Vicarious Math Pressure
October 10, 2014 11:41 PM Subscribe
My eldest child is starting high school. She is in the most advanced math class (a version of geometry) offered by her fairly demanding high school. But my eldest is struggling during the review of algebra -- rate problems, word problems, etc. Concerned because math is cumulative, and I don't want her falling behind. What can I do to help, both with math and with preventing her from becoming discouraged?
My daughter is very intelligent. She tested into her advanced math class, and she has never received grades that were anything less than As. Now she's struggling a bit, though, and I would like to help her turn it around. I plan to have her speak to her teacher for his suggestions on how to improve her understanding and performance. If that fails, then I might try to find her a tutor, too, but it would be great to get the hive's thoughts on resources, books, programs, plans, or even just advice about how to help a 14 year-old girl through math that is more challenging than she has faced before.
Advice I may be considering internally but that I don't really need here: take her out of the advanced math; don't worry about math because it's not that important. Advice that would be wonderful: when I was a 14 year-old (or when I was parenting my 14 year-old) there was a similar problem that I solved by doing X, Y, and Z. Thanks so much.
My daughter is very intelligent. She tested into her advanced math class, and she has never received grades that were anything less than As. Now she's struggling a bit, though, and I would like to help her turn it around. I plan to have her speak to her teacher for his suggestions on how to improve her understanding and performance. If that fails, then I might try to find her a tutor, too, but it would be great to get the hive's thoughts on resources, books, programs, plans, or even just advice about how to help a 14 year-old girl through math that is more challenging than she has faced before.
Advice I may be considering internally but that I don't really need here: take her out of the advanced math; don't worry about math because it's not that important. Advice that would be wonderful: when I was a 14 year-old (or when I was parenting my 14 year-old) there was a similar problem that I solved by doing X, Y, and Z. Thanks so much.
Nb: I'm not trying to suggest that you are praising your child 'incorrectly'. But I do strongly recommend at least looking at this stuff as it is quite counter-cultural imo. Then you can decide if changes need to be made!
posted by jojobobo at 12:52 AM on October 11, 2014
posted by jojobobo at 12:52 AM on October 11, 2014
Best answer: Background: I'm a professional math tutor (with prior high school and college teaching experience), and most of my students are high school girls, frequently in honors courses. My number one piece of advice is for her to find a study buddy.
Study buddies and study groups ought to be encouraged a lot more in high school, as they are for college students. Many of my high school girls are extremely paranoid about screwing up in front of other people -- they don't want to sound stupid. It tends to be the cockier students who do speak up, and you know there is always that obnoxious posturing kid who says stuff like, "Oh, this is sooo easy, you just *insert rapid-fire math*." It can easily lead to students internalizing the idea that everyone else knows what's going on, which is dead wrong.
Thus, they don't ask questions of their teachers or peers, and so they don't discover that most of what they find difficult is hard for *everyone*. This usually means they don't learn how to deal with these difficulties, and then are left sort of floundering alone.
Having a little study group can make students feel less alone, and of course they can benefit from discussing problems with each other and seeing different perspective on things. The accountability also makes them far more likely to get things done on time (or even early). So, if she has a friend or two in the class with similar abilities and goals, they should definitely make a point of discussing math with each other. Perhaps they could get together a couple days a week to work on homework together. The idea is to have a safe space with people she can trust to help her (and not make fun of her), and they can compare answers and approaches to problems.
Also:
+ She should have a relationship with the teacher. If she is too shy to ask questions in class, ask them after class or during the teacher's office hours, or ask to meet for ten minutes after school, or whatever.
+ She should go over every graded assignment to review any mistakes and find out (by getting help if necessary) how to do any missed problems.
+ In geometry especially, students get bombarded with a TON of new vocabulary in large batches. Remind her to make connections to our normal English uses of words when possible. (E.g. "alternate interior angles" can mostly be reasoned out word by word.)
+ Even if she's not required by her teacher to keep a binder with sections for definitions, examples, class notes, and notes on important ideas from the book, it would be a really good idea to do it on her own anyway, just to stay organized.
posted by ktkt at 2:44 AM on October 11, 2014 [6 favorites]
Study buddies and study groups ought to be encouraged a lot more in high school, as they are for college students. Many of my high school girls are extremely paranoid about screwing up in front of other people -- they don't want to sound stupid. It tends to be the cockier students who do speak up, and you know there is always that obnoxious posturing kid who says stuff like, "Oh, this is sooo easy, you just *insert rapid-fire math*." It can easily lead to students internalizing the idea that everyone else knows what's going on, which is dead wrong.
