Honors Geometry at Whitman - RANT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were told that is 2.0. Kids are supposed to get more understanding from figuring it out rather than being shown what to do..

HI. OP here. THanks for all of the comments and commiserating with me.

LOL. HA. An excuse not to teach! Show them the video! Our friend as daughters who are in calculus at Whitman. Apparently, the kids are told to watch a video covering the concepts before the lesson. Next day, problems are given and the teacher walks around helping. Of course, this is hearsay and I haven't seen it, but I believe it. WHere the h*ll is the teaching.

I have been sitting with my daughter trying to do constructions all weekend. When I asked her if the teacher had shown her, for example, how to construct a 60 degree angle (in the review packet), she either says she showed it only once or didn't show it at all. However, she gave them online math resource, which we have been using.

My parents were teacher and my husbands parents were NYC school teachers. They got out the chalk in those days, went to the board and DEMONSTRATED, LECTURED, and TAUGHT.

Husband is an MD (he can't figure out what she is doing) and I have a business degree and advanced degrees.

WHERE IS THE TEACHING?????? We are all expected to hire tutors??? No teaching?

ENd of rant....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am beyond disgusted with this class. DD, normally, a good student is totally lost. Math isn't her thing, but with work, she can do it. Material is just shoved at them before they have even had time to digest it. She was recommended for Honors Geometry, but I think for the rest of her high school career, I am going to seek regular math. She has had only 3 days to cover an ENORMOUS amount of material on "Construction" No time to absorb one concept before rushing to the next.

I took Geometry. I realize it isn't the same now as it was umpteen years ago, but these kids don't even have time to absorb one concept before they rush off to the next. Yesterday, she called me at work in tears.

This is teaching? This is a 'good' school?

Give me a break.

We assume the following -
1) Teachers are poorly prepared and do not give a damn. I am much more educated than the teachers
2) Curriculum is the pits. I have access to better curriculum and textbooks than MCPS or private schools.
3) School year is short. I have my kids at home through out the year.
4) If my kid fails in academics, no one else is impacted but us and my kid.

As a result, I have been supplementing them at home since they were in kindergarten. Take a deep breath, get a tutor. In fact, you should have arranged for tutors during summer and made sure that gaps in knowledge and skills are addressed during summer.

[Anonymous]

We live in the county in a W school district. All we have been hearing is how great the schools are here. Neighbors, teachers, friends have been telling us this. Now that we are here, my husband and I look at each other and say "this is good?" No teaching? Packets dumped on them? Told just to watch You Tube videos and online demonstrations?

What kind of Kool-Aid are folks drinking here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were told that is 2.0. Kids are supposed to get more understanding from figuring it out rather than being shown what to do..

HI. OP here. THanks for all of the comments and commiserating with me.

LOL. HA. An excuse not to teach! Show them the video! Our friend as daughters who are in calculus at Whitman. Apparently, the kids are told to watch a video covering the concepts before the lesson. Next day, problems are given and the teacher walks around helping. Of course, this is hearsay and I haven't seen it, but I believe it. WHere the h*ll is the teaching.

I have been sitting with my daughter trying to do constructions all weekend. When I asked her if the teacher had shown her, for example, how to construct a 60 degree angle (in the review packet), she either says she showed it only once or didn't show it at all. However, she gave them online math resource, which we have been using.

My parents were teacher and my husbands parents were NYC school teachers. They got out the chalk in those days, went to the board and DEMONSTRATED, LECTURED, and TAUGHT.

Husband is an MD (he can't figure out what she is doing) and I have a business degree and advanced degrees.

WHERE IS THE TEACHING?????? We are all expected to hire tutors??? No teaching?

ENd of rant....

Huh? This is called a "flipped classroom" and it has a lot of merit. I posted upthread about having been advanced in math in HS without really "getting it." I think a flipped classroom would have worked really well for me, because I could have spent my time at home learning the concepts through the video, then have gotten additional help and motivation to apply the concepts in the classroom -- which I what I actually needed. I remember being just lost when it came to doing homework at home. The flipped classroom gives more time for teachers to do 1:1 instruction.

