Or tell me why this isn’t a great idea. Also open to a phone line kind of arrangement.
My son is a sophomore in HS. He does very well in math and I did great in math but I’ve forgotten almost all of it. So now he gets occasional HW problems that he can’t do and I can’t remember how to do them. He doesn’t need lots of support, encouragement, threats, repetetive explanations and all that. He just sometimes needs someone to say (or type) “Here’s how you do this one…”
I just had a funny, awful experience that started with google and ended with kasamba.com and two unanswered questions. I guess I’d really prefer someplace where we can connect by phone.
Is it possible that he or you are too much of a perfectionist, and that he’s not really expected to be able to do all the problems? If he does very well in math, but there are a few problems he can’t get, surely there are problems that others in his class can’t get either?
Maybe (and these are tentative suggestions, offered without knowing the particulars of the situation), rather than turning to a tutor whenever he can’t figure something out, he’d be better off (1) trying to figure it out himself, with the help of his textbook, or (2) waiting and asking the teacher about it in class the next day, or (3) working with a friend, or (4) putting the homework aside and coming back to it later, or (5) learning to live with the idea that he won’t always get everything.
(1) He already does that, but probably could do a ittle bit more. Or, if nothing else, I could go to the textbook.
(2) If it’s Monday’s HW, you lose points if you figure it out on Tuesday
(3) :smack:
(4) Been there, done that
(5) This is tough. I’m all for moderation when the time is right and I’m also for striving for excellence when the time is right. Some background…My son is an artist, a musician and an intellectual and is on track to go to a top 50 college. But I think if we tell him that all those As in math aren’t necessary any more it’s not such a good thing. And BTW, it’s not like he’s doing eight hours of HW a night, probably more like two to three hours on average.
Does he read the text? I never did until college, but if he’s a good math student he should be able to figure them out with the help of the text. If not I’d have him ask the teacher if she knows any tutors. When I tutored math I just sent my contact information to the head of the math department, there’s a good chance they know of local tutors.
As a sophomore he’s probably in algebra 2 or trig? I think you should push for an A, if he’s slacking and not able to get an A in some of those classes, he’ll probably be getting Cs in a college math course if he goes that route.
Even if he’s not going to need college math it’s a very good habit to work through something that’s not immediately obvious. Saying that he should give up on these problems now will hurt his future coursework.