Thus, they don't ask questions of their teachers or peers, and so they don't discover that most of what they find difficult is hard for *everyone*. This usually means they don't learn how to deal with these difficulties, and then are left sort of floundering alone.
Having a little study group can make students feel less alone, and of course they can benefit from discussing problems with each other and seeing different perspective on things. The accountability also makes them far more likely to get things done on time (or even early). So, if she has a friend or two in the class with similar abilities and goals, they should definitely make a point of discussing math with each other. Perhaps they could get together a couple days a week to work on homework together. The idea is to have a safe space with people she can trust to help her (and not make fun of her), and they can compare answers and approaches to problems.
Also:
+ She should have a relationship with the teacher. If she is too shy to ask questions in class, ask them after class or during the teacher's office hours, or ask to meet for ten minutes after school, or whatever.
+ She should go over every graded assignment to review any mistakes and find out (by getting help if necessary) how to do any missed problems.
+ In geometry especially, students get bombarded with a TON of new vocabulary in large batches. Remind her to make connections to our normal English uses of words when possible. (E.g. "alternate interior angles" can mostly be reasoned out word by word.)
+ Even if she's not required by her teacher to keep a binder with sections for definitions, examples, class notes, and notes on important ideas from the book, it would be a really good idea to do it on her own anyway, just to stay organized.
posted by ktkt at 2:44 AM on October 11, 2014 [6 favorites]
She most likely forgot or never fully understood some prerequisite concepts to the math she's doing now. In my experience that's the source of 90+% of most people's difficulties with math.
My advice would be to get her to go through Khan Academy lessons and problem sets starting with the prealgebra lessons and then working her way back up to algebra. That will drill her on everything she needs to know and fill in any gaps.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:28 AM on October 11, 2014 [5 favorites]
My advice would be to get her to go through Khan Academy lessons and problem sets starting with the prealgebra lessons and then working her way back up to algebra. That will drill her on everything she needs to know and fill in any gaps.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:28 AM on October 11, 2014 [5 favorites]
Also, it can come as a bit of a surprise to very bright students when they find themselves in a course or reach a certain level in a subject where they have to start to work hard(er than they are used to) to achieve desired grades.
So I had to work very little for most of my school years to do reasonably well in most subjects. The exception was maths where you actually have to sit down and work through the problems. But for many years my maths grade was weighted 50:50 between algebra and geometry. I always got As in geometry (with next to no effort) and borderline failed the algebra (with the same lack of effort). But I got by just fine with the combined grade as I didn't care about getting As in years where the only people ever seeing my report cards were my parents...
That approach worked well until we reached a point where we were tackling things where I was expected to know the algebra. Let's just say my maths grades did not recover until i left school. I never caught up on algebra until I did my masters and found myself in a mandatory advanced maths class and realised I'd just have to knuckle down with a more introductory textbook and fill the gaps myself.
So if your daughter has managed to get by with very little effort in maths so far she may simply not have realised or accepted that she may actually have to do more work this year. How she chooses to do that extra work (study group, going over more foundation type stuff again at home with a study guide, tutor) is down to personal preference.
posted by koahiatamadl at 4:10 AM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
So I had to work very little for most of my school years to do reasonably well in most subjects. The exception was maths where you actually have to sit down and work through the problems. But for many years my maths grade was weighted 50:50 between algebra and geometry. I always got As in geometry (with next to no effort) and borderline failed the algebra (with the same lack of effort). But I got by just fine with the combined grade as I didn't care about getting As in years where the only people ever seeing my report cards were my parents...
That approach worked well until we reached a point where we were tackling things where I was expected to know the algebra. Let's just say my maths grades did not recover until i left school. I never caught up on algebra until I did my masters and found myself in a mandatory advanced maths class and realised I'd just have to knuckle down with a more introductory textbook and fill the gaps myself.
So if your daughter has managed to get by with very little effort in maths so far she may simply not have realised or accepted that she may actually have to do more work this year. How she chooses to do that extra work (study group, going over more foundation type stuff again at home with a study guide, tutor) is down to personal preference.
posted by koahiatamadl at 4:10 AM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Seconding Khan Academy. I've used that with my own very bright sixth grader who is great in math, but had trouble when working with fractions. She had kind of breezed through the basic fraction lessons without really understanding, so when things got complicated, she kept getting confused. We had her go through all the fractions practice on Khan Academy up until the division that was giving her trouble, and she built up a level of comfort with the fundamentals. After that, the more complicated math made more sense to her and she could move on. It's a great program, with enough badges and accomplishments and bells and whistles to encourage a kid to keep plugging away.