[Anonymous]

Flipped classroom also allows students to rewatch the instruction video as many times as they need to understand the concept. With classroom instruction, the teacher has to keep moving, and can’t keep repeating for one student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in the county in a W school district. All we have been hearing is how great the schools are here. Neighbors, teachers, friends have been telling us this. Now that we are here, my husband and I look at each other and say "this is good?" No teaching? Packets dumped on them? Told just to watch You Tube videos and online demonstrations?

What kind of Kool-Aid are folks drinking here?

They have to justify spending upwards of $1mil on a house that would barely break $400k elsewhere in MoCo. Anyone who bought in the last 15 years has been told that there’s one curriculum for the whole district and that hiring practices do not ensure the “best” teachers are clustered in any one area of the County. Therefore, people bought largely for a vanity address and some to avoid black and brown people residing on their street (unless a live-in nanny) or sitting at the desk next to Larla. But you can’t tell that to grandparents when you are asking for down payment help. You have to argue that X cluster is the only path to HYPS. That’s the Kool Aid (DCUM flavor), not anything MCPS has said. The system has never argued children in Ws or their feeders will get a better education than a child in Einstein or Springbrook’s catchments.

[Anonymous]

I observed my DC’s Honors Geometry class at Open House. This was a MS. It was not how I was taught math. There was no large group instruction. The teacher assigned a few things to do and then walked around the room answering questions. I thought it was really effective, and I loved how she answered the questions. She had a variety of strategies, depending on the question. If it was something she thought would be confusing to others, or multiple kids had the same question, she stopped and explained to the whole class. If a kid had an issue that another kid had just worked through, she’d have them work together so the one who’d just figured it out could help the one who was still struggling. I was impressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in the county in a W school district. All we have been hearing is how great the schools are here. Neighbors, teachers, friends have been telling us this. Now that we are here, my husband and I look at each other and say "this is good?" No teaching? Packets dumped on them? Told just to watch You Tube videos and online demonstrations?

What kind of Kool-Aid are folks drinking here?

They have to justify spending upwards of $1mil on a house that would barely break $400k elsewhere in MoCo. Anyone who bought in the last 15 years has been told that there’s one curriculum for the whole district and that hiring practices do not ensure the “best” teachers are clustered in any one area of the County. Therefore, people bought largely for a vanity address and some to avoid black and brown people residing on their street (unless a live-in nanny) or sitting at the desk next to Larla. But you can’t tell that to grandparents when you are asking for down payment help. You have to argue that X cluster is the only path to HYPS. That’s the Kool Aid (DCUM flavor), not anything MCPS has said. The system has never argued children in Ws or their feeders will get a better education than a child in Einstein or Springbrook’s catchments.

So which is it? I hear all the time that the W schools are better, and that it's unfair to the rest of the county. They point to the test scores as an indication that the schools are better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I observed my DC’s Honors Geometry class at Open House. This was a MS. It was not how I was taught math. There was no large group instruction. The teacher assigned a few things to do and then walked around the room answering questions. I thought it was really effective, and I loved how she answered the questions. She had a variety of strategies, depending on the question. If it was something she thought would be confusing to others, or multiple kids had the same question, she stopped and explained to the whole class. If a kid had an issue that another kid had just worked through, she’d have them work together so the one who’d just figured it out could help the one who was still struggling. I was impressed.

DD also had a great experience in honors geometry in middle school (not a W cluster school). Maybe it helps to have an advanced cohort in the class. But there should be quality instruction for all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in the county in a W school district. All we have been hearing is how great the schools are here. Neighbors, teachers, friends have been telling us this. Now that we are here, my husband and I look at each other and say "this is good?" No teaching? Packets dumped on them? Told just to watch You Tube videos and online demonstrations?

What kind of Kool-Aid are folks drinking here?

