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Nov. 5th, 2009 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI didn't used to think that -3(x-2y-1) + 7x -4 + 8y was a socioeconomic barrier. I mean, yeah, I'd been to college. I knew that Calc 1 was an engineering weed-out class. I'd seen E.G. 50 at Penn State destroy people who were otherwise very qualified to become engineers -- but they didn't see like engineers and so they washed out. I was surprisingly OK with the concept of weed-out classes, when I was young and figured everybody had the same shot at stuff because everybody was just like me and of course the playing field was level. (Ah, the arrogance of youth!)
These days, I don't feel the same way about it. The playing field isn't level. The starting point is not the same for everyone. Everybody in the class has the same teacher and they all go home with the same damn worksheet of problems. That's all the same. However, what happens at home, over the kitchen table? You think everybody has the same resources to bring to the kitchen table? No.
I was feeding the ungrateful babies the other day when Cass (seventh grader of the horse people) calls me on my cell to find out if I'll help her with her math homework. Now, Cass knows me pretty well. She's known me all her life. I am around rather a lot, as a fixture and as an adult friend of the family. However, I am not family. I'm not mom or dad. I'm not grandma or great-grandma. I'm not an aunt or an uncle or a cousin. I am an unrelated adult outside the family unit who happens to be available for Cass on the math homework front for a whole bunch of reasons that have four legs and whinny. In short, I'm there for the ponies.
I allowed as how I would see what I could do on the math homework front. In passing, I asked why her parents couldn't help. Cass said that her dad didn't explain things very well. (True. He can usually *do* the problems but he can't explain them at all. His grasp of maths is intuitive and, frequently, marked wrong on the "did not show all work" front.) Her mom doesn't *do* algebra, at all. So, there wasn't anyone to hand who could explain the stuff. Her teacher told her that she'd have to ask her questions after class or whatever, which is useless to Cass -- there isn't any time after class because she rides the bus and has to catch it or be stuck at school forever.
My thing is, where is she supposed to get help with this stuff?
Cass is taking pre-algebra, which is a fuckwit sort of a math class. It's so... they're asking kids to take a hell of a lot on faith. Poor curriculum design, really. I think pre-algebra is doing the wrong things. They start with the necessary boring parts and expect the kids to lap up the drudgery (Yum, yum!) without giving them a taste of any of the cool things about algebra. It'd be like teaching kids to play basketball (kids who have never, ever seen the game) by making them do endless drills of dribble, dribble, dribble and pass-pass-pass. Honest to dog, it is difficult for a seventh-grader to muster any enthusiasm for shit like "Simplifying Algebraic Expressions" when she has no idea why she might ever want to do that or what it would be good for.
So we have here a relatively unmotivated kid with a lack of resources to attack -3(x-2y-1) + 7x -4 + 8y. At the end, of course, you're supposed to get 4x + 14y -1. (Assuming I didn't mess up.) But where is she going to get help? Yes, she has me, the because of ponies adult friend of the family, competent at maths through Diff Eq. I'm a great resource. However, how many seventh graders do you know who have the ability and the balls to ask an unrelated adult for help with their math homework? (If you think the world is just teeming with folks who long to explain "Simplifying Algebraic Expressions" to seventh grade kids and who are also *able* to do so, you are severely deluded.) As for me, I had parents who had a pretty good and solid handle on algebra. If I didn't get it in school, I could get someone at home to explain it to me.
But if you don't get it in class and if you don't have parents who can explain it to you and if you don't happen to have a because of ponies handy adult who can sit down with you can go over it in slow motion, you are not going to get Simplifying Algebraic Expressions. It's not going to come together for you. The thing here is that Simplifying Algebraic Expressions is not a part of math that can be overlooked or skipped over. It's not like radians or logarithms. (I never figured out either of those and yet got through all manner of higher maths.) Simplifying Algebraic Expressions keeps coming back at you, again and again.
If you don't get a handle on Simplifying Algebraic Expressions, you will have no higher maths, no college education, and doors closing all over the place. When you're in seventh grade, you probably can't hear the doors closing. All you can see is the dumb-ass worksheet with -3(x-2y-1) + 7x -4 + 8y on it. Odds are good that nobody is bothering to tell you about the doors, either. Teacher doesn't have time and doesn't want to seem to be putting students "down". Parents may not know, themselves, because they never got Simplifying Algebraic Expressions and they turned out OK.
*sigh*
If, for some reason, you need to 'splain SAE to a seventh grader, grab a big handful of m&m's. Dump them on the table. Ask the seventh grader how many blue ones there are. (Big handful, I said.) Seventh grader says "Can't tell." Right, because they're all over the place. Sort them out and gather up the blue ones and then you can see what you have. Same for the other colors of m&m's. This is *like* Simplifying Algebraic Expressions. Your shit is all messed up, see. When you have -3(x-2y-1) + 7x -4 + 8y, the shit is all messed up and you can't see what you have, there. The end goal of Simplifying Algebraic Expressions is to make it easier to see what you have.
I had more to say about this, but I'm falling asleep with the laptop on my lap. Time for bed.
These days, I don't feel the same way about it. The playing field isn't level. The starting point is not the same for everyone. Everybody in the class has the same teacher and they all go home with the same damn worksheet of problems. That's all the same. However, what happens at home, over the kitchen table? You think everybody has the same resources to bring to the kitchen table? No.
