We are the ones we have been waiting for
It matters what you do at home, but you already knew that.
What are teachers and professors doing/thinking?
I like browsing Reddit to see what teachers and professors post, highlight, and share.
Teachers hang out here (720k members):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/
Professors hang out here (120k members):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/
It’s Reddit, which means it’s not always a civil discussion, and it’s not always the good news that gets shared.
People like/need to vent, so most posts have a negative slant.
That said, after browsing for a while, you get used to it and start to figure out what’s working in certain areas of education and where the gripes are.
Occasionally, a post gets many ringing endorsements in the positive or negative direction.
Yesterday, that was the case.
The public needs to know the ugly truth: Students are SIGNIFICANTLY behind.
A teacher posted a post, which you can find here, titled, “The public needs to know the ugly truth. Students are SIGNIFICANTLY behind”.
Here’s their text (which has 5271 comments and 23 thousand upvotes):
There was a teacher who went viral on TikTok when he stated that his 12-13 year old students do not know their shapes. It's horrifying but it does not surprise me.
I teach high school. Age range 15-18 years old. I have seen students who can't do the following:
Read at grade level. Some come into my classroom at a 3rd/4th grade reading level. There are some students who cannot sound out words.
Write a complete sentence. They don't capitalize the first letter of the sentence or the I's. They also don't add punctuation. I have seen a student write one whole page essay without a period.
Spell simple words.
Add or subtract double-digits. For example, they can't solve 27-13 in their head. They also cannot do it on paper. They need a calculator.
Know their multiplication tables.
Round
Graph
Understand the concept of negative.
Understand percentages.
Solve one-step variable equations. For example, if I tell them "2x = 8. Solve for x," they can't solve it. They would subtract by 2 on both sides instead of dividing by 2.
Take notes.
Follow an example. They have a hard time transferring the patterns that they see in an example to a new problem.
No research skills. The phrases they use to google are too vague when they search for information. For example, if I ask them to research the 5 types of chemical reactions, they only type in "reactions" in Google. When I explain that Google cannot read minds and they have to be very specific with their wording, they just stare at me confused. But even if their search phrases are good, they do not click on the links. They just read the excerpt Google provided them. If the answer is not in the excerpts, they give up.
Just because they know how to use their phones does not mean they know how to use a computer. They are not familiar with common keyboard shortcuts. They also cannot type properly. Some students type using their index fingers.
These are just some things I can name at the top of my head. I'm sure there are a few that I missed here.
Now, as a teacher, I try my best to fill in the gaps. But I want the general public to understand that when the gap list is this big, it is nearly impossible to teach my curriculum efficiently. This is part of the reason why teachers are quitting in droves. You ask teachers to do the impossible and then vilify them for not achieving it. You cannot expect us to teach our curriculum efficiently when students are grade levels behind. Without a good foundation, students cannot learn more complex concepts. I thought this was common sense, but I guess it is not (based on admin's expectations and school policies).
I want to add that there are high-performing students out there. However, from my experience, the gap between the "gifted/honors" population and the "general" population has widened significantly. Either you have students that perform exceptionally well or you have students coming into class grade levels behind. There are rarely students who are in between.
Are other teachers in the same boat?
The comments are a litany of (mostly American) teachers agreeing and disagreeing with the original poster. Again, you can read the post and the comments here (I linked to the old version of Reddit as I find it easier to read).
Some blame the students, some blame the teachers, some blame COVID, some blame the school administration, some blame the lack of emotional regulation, some blame culture in general, some blame the political climate, some blame the Government, some blame laws like “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB), some blame social media, some blame charter schools, some blame public schools, some blame private schools, and some even say that it’s been like that for years, it’s just that nobody is paying attention.
It’s an interesting and frightening read, and outside of a few international teachers, generally, the feeling is that the gap is increasing between the students who are at the grade (or above)level and those who are falling behind.
How this affects math kids
What affects parents/guardians of math kids is that, by definition, math kids will be at or above grade level, given they like to do/think about math outside of school.
However, the teachers they have at school may be dealing with bringing the class up to grade level rather than engaging your math kid.
This is commendable as we want everyone to get the best education possible and receive all the help available.
But it does mean that by being a math kid, the math class won’t support them.
It matters what you do at home, but you already know that
“We are the ones we have been waiting for”.1
I am biased here as that’s been what I’ve heard from public and private school teachers when we started looking around schools and spoke with them about our math kids.
What you do at home matters.
Now more than ever.
That’s all for today :) For more Kids Who Love Math treats, check out our archives.
Stay Mathy!
All the best,
Sebastian Gutierrez
I first heard this phrase from U.S. President Obama, so I wanted to attribute it to him. Then I searched the internet for a bit to see where it came from and came across this post, which explores the provenance of it. https://peterlevine.ws/?p=6105