I’m a historian, i haven’t done any formal mathematics since high school, and i understood exactly what he was talking about from the very brief description in his OP. Hell, i had a lemonade story composed in my head within 3 seconds of reading the description of the graph. Any teacher who can’t help a student with a problem as simple as that, whether a math teacher or not, has some problems.
That’s what I’m thinking. While teachers may seem smart to a child who doesn’t know the subject, I’ve found about 1/2 the teachers I’ve met to be rather dim bulbs. They’re taught how to teach, how to deal with children, how to motivate, but not, it seems, actual subject matter. Then they are given poorly written text books and study guides, and that appears to be the extent of their subject knowledge.
Thirded. I’m no Richard Feynman when it comes to math, but this seems less like pure math than “basic display concepts that even readers of USA Today can grasp.” I too had a story ready to go while reading the OP. I’ve never taught anything and I’d like to think I could manage to demonstrate that work pretty simply.
Cluricaun - who only has an associates degree and who works in a boring office job.
I know lots of very intelligent and articulate people, mostly from the artistic-leaning college I went to, whose brains simply shut down the minute “math” is even mentioned. If these teachers taught art or English I could understand. It’s just not something their brains do, at least not without a lot of effort and pain.
But still, even with that, graphs are fairly intuitive and visual, it’s not really very math-y. My guess is it was fear of math.
That’s what I was thinking. It’s been a long time since I was in school, but I have clear memories of the usual games of “make the substitute teacher’s life a living hell.” Paticularly in middle school. We were typical kids - not classified as behavioral problems. I remember one class’s pride in that they managed to get one sub to break down in tears and have to be relieved by another teacher.
Each sub quickly got a reputation as either a pushover or one not to mess with. Kids are scary good at figuring out just what they can get away with and pushing it to the limit.
Fear of math is my guess as well.
And I agree w/ 2.5 that there is something very wrong with a system that produces teachers who let fear of math get in the way of understanding the kind of worksheet described.
-FrL-
A teacher not leaving detailed lesson plans is inexcusable, and honestly, should warrant at the very least an official reprimand from the administration. Not planning enough for the substitute is ridiculous, too. My kids beg for me not to be absent because they know it’s going to be twice as much work for them.
I’d place a lot of blame on that administration. At my school, teachers are required to keep copies of emergency lesson plans (a week’s worth) on file with the adminstrative secretary and already-copied material (with instructions on where to FIND that material) in your classroom. If there’s a sudden absence, you’re covered. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea at first because it had to be something that could be slotted in anywhere and anytime, and would likely have nothing to do with what we’re in the middle of (and I wasn’t really in the mood to come up with a week’s worth of plans for three different preps that I was never going to be able to use in class!), but I can’t deny it’s a good idea.
On the other hand, if I get another MPSIMS censored substitute that can’t follow instructions, there **will ** be hell to pay.
Just out of interest, if a sub in your class ran out of things to do on your lesson plan (for whatever reason), would you have a problem with the sub saying to the class:
“OK, if there anything you’ve done over the last week or so that you’re having trouble understanding?”
and then helping them through their problems?
Actually, that wouldn’t happen in my class, because there’s always something for the kids to work on! I make darn sure of that. It means there’s something wrong! And in any case, if there’s something I’m not explaining well to the kids, I need to know what it is so I can rectify that.
It’s hard to express accurately. I wouldn’t even like it if another teacher in my school, even in my department, would come in and do that, because in AP English, it’s so, so different from all the other English classes at my school that it would actually cause more confusion. Now, I won’t go into how I feel about it, and the politics and reasons behind it, but there’s a huge stake in essay tests in my district - school bonuses, even. So we spend a LOT of time drilling certain essay templates and ideas into the students. Yes, it stifles creativity - but that’s the way it is. By the time they get to me, I have to spend a lot of time deprogramming these kids from these templates (which are entirely valid in freshmen, sophomore, and junior English), and get them into the AP essay state of mind. It’s a totally different way. There’s different tricks, different attitudes, different perspectives and expectations. When they have spent three years doing elaborate anecdotal introduction paragraphs for their explanatory or compare-contrast essays, it takes time to break them of that for their AP poetry essay. It’s far too easy to have a too-helpful colleague explain the wrong things to the kids…it’s happened before. “Mr. So-and-so said to do it this way.”
Anyway, there are some great subs who I could trust entirely, and sometimes I’m lucky enough to get a specific sub if I request it…but we almost never know what sub we’re going to get, and those great subs are usually snapped up to fill positions eventually. Teachers have to plan for the lowest form of substitute, unfortunately.
Geez, I never even thought of this problem before. If I were teaching AP, I’m not even sure I’d let a sub teach. I’d just have the kids write a couple of practice essays or something.
When I was in school AP English came as such a relief because finally my teacher was helping me to write things that make sense and are interesting and not full of needless fluff. Oh god it was awesome.
-FrL-
If I’m out, I don’t expect the sub will follow directions, let alone teach them anything. It sounds like the OP was genuinely trying and I can imagine having to deal with 30 problem kids.
I’m with those who cite the “math block” theory. Some will take it with genstudies in their Freshman/Sophomore years, then never take math again. And I’ve known teachers who couldn’t pass the NTE because of the math, which was really pretty easy and intuitive IMO. There’s a chance they could have done it but were afraid to try because then the kids would know if they failed, and they didn’t want to lose face.
That’s probably the reason I was told by a substitute teacher many years ago that you CAN divide by zero - zero is just another number.
