If it was determined that knowing what sort of math and english etc. skills the parents of students have was critical to gauging success and developing effective lesson plans, do you think most parents would cooperate with this requirement?
Do you think there would there be a lot of push back or general compliance?
There’s your first problem astro. Unfortunately, you might need to specify the ethnic origin of your study group, because, at least here in Australia, children of first-generation immigrants (particularly from SE Asia) are over-represented in the ‘success’ files. Their parents have limited-to-no English skills and may be able in basic arithmetic but totally unfamiliar with a more broad mathematical skillbase: but because of their understanding of the value of education, have equipped their kids with an ethos of commited learning and a yearning for vocational success.
Only the ones that take an active role in their chlid’s scholastic life would do it. Adn those are the ones that need it least. There are just too many parents that believe that the school is just a place to send their kids once they are old enough.
Still, I guess that in and of itself could be a kind of test.
I find many of the parents I know are more than willing to tell me that they don’t know math and never did well in math, and can’t help in math at all, so Junior’s problems in math just run in the family. And would I fix it. And this was 5th grade. And none of them seemed particularly bothered about their lack of skills. They’d laugh about it.
I think I’d refuse. To what standards are the test? Not too long ago on a thread here it was widely claimed that simple multiplication was no longer being taught in some schools, and instead the schools used some silly thing that appeared (at first glance) to be a setup for calculating a matrix. But, no, the idea was to circle your solution or some such nonsense. I’m an engineer, but I’d fail a dumbed-down test like that.
I’m not sure I understand the agenda, but I believe the idea is far-reaching and ill-conceived and would be met with great resistance.
And that “test” is passed and failed by October or November conferences in Kindergarten when the teacher can break up the kids into:
parents I haven’t seen yet despite having three opportunities - meet you morning, open house, and conferences.
parents who are involved with their kids education to have come to all those events - or at least appear to have tried (“my husband couldn’t make it, he’s out of town this evening.”)
parents they are on a first name basis with and have programmed into their cell phone due to the level of involvement. Sometimes its good involvement - parents who volunteer extensively in their kid’s classroom. Sometimes its a daily phone call or email to the teacher to get a verbal report on their “special snowflake” or complain that Snowflake needs to stop sitting next to Mean Girl.
I wouldn’t do it. Not because I’m unwilling or unable to help my kids with homework when they ask (although the math techniques they’re teaching do leave me unable by about 6th grade), but because, frankly…I’m done with elementary school. Now it’s my kids’ turn, and their schoolwork is a matter for them and their teachers. I can help reinforce at home, but if you can’t teach the basics during class, then you need to reevaluate what you’re spending your classroom time on.
Again, I’ll help in a reasonable manner when asked, but I’m not one of those parents who stays up until 2 AM building the Eiffel Tower out of popsicle sticks because my kiddo didn’t mention it was due until the night before. Sorry, bucko…your choice, your failing grade. Hope you make a different choice next time, 'cause I know how much going into your classroom unprepared hurts, honestly I do. But if I save you from yourself in second grade, it just sets you up for failure in third.
Besides, what would be the benefit? Ok, so a parent gets an unsatisfactory score in math…now what? Are you going to require remedial math classes for the parent? Good luck with that. Any useful information can be gotten from the student who says, “Dad can’t help me with my math homework.” Now you know that, whatever the reason (Dad’s not good at math, Dad’s unwilling to help with homework), the kid needs to schedule some homework time with a tutor, instead of his parents. The reason is irrelevant, the problem to be solved is that the kid needs additional homework resources.
Parents are specialists in their lives while children are generalists.
The key point of a child’s education is to get them to learn to think. Then apply those thinking skills to various situations.
A parent probably has a lot more skills than they realize. When a parent says they can’t do math past six grade level, they probably can do it. It’s just been so long they have to have it come back.
A parents skill levels have little to do with a child. Lots of geniuses come from mediocre parents and a lot of geniuses have mediocre kids.
It’s a combination of all sorts of things.
Parents need to become actively involved with a child’s work. But you don’t need to know how to do the work, skillwise, to manage the child and see to it that’s it’s done.
The skills taught in school, well most of them, will never be used in real life. But the point is to expose the child to different things. To test them so they will have a choice to see what path they can take.
Of course in real life, the path, for one reason or another is often chosen for them, but at least the attempt is there.
I would not cooperate unless the teachers were also tested and the results of their testing shared with me. Two way street. That doesn’t seem likely, though.
I recall the time I asked my college educated parents for help with my junior high math homework, and they couldn’t help me because the textbook was so poorly written neither they nor I could figure out what I was supposed to do. Sometimes the problem is the lesson or the test, not the parents or the kid.
I can certainly do math past a sixth grade level, I just can’t do much of the math with the methods they’re currently teaching, like the matrix for multiplication mentioned above. Since I didn’t want to (and my kid’s teacher didn’t want me to) confuse the kid when he’s just learning the concept by handing him the method I learned, I had to sit out helping with math homework at that point.
Yep. When my daughter was in grade school she asked me for help with a simple algebra problem. Only they hadn’t even started on algebra yet. Turns out the teacher wanted to demonstrate frustration/guessing techniques, etc.
I sat down and began with, “OK, let’s call this “x””. After several hours my daughter was doing very nicely setting up equations and using variables.
Teacher sent home a note chastising me for circumventing her plans.:dubious:
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Turns out the teacher wanted to demonstrate frustration/guessing techniques, etc.
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I would have very seriously considered pulling her out of the school. I’ve never heard of such bullshit.
What, “keep on trying values until one works, with no specific way to decide what value to try next other than ‘it feels right’”?
I hated having to learn proofs by rote, but at least nobody taught us how to solve quadratic equations by “keep trying values until one works, then keep trying until a second one works”: they taught us the formula and made us learn the proof by rote (well, in my case the second part was more of a failed attempt).
I’ve done my share of work in iterative techniques, but those come with a way to decide what point to try next. Math by feel… shudder
Yep. The teacher began algebra by having the kids guess blindly. Too high? Try a smaller number. In her defense, I think the idea was to make them eager to learn a better way. In my defense, in two hours one-on-one I taught my daughter what her teacher spent the better part of a semester teaching.
I would not be inclined to take such a test. Frankly, I’m generally pretty irritated at the beginning of each school year with the amount of paperwork that needs to be done - adding a general skills test would probably push me over the edge in to crazyville.