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elfsOmaha and I took the girls to see Yamaraashi-chan's teacher last night at her school's open house. That was actually quite illuminating. We sat and listened to her describe the mathematics and literature requirements.
In a conversation Omaha and I had later with Yamaraashi-chan, we learned to our horror that Yamaraashi-chan had no idea that “blogging” and “essay writing” were, if not synonymous, at the very least related activities with some overlap, at least when I write something like this, this, or this. I mean, what does she think we're doing when we're hammering away at our blogs? Some of it's just chit-chat, some of it's self-promotion, but when Omaha posts a game review or I discuss the mechanics of writing, Omaha and I are engaging in one of the various forms of rhetorical discourse. She's in a house with two writers, and yet she doesn't come to us for writing help. There's a bookshelf full of Writers Digest books, mostly on fiction but at least three on essay writing, and she ignores it. We'll have to work on that.
But overall I like the teacher. Hate the math curriculum. Not because it's bad-- it's one of those modern ones, but it's survivable-- but because the textbook is so awful. I don't know what they were thinking when they chose that textbook. My biggest peeve with it is that there are no page numbers by design. Instead, each section has a “section number” with “subsection numbers,”and so on. A heirarchy of sections and subsections, as if you were laying out a FAQ or an RFC.
An experienced reader can turn to the back of a normal book, see that it's (for example) 320 pages long, and guesstimate reliably where page 189 might be. That's not possible with this book; the sections are not of uniform length and the mental mechanisms of reading are not adapted to the hunt-and-peck method of finding a book chapter. There's nothing wrong with much of what's taught in the book, but it violates an important lesson of the mechanics of literacy in a way that gives me a visceral reaction.
I spoke with the librarian, asked about whether or not the school had had any odd controversies about evolution. She assured me the school had not, at least so far. I have to wonder why a school with such a tiny library has so many bibles in the non-fiction section, though.
As we were walking from Yamaraashi-chan's classroom to the gymnasium, I passed a woman coming the other way, with her beer-bellied spouse and two children, probably seven and nine. There would have been nothing remarkable about her except that she wore an authentic white HUSTLER t-shirt, in the blocky “brown paper wrapper” original font. Yeah, that's a lovely message to send to your kids. At least she had the parenting skills to show up, if not common sense.
We went to the gym where both girls demonstrated that they could climb the rope up to the “safety mark,” and then I demonstrated that I could as well. It hurt like hell, especially after hitting 43 push-ups during my workout that morning, but I survived. The kids were impressed. The old man's not so old after all.
We went to our favorite Italian restaurant afterward, Verona's, and the kids ate pizza and were happy.
In a conversation Omaha and I had later with Yamaraashi-chan, we learned to our horror that Yamaraashi-chan had no idea that “blogging” and “essay writing” were, if not synonymous, at the very least related activities with some overlap, at least when I write something like this, this, or this. I mean, what does she think we're doing when we're hammering away at our blogs? Some of it's just chit-chat, some of it's self-promotion, but when Omaha posts a game review or I discuss the mechanics of writing, Omaha and I are engaging in one of the various forms of rhetorical discourse. She's in a house with two writers, and yet she doesn't come to us for writing help. There's a bookshelf full of Writers Digest books, mostly on fiction but at least three on essay writing, and she ignores it. We'll have to work on that.
But overall I like the teacher. Hate the math curriculum. Not because it's bad-- it's one of those modern ones, but it's survivable-- but because the textbook is so awful. I don't know what they were thinking when they chose that textbook. My biggest peeve with it is that there are no page numbers by design. Instead, each section has a “section number” with “subsection numbers,”and so on. A heirarchy of sections and subsections, as if you were laying out a FAQ or an RFC.
An experienced reader can turn to the back of a normal book, see that it's (for example) 320 pages long, and guesstimate reliably where page 189 might be. That's not possible with this book; the sections are not of uniform length and the mental mechanisms of reading are not adapted to the hunt-and-peck method of finding a book chapter. There's nothing wrong with much of what's taught in the book, but it violates an important lesson of the mechanics of literacy in a way that gives me a visceral reaction.
I spoke with the librarian, asked about whether or not the school had had any odd controversies about evolution. She assured me the school had not, at least so far. I have to wonder why a school with such a tiny library has so many bibles in the non-fiction section, though.
As we were walking from Yamaraashi-chan's classroom to the gymnasium, I passed a woman coming the other way, with her beer-bellied spouse and two children, probably seven and nine. There would have been nothing remarkable about her except that she wore an authentic white HUSTLER t-shirt, in the blocky “brown paper wrapper” original font. Yeah, that's a lovely message to send to your kids. At least she had the parenting skills to show up, if not common sense.
We went to the gym where both girls demonstrated that they could climb the rope up to the “safety mark,” and then I demonstrated that I could as well. It hurt like hell, especially after hitting 43 push-ups during my workout that morning, but I survived. The kids were impressed. The old man's not so old after all.
We went to our favorite Italian restaurant afterward, Verona's, and the kids ate pizza and were happy.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 06:01 pm (UTC)"Where do you get them?"
"From the teacher."
"Ok..where are they?"
"I missed that day."
That's one reason I pushed him a bit to get him into advanced math this year. His performance is markedly improved, with an A on his first midterm, and his attitude is MUCH better.
Not the obvious solution to a kid struggling in math -- push him into the advanced class -- but he has the support at home and it got him out of the pathetic crap that passes as math education today.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 06:52 pm (UTC)Still wondering how the hell the index is supposed to work in that math book, or if there is even an index.
Wrt bibles: it could be that they were donated. School libraries only have a certain amount of money to buy books each year. I remember having book buying drives where the library would get money for books depending on how much the parents bought for their own kids through a vendor.