Cripes lady. Congratulations on being more ignorant than a fourth grader.
You can’t divide by 0? Shows what you know. I just tried it and got E.
This is why I go into work even if I’m sick if I can manage it-- not because subs are incompetent, but I feel it’s too much to ask to expect them to teach a substantive lesson while also disciplining an unruly bunch of kids. Right now we’re reading Twelfth Night, and I want to have it finished by the end of this week before spring break. If I called in sick tomorrow like I wish I could (sinus infection), there’s no way we’d finish because you have to be able to explain everything and answer any question they might have about the text, or your lose their interest and your credibility. Not fair for a sub to be expected to do that on zero notice, and keep control of the class.
If I have to be out for a conference or personal day, I try very hard to schedule a quiz or test for that day, or a video. Though one time, I had on my desk only 3 things: a video tape, a stack of worksheets, and the lesson plan, which said something t the effect of, “Please distribute these sheets, then have the students watch the movie. Students should complete the worksheet based on their viewing of the video during class.” When I got in the next day, none of the sheets had been given out. :smack:
Somewhere in the world, this just happened: http: //farm2.static.flickr.com/1323/1433529629_4c1f775559.jpg
In the whole, I agree with this.
I’m not quite sure this is right, however. There has to be a reason for the substantial difference between lesson plans intended for yourself and those for others. Are you making a completely prescriptive plan of exactly how you would teach a lesson? Is your greatest fear that everybody in the room might end up wondering what to do for the last twenty minute of the lesson?
Not my greatest fear…! Essentially, I have stock readings for them to do throughout the year - short stories with questions attached, literary analysis work, plot charting, that kind of thing. They’d do it anyway, but if I was there, I’d read the story with them, do the assignments in component parts, break it over a couple of days. If I’m out for the day, and in 14 years there has never been a situation in which I haven’t told the kids the day before I was going to be gone (I almost never miss days for illness, just workshops and activities - but if I am sick I stick it out and tell the secretary I’m not coming in tomorrow!), I tell the kids what they’re going to be doing, so there’s never any surprise.
And if they finish it all, I also give the subs at least two “If they finish their assignment, then do this” activities - maybe an extra credit assignment or grammar worksheets. There’s always something to keep the kids occupied. As a matter of fact, I’m going to be out tomorrow, and my plans for my AP class are essentially pass out the essay papers…have the kids annotate and outline the essay (which should take all period). If they are done, they get out their novel and work on their final project. For the freshmen, continue their literary analysis packet, and if they get done begin reading “My Delicate Heart Condition” in their textbooks (Quiz on Friday!) If they get done with the story, answer the questions at the end of the chapter for extra credit.
I’ve got nothing add. I just wanted to say that I support TAAHIOF and relate that my earliest career goal was to become a public high school science teacher. That lasted until I was a junior in college, when I let myself get talked into the pre-med route, and it totally went by the wayside when I entered the military. Once in awhile I used to lie in the barracks and get all wistful about how it would have been if I’d followed my dream, and I’d think that right then I could be teaching the youth of America and getting them ready for the future. I mean, there were almost tears.
I got out of the army and came to Boston where I saw American high school students for the first time in years. I also started reading teaching messageboards dealing with typical problems with said students. All I’ve got to say is that I wish I still believed in God so that I could thank Her that I *didn’t * become a high school teacher. So thank Dog, and thank Karma, and thank Judas-fucking-Iscariot that my own life choices and indecision led me away from that route. Seriously. Yeah, I could be in a classroom now. Lucky fucking me! My job right now happens to suck, but it sucks about 1/250,000th as bad as teaching science to high-schoolers in a public school.
So, TAAHIOF, whatever I think of you otherwise, I respect the hell out of you for having the guts to go in there. Now give 'em hell!
Stuff like this is one of the many reasons I’m not a substitute teacher anymore. I had this happen more times than I can count, and went by the old standby, “wing it”.
Also, this is purely anecdotal, but it seemed like the teachers with the out of control students (typically special ed type classes, populated with students that typically had more discipline issues than learning issues) were the teachers that were out sick the most. I almost never got to sub an AP class, unless the AP teacher saw how hard I was working in the special ed class and knew he could count on me making a decent effort to follow his directions. So many of my assignments were uphill battles. I started outright refusing special ed assignments, and not surprisingly I didn’t get a whole lot of work. Another frequent assignment that I did not particularly enjoy:
Girl’s PE: Had to get some girl/female PE teacher to ferry the roll sheets from the girl’s locker room. 80% of the time the students wouldn’t dress out at all/generally uncooperative/leave school in front of me, and when outside it was much more difficult to get assistance (ie assistant principal/other PE teacher) to get them in line.
Then there was the long-term subbing assignment for a class of students that had failed the California State Exit Exam. If they failed, they had to take this class which pretty much was totally focused on passing the exam. However, the teacher was on long-term leave (she got pregnant, and basically quit) and they were holding the class together with subs every 2 weeks. Each sub got the opportunity to sub for the rest of the year, and none of them took up the offer. I was pretty disgusted to find out all these kids got an automatic ‘B’ because of the sub situation. I was the only sub that actually tried to pick up from where their permanent teacher left off, but they were so used to other subs that would just show movies all day, every day, for 3/4 of the school year I was getting frequent death threats and would constantly have to have security called in to deal with an incident each and every day. I felt more like a prison guard than a substitute techer :mad:
Since you are so familiar with Flannery O’Connor, I trust you understand the irony of your predicament.