This is something that frequently comes up with smart kids that you have a fantastic opportunity to address right now. Kids who are used to passing through school easily do not learn the connection between work and learning. If you have always understood the material on the first try "because you're smart," then when you run up against something you don't understand right away, it must be because you're just not good at it. Kids have to learn that sometimes it takes repetition and practice to build academic skills. That is often the hardest lesson for gifted kids to learn. That's why so many smart kids who breezed through high school flunk out of college. Suddenly, they have to work at learning, and they don't know how. You are lucky that your daughter ran into this in high school rather than in college, when she would be all on her own.
posted by Dojie at 5:52 AM on October 11, 2014 [6 favorites]
This is something that frequently comes up with smart kids that you have a fantastic opportunity to address right now. Kids who are used to passing through school easily do not learn the connection between work and learning. If you have always understood the material on the first try "because you're smart," then when you run up against something you don't understand right away, it must be because you're just not good at it. Kids have to learn that sometimes it takes repetition and practice to build academic skills. That is often the hardest lesson for gifted kids to learn. That's why so many smart kids who breezed through high school flunk out of college. Suddenly, they have to work at learning, and they don't know how. You are lucky that your daughter ran into this in high school rather than in college, when she would be all on her own.
posted by Dojie at 5:52 AM on October 11, 2014 [6 favorites]
Husbunny is a math genius, I, less so. BUT, I understand numbers and data. I was absolute shit at Algebra, I just could not wrap my head around it. Geometry...loved it, got it, still remember the proofs. I went to a small high school and had the exact same teacher for both subjects, for three years. So I was the variable in this situation.
My point is, Husbunny's brain was programmed to understand math and he loved it and learned it easily. My brain, not so much, BUT, there are certain concepts that my brain gets, and some that it doesn't.
Algebra isn't Trig, or Geometry or simple math. I kind of wish my parents cared about math, because knowing what I know now, I might have done better had they worked with me or got me a tutor. OTOH, I aced Stats, Econ and Finance in grad school and all I had to do was mature.
Take the pressure off. Get your daughter a tutor. It's okay if she doesn't ace the class, it's much more important that she learns the concepts. Tell her it's okay, that understanding is more important than a letter grade.
Math skills are incredibly under-rated, and I'm shocked because my mother's first job out of grad school was as a statistician and she STILL didn't think it was overly important that I get math.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:06 AM on October 11, 2014
My point is, Husbunny's brain was programmed to understand math and he loved it and learned it easily. My brain, not so much, BUT, there are certain concepts that my brain gets, and some that it doesn't.
Algebra isn't Trig, or Geometry or simple math. I kind of wish my parents cared about math, because knowing what I know now, I might have done better had they worked with me or got me a tutor. OTOH, I aced Stats, Econ and Finance in grad school and all I had to do was mature.
Take the pressure off. Get your daughter a tutor. It's okay if she doesn't ace the class, it's much more important that she learns the concepts. Tell her it's okay, that understanding is more important than a letter grade.
Math skills are incredibly under-rated, and I'm shocked because my mother's first job out of grad school was as a statistician and she STILL didn't think it was overly important that I get math.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:06 AM on October 11, 2014
You can take her to Kumon and get a tutor for her. That level of math just requires a lot of practice and practice builds skill and confidence.
posted by discopolo at 10:54 AM on October 11, 2014
posted by discopolo at 10:54 AM on October 11, 2014
My parents got me a tutor and I am very grateful for it. Once I was on top of the current topic, I felt less like an idiot for asking questions of the teacher about the subsequent. Before that, I was so at sea that a) I didn't even know what to ask & b) I'd look like a complete idiot.
posted by small_ruminant at 11:22 AM on October 11, 2014
posted by small_ruminant at 11:22 AM on October 11, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
As to how you can actually improve her results aside from this, I would strongly encourage seeking advice from the teacher first and then deciding how to proceed. You really need to know what her weakenesses are from someone who is specialising in assessing her and is providing future curriculum. Then, If you proceed with tutoring or extra resources, they are targeted. As a teacher I frequently see students ending up far more stressed and often falling further behind with tutoring/extra textbooks because this can just add work. The school is really well placed to determine how to help here.
Good luck with all this!
posted by jojobobo at 12:49 AM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]