Algebra I and OCD

I’m not sure if this would be workable or not, but I have heard of a wonderful Alg. video series through homeschooling circles. I have heard parents say that they had never really understood Alg. until viewing these videos. I think you could use it as a tutor, but I have no idea about whether it would be compatible with the text she’d be using at school. But you can take a look anyway. The videos begin with pre-Alg and go through Alg 2, so you’d have to find out which ones you’d need. I woudl absolutely insist upon modifications if she take it at school, though. If she has a right to them, she should get them.

http://www.videotext.com/index.htm

Janis

Is she on meds for OCD?

Yep, has been for a couple of years. She functions with very few problems now, but this class just seemed to feed into her few remaining compulsions. The teacher was, shall we say, a bit rigid…If she assigned 30 problems, and you only did 29 of them, you got half credit. Every solution had to begin with a written statement of what you were trying to find, and what the known information was. You were expected to check every answer by working backward, and show your work for this. It would have taken me over an hour to complete one of her assignments the way she wanted it done (and I teach high school chemistry, so I’m pretty facile with basic algebra skills). All this just fed into her perfectionism and compulsions about lining numbers up just so, etc. Not a good experience!

Sounds like the teacher might be a bit OCD herself, or what I call OTT (“Over the top”).

…a lot of high school and the first couple years of college. “Show your work, do it my way, or else.” It wasn’t enough to ace the tests and not cause trouble in class.

Thank goodness grad school was better for the most part.

Have you considered shaking a verbal knot in one of these overbearing teachers?

John

The reality is that a teacher this rigid will never change, you can insist on accomodations all you like but I doubt that this individual would be capable of change. You need to keep your eye on the ball-college entrance for your child. sounds like you’d done a good job so don’t get stuck now. Find a flexible summer school teacher-get the credits and move on. You may find someone who is willing to do both Algebra I and II. This is where I would spend my time with the school-finding that person (probably a poorly paid teacher who needs the $$$) whose work the school will credit. fund it yourself if you have to but move on. I know plenty of people who arranged their academic careers around getting algebra out of the way and never going there again.

Must be tough being a teacher, knowing that a colleague’s approach is compounding a problem and being unable to do anything.
Good luck

What an interesting situation. Is the school willing to have her take her Alg.I outside of school? If they are, I think you have a great idea.

At my school, the school would be most comfortable with one of its own teachers. Do any of the teachers tutor? I know my school has allowed teachers to tutor a child in the summer and then award course credit for the work.

In the absence of that, there are likely area schools where Alg. I is offered as a summer course - both highschools and community colleges should offer it. My own school is a private school but we do offer Alg. I as a summer course and we allow any student from any school to enroll in it.

As to on-line, there might be a wealth of possibilities there. Check out Foothill College in California’s online site, believe it or not. They allow high school students to take their classes on line and they might offer Alg. I. Do a search under Alg. I and online classes with google and a wealth of information will likely come up.

Good luck.

Sure! She needs accommodations. She needs to do fewer problems, just enough to master the skill.

I have OCD and i’m somewhat familiar w/ social stories by Gray. Care to try this. Several times every day remind her that she has OCD and she doesn’t have to do her work perfectly. My OCD showed up in math this way: I had to copy problems from the board and i had to do it correctly so i checked each problem five times or so to make sure there were no mistakes.

Tell her, frequently, you don’t have to do it perfectly. That’s just your OCD talking. Make a mistake, it’s ok.

When i graded students’ work i graded each problem seperately. I didn’t use answer sheets because i was painfully aware the student might have copied the problem wrong and didn’t want to penalize her. I hope that helps. Maybe the teacher will grader her papers individually and that will take some pressure off of her.

Has she tried any meds for OCD? I was taking meds for years but finally the understanding of my OCD helped me to overcome it to a very large degree. A big dog helped a lot too.

I DO HOPE that helps. Our brains are just too sensitive for our own good. I hope she can understand that. I told Jazmin that and she overcame her fear of going down slides.
(-;

Gee, and I get incredible grief (up to and including having my contract not renewed at one college) because I require students to write out algebra steps and not hand in work on garbage paper.
There must be a happy medium somewhere.