I was feeding the ungrateful babies the other day when Cass (seventh grader of the horse people) calls me on my cell to find out if I'll help her with her math homework. Now, Cass knows me pretty well. She's known me all her life. I am around rather a lot, as a fixture and as an adult friend of the family. However, I am not family. I'm not mom or dad. I'm not grandma or great-grandma. I'm not an aunt or an uncle or a cousin. I am an unrelated adult outside the family unit who happens to be available for Cass on the math homework front for a whole bunch of reasons that have four legs and whinny. In short, I'm there for the ponies.
I allowed as how I would see what I could do on the math homework front. In passing, I asked why her parents couldn't help. Cass said that her dad didn't explain things very well. (True. He can usually *do* the problems but he can't explain them at all. His grasp of maths is intuitive and, frequently, marked wrong on the "did not show all work" front.) Her mom doesn't *do* algebra, at all. So, there wasn't anyone to hand who could explain the stuff. Her teacher told her that she'd have to ask her questions after class or whatever, which is useless to Cass -- there isn't any time after class because she rides the bus and has to catch it or be stuck at school forever.
My thing is, where is she supposed to get help with this stuff?
Cass is taking pre-algebra, which is a fuckwit sort of a math class. It's so... they're asking kids to take a hell of a lot on faith. Poor curriculum design, really. I think pre-algebra is doing the wrong things. They start with the necessary boring parts and expect the kids to lap up the drudgery (Yum, yum!) without giving them a taste of any of the cool things about algebra. It'd be like teaching kids to play basketball (kids who have never, ever seen the game) by making them do endless drills of dribble, dribble, dribble and pass-pass-pass. Honest to dog, it is difficult for a seventh-grader to muster any enthusiasm for shit like "Simplifying Algebraic Expressions" when she has no idea why she might ever want to do that or what it would be good for.
So we have here a relatively unmotivated kid with a lack of resources to attack -3(x-2y-1) + 7x -4 + 8y. At the end, of course, you're supposed to get 4x + 14y -1. (Assuming I didn't mess up.) But where is she going to get help? Yes, she has me, the because of ponies adult friend of the family, competent at maths through Diff Eq. I'm a great resource. However, how many seventh graders do you know who have the ability and the balls to ask an unrelated adult for help with their math homework? (If you think the world is just teeming with folks who long to explain "Simplifying Algebraic Expressions" to seventh grade kids and who are also *able* to do so, you are severely deluded.) As for me, I had parents who had a pretty good and solid handle on algebra. If I didn't get it in school, I could get someone at home to explain it to me.
But if you don't get it in class and if you don't have parents who can explain it to you and if you don't happen to have a because of ponies handy adult who can sit down with you can go over it in slow motion, you are not going to get Simplifying Algebraic Expressions. It's not going to come together for you. The thing here is that Simplifying Algebraic Expressions is not a part of math that can be overlooked or skipped over. It's not like radians or logarithms. (I never figured out either of those and yet got through all manner of higher maths.) Simplifying Algebraic Expressions keeps coming back at you, again and again.
If you don't get a handle on Simplifying Algebraic Expressions, you will have no higher maths, no college education, and doors closing all over the place. When you're in seventh grade, you probably can't hear the doors closing. All you can see is the dumb-ass worksheet with -3(x-2y-1) + 7x -4 + 8y on it. Odds are good that nobody is bothering to tell you about the doors, either. Teacher doesn't have time and doesn't want to seem to be putting students "down". Parents may not know, themselves, because they never got Simplifying Algebraic Expressions and they turned out OK.
*sigh*
If, for some reason, you need to 'splain SAE to a seventh grader, grab a big handful of m&m's. Dump them on the table. Ask the seventh grader how many blue ones there are. (Big handful, I said.) Seventh grader says "Can't tell." Right, because they're all over the place. Sort them out and gather up the blue ones and then you can see what you have. Same for the other colors of m&m's. This is *like* Simplifying Algebraic Expressions. Your shit is all messed up, see. When you have -3(x-2y-1) + 7x -4 + 8y, the shit is all messed up and you can't see what you have, there. The end goal of Simplifying Algebraic Expressions is to make it easier to see what you have.
I had more to say about this, but I'm falling asleep with the laptop on my lap. Time for bed.
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no subject
Date: 2009-11-06 03:17 pm (UTC)IMHO, the parents shouldn't be relying on 'strangers' to help their kid with the homeworks. If they can't handle helping with the work, get a tutor. (Or try to make sure the kid can get home if after-class work with the teacher is needed.)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-06 04:26 pm (UTC)I understand that 'parents should help with homework' but the point here was that there really wasn't a parent or other convenient family member to help. Yes, I had a parent to help at my house when I was a sprog, but not everybody's household has algebra-competent, college-educated, national merit finalist parents like mine did. And, actually, most of eighth grade (including algebra 1) was a blur for me because my parents were busy getting divorced and I wasn't particularly engaged with my schoolwork during the 83-84 school year.
I guess it just seems kind of unfair to me, that the barrier to higher maths (needed for some really nice, highly-paid jobs with benefits and retirement plans and stuff like that) is in front of twelve and thirteen year old kids who may not realize how very important it is to succeed at the dumb-ass worksheet on simplifying algebraic expressions. In the extremely unlikely event that they understand the long-term financial consequences of not getting this material, do they, themselves, have to hand the resources to make sure that they get a firm grasp of the material?
"Have parents who understand algebra" is a good plan for success, but unfortunately it isn't particularly practical for the kid in question.