Today my niece got her first tutoring session with my husband. My husband is good at math and my niece is struggling in her 4th grade level math so he agreed to tutor her. I hang out to help where I can. Today was just a day of assessing where my niece was at and where we should start.
She is learning multiplication and doing badly at it. Apparently last year her teacher was fired (showed up to school under the influence of alcohol). Because they didn't have a permanent teacher the rest of the school year the kids never learned their times tables very well. A lot of the kids in my niece's grade are struggling because there was no remedial work. They just started doing math at the level they were suppose to be at if they had been taught correctly the year before. Without the previous years knowledge though the kids are basically behind.
Where Are The Textbooks?
Apparently at this school kids don't have textbooks. They have workbooks they keep at school but they don't get textbooks to keep and take home! I would be so angry as a parent if my kid didn't have a textbook. They are given a series of worksheets and that is what they can take home to their parents. The worksheets, as far as I can tell, really have no directions or examples to look at if the kids need help.
Textbooks have a table of contents, a dictionary full of math terms in the back, and tables like times tables in the back kids can use as references. I'm looking through my old books and things to see if I have an elementary math book from the 90s when I was a kid. If I can't find one maybe ebay would have one. She needs a textbook. One from the good old days before they ruined math by implementing common core standards.
WTF Is Common Core Math?!!
The biggest pet peeve I have is this new common core math. The reason I'm not tutoring my niece is because the common core rules are ridiculous and screw me up. I'm not super great with math but I can add and subtract. The common core rules have you jumping through hoops to do something simple like addition. From what I understand my brother has to talk to the teacher regularly because he doesn't understand the common core math at times and he majored in finance and math in college.
Never Learned Tables
My niece was never given a nice table with all her multiplication tables on them. Both my husband and I had to memorize all the multiplication tables. That's how you learn to multiply. Memorization and use of the numbers. My niece wasn't taught to do that. She never was given a table to look at or taught really how to multiply. Having a teacher who didn't do her job was never taken into account when she moved to the next grade. Why isn't their new teacher teaching them the big chunk of knowledge their former teacher got fired and never taught them?
Homeschooling Is Looking Better and Better
I really am disappointed in how our local elementary school is teaching kids. No textbooks they can take home! An alcoholic teacher who didn't teach the kids and got fired! Being forced to follow new common core rules which are over-complicated with ridiculous steps to do a simple math problem! When my daughter is older and ready for elementary school I could teach her better myself. I feel bad for my niece who is struggling and my husband tutoring her is all we can do to help the situation.
I hear it a lot in this area how parents are unhappy with our school systems. Quite a few people I went to high school with are homeschooling their kids. I vaguely remember Tennessee being ranked # 43 out of 50 states in terms of education. Low rates of people getting high school diplomas. Low rates of going to college. We are an incredibly low ranking state in terms of the quality of education.
I want my daughter to succeed in school and I want her to go to a school where she'll receive all the tools she needs to do well. She's not going to a school with no textbooks. She not going to a school where I have to help her struggle to pass because her teachers aren't doing a good enough job. I'll keep her home and teach her myself.