I’m all for showing your work, don’t get me wrong! I require it of my chemistry students, even when they think I’m being mean. It’s just that this teacher was exceptionally rigid. For example, if I needed to solve for the speed of a train, it was not OK to write “x = speed of train (m/s)”. One must write, “Let x equal the speed of the train in meters per second.” Being so rigid and perfectionistic in the requirements just makes it seem really, REALLY important to a kid with OCD, and they overcomply. She put so much energy into making her papers perfect and complete that she could never finish a test in the time allotted, and I think she focused on the format more than the concepts. It would have been better if she could have relaxed a little!

I’d like to add that I believe that it would be more than fair to dispense with the requirement to ‘show the work’ once a student proves the ability to reliably solve a specific type of problem - on paper or in their head. Or simply let them move on to something more challenging instead of forcing them to wait for everyone else to catch up. I still don’t believe that school needs to be boring.

John

School doesn’t need to be boring, and algebra should have a lot of excitement of discovery in it — solving puzzles is fun!

But you seem to be totally missing my point. The answer is NOT the goal. Repeat, a “right” answer is USELESS. The answers are in the back of the book. If you photocopy them and hand them to me, should I give you an A? If not, why not?

There is a saying in university math faculties: Mathematics is not a spectator sport. You have to jump in and get your hands dirty and actually DO math.

Yes, once you have mastered a certain level, you are not required to show every basic step. In calculus you are not required to write out every single addition and subtraction in your basic algebra. In calculus 3 you are not required out to write out every step in the claculus 1 work. But really good students write out *more* than just OK students — the really good students have learned to edit and error-check for themselves, and you can’t do that if you don’t write things down.

Even though showing work is very important, how can a teacher accomodate a child who is spending hours obsessively showing work in minute detail, to the point that she cannot do any other homework (no time!) and she is still failing tests? IN a case like this, there must be some way to help the student first get things into perspective, and secondly pass the class! Continuing to insist on the excruciating detail in this circumstance is counterproductive to both the student’s well being and the student’s learning. Absolving the student from showing any work is not the answer, since it would be equally counterproductive, but…what accomodations will best accomplish the goal of helping her learn Algebra adequately? Since math is a great source of anxiety for her, she may never be an “excellent” math student, despite the fact that testing prior to OCD onset shows she is gifted in this area. I just want her to pass enough math to graduate from high school and get into college! It means giving up a lot, I realize, but not being able to graduate (while she’s obsessively spending two or three hours every night writing out every step in her math homework) is giving up more.

No, I really am with you on that. I constantly preach a happy medium.

You might try to work *with* her OCD — write out a set of rules for what she must and must not do. Say, five to ten lines per equation, no more but no less. Must show algebra steps (adding the same thing to both sides, multiplying both sides, etc.) Do *not* show arithmetic in detail. For problems: Must write “Let ….” to define variables. Must write “Given: …” and “To find: …” and at the end, *one* sentence for answer. Do *not* copy entire problem, only a *summary* of essential info under “Given”.
Try having her work in pen and cross out errors; no erasing and some limit on how many pages she can throw away.
I can’t think how she is spending so much time unless she is like many of my students who file all their work into the garbage and erase ten times more than they write, so if you stop that she should come to a more reasonable level.

I don’t disagree with you on the broader issues. I just had some stinkers for instructors.

I can still remember 10th grade geometry class. For the entire year we had to write the number of the ‘Rule’ at the end of each and every line. Snore.

I’m only saying that I had a number of teachers and professors who were maniacs for detail even after they saw that you knew what you were doing and were capable of doing the work ‘their way’. Some of them made us write it all out. Where is the individualized instruction so often talked about?

I had The Calculus in high school and was a physics major in undergrad school.

Does calling it The Calculus give away my age?

By the way, an incorrect answer is useless, too.

Best,

John

Try the landmark school site -publications area. their materials are very visual. There was a great algebra activity somewhere in mathforum that used manipulatives.

If you can find a teacher who is willing to teach with visuals then she can demonstrate her understanding in ways that won’t involve her OCD.

Try the landmark school site -publications area. their materials are very visual. There was a great algebra activity somewhere in mathforum that used manipulatives.

If you can find a teacher who is willing to teach with visuals then she can demonstrate her understanding in ways that won’t involve her OCD.