Remedial Mama
Posted on: August 21, 2012
http://www.theonion.com/articles/parents-dont-remember-enough-colors-to-help-with-k,29252
For those of us getting ready to send kids back to school. Another year of relearning math for me!
For those not on the elementary school train, I am speaking of the new ways kids are learning math. No “carrying the one” and all that. So when Bambina is doing her homework and has to “show your work” I am powerless to help…or even know what the hell she is writing. I’m not kidding. I can clearly see that 14+18=32, but how she gets there is not a process with which I’m familiar. The disconnect got so bad last year that the teachers sent home a memo begging parents to stop showing kids how to carry the one because it was creating confusion.
Hello? The confusion is all mine. I’m hoping that this year the teachers will hold a special “Third Grade Math for Grownups” night so I can competently assess whether my kid has actually done her homework or has just written a lot of those kooky number things she got from that there book larnin’. Until then, we will just have her call her uncle who is, as the article says, “good with colors.”
August 21, 2012 at 2:21 pm
Oooo, if they do give you a remedial math course I want to go! I remember when I was substitute teaching in a middle school math class and they were doing algebra, and in order to solve the equation they had to do all sorts of cooky things to it. I couldn’t understand it even after reading the book. What ever happened to balancing the equation?
But seriously, we know helping our children with their homework is important for their learning and development, teachers know it too. So if they want to encourage our involvement they need to give us the tools to do so, which they should do even if they feel overworked because a home school connection is also shown as beneficial to a child’s learning and development!