even have any choice. But parents should get together to do it.

[Anonymous]

Honestly I am confused why you wouldn’t want to actually talk to the teacher.

[Anonymous]

The problem is experience math teachers ignore it when they get a math curriculum they know is awful. If you are a new teacher you are expected to follow the exact approach the district uses.

Many schools are using a discovery/ constructivist approach to math where the teacher intentionally never teaches anything and there are no worked examples in a textbook explaining the steps. Instead the students are supposed to work together in groups to discover how to solve math problems while the teacher merely guides them.

So your issue isn't actually with the teacher, your issue is with the math department for the district. Ask what the adopted curriculum is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is experience math teachers ignore it when they get a math curriculum they know is awful. If you are a new teacher you are expected to follow the exact approach the district uses.

Many schools are using a discovery/ constructivist approach to math where the teacher intentionally never teaches anything and there are no worked examples in a textbook explaining the steps. Instead the students are supposed to work together in groups to discover how to solve math problems while the teacher merely guides them.

So your issue isn't actually with the teacher, your issue is with the math department for the district. Ask what the adopted curriculum is.

As a tutor, I see the effect of this discovery/constructivist approach on my students - terrible! We’re treating kids like they all have to reinvent the wheel every time they work, and we give them teachers as leaders who don’t know themselves how the wheel was invented.

Add to it that this approach leaves students with virtually no written materials - neither to process on their own, nor to process in review - and that kids are given a very low volume of problems to work which are very simplistic and which they are not encouraged to write down anything as scratch work or notes for themselves.