They have to justify spending upwards of $1mil on a house that would barely break $400k elsewhere in MoCo. Anyone who bought in the last 15 years has been told that there’s one curriculum for the whole district and that hiring practices do not ensure the “best” teachers are clustered in any one area of the County. Therefore, people bought largely for a vanity address and some to avoid black and brown people residing on their street (unless a live-in nanny) or sitting at the desk next to Larla. But you can’t tell that to grandparents when you are asking for down payment help. You have to argue that X cluster is the only path to HYPS. That’s the Kool Aid (DCUM flavor), not anything MCPS has said. The system has never argued children in Ws or their feeders will get a better education than a child in Einstein or Springbrook’s catchments.

So which is it? I hear all the time that the W schools are better, and that it's unfair to the rest of the county. They point to the test scores as an indication that the schools are better.

I think your confusion stems from equating high test scores with best schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our second DC is at a different HS and that school has help at lunch where they specifically don't go to their assigned teacher to see things another way.

You might want to look into if Whitman has a similar process.

This is an interesting program. Do many HSs have this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our second DC is at a different HS and that school has help at lunch where they specifically don't go to their assigned teacher to see things another way.

You might want to look into if Whitman has a similar process.

This is an interesting program. Do many HSs have this?

Wootton has that as well and has for many years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in the county in a W school district. All we have been hearing is how great the schools are here. Neighbors, teachers, friends have been telling us this. Now that we are here, my husband and I look at each other and say "this is good?" No teaching? Packets dumped on them? Told just to watch You Tube videos and online demonstrations?

What kind of Kool-Aid are folks drinking here?

They have to justify spending upwards of $1mil on a house that would barely break $400k elsewhere in MoCo. Anyone who bought in the last 15 years has been told that there’s one curriculum for the whole district and that hiring practices do not ensure the “best” teachers are clustered in any one area of the County. Therefore, people bought largely for a vanity address and some to avoid black and brown people residing on their street (unless a live-in nanny) or sitting at the desk next to Larla. But you can’t tell that to grandparents when you are asking for down payment help. You have to argue that X cluster is the only path to HYPS. That’s the Kool Aid (DCUM flavor), not anything MCPS has said. The system has never argued children in Ws or their feeders will get a better education than a child in Einstein or Springbrook’s catchments.

So which is it? I hear all the time that the W schools are better, and that it's unfair to the rest of the county. They point to the test scores as an indication that the schools are better.

The W schools have a parent pool that pays for tutors and more tutors. Some will even mortgage their homes to send DC to 8 weeks of summer camp or to "the best" college.

Just by economics alone these schools have been listed as better. Also, alumni to college connections are real at these schools.

My kids some went to a W school some went private. MCPS was definitely academically better than the private as a whole. There were great teachers in both places and horribly bad in both. There is more than 7 years difference between my oldest and my youngest. I can honestly say our W school, has way less good teachers now. My youngest went to an IVY, was not a reader til after college and he said freshman year was way easier than some of his high school classes. He felt very prepared. Can I ask for more than that nope

Does living in a W school district require a higher housing price yes it does. Is it required to live there for your DC to get a great education at MCPS absolutely not. More of this is about meeting your child's needs as to what type of student they are. Also, if you are at an under performing school then what are you doing as a parent for your child to make them successful?

[Anonymous]

This is America, folks! We are living here at the time of its precipitation decline. We have a moron ruling the country and the people are too stupid to care. Our education system depicts that.

Please take the matter in your own hands and teach your kids at home. Between educated parents and youtube, there is no reason to depend on the school system for advanced learning. Use the school for socialization and basic education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I observed my DC’s Honors Geometry class at Open House. This was a MS. It was not how I was taught math. There was no large group instruction. The teacher assigned a few things to do and then walked around the room answering questions. I thought it was really effective, and I loved how she answered the questions. She had a variety of strategies, depending on the question. If it was something she thought would be confusing to others, or multiple kids had the same question, she stopped and explained to the whole class. If a kid had an issue that another kid had just worked through, she’d have them work together so the one who’d just figured it out could help the one who was still struggling. I was impressed.

That works for some kids but not all. I would’ve hated that. I need someone to do a lot of examples before I try them on my own. I would’ve been highly frustrated in a class like this.