Math Frustration

I am so glad to hear that you are trying to teach to understanding. Obviously you want to avoid confusing these kids any more. Is there any way you can assign them different work, say learning measurements for example, to take to the Title 1 teacher? The English measurement system is mong enough to keep them occupied and requires a bunch of rote memorization that this kind of fool excels at.

How long has the Title 1 Math teacher been teaching? I always found this kind comment helpful when in disagreement with another teacher-

Smiling warmly say, “My experience has been remarkably different. I’ve found teaching multiplying decimals to need longer than a few days. It’s interesting that our experiences have been so different but in any case, as there’s always times for what’s important, I’ll continue to work on it with them. I think building a solid foundation for multiplying decimals is one of the skills that’s important and worth some time.”

What can he/she say to that?

The issue of teaching two different ways to do things is a big one. From what book/source is the Title 1 teacher using as an instructional guide? As this person doesn’t sound flexible, maybe it’s worth some time to check out his/her methods and try to incorporate them into your instruction when you can.

Or who’s the math coordinator? Go to someone and ask their quiet advice on this issue as you clearly recognize differing methods is not in the students’ best interest.

Good luck.

This teacher has retired and now has returned to teach Title I part-time. The teacher was in the regular classroom years ago, and did teach Title I full-time for a few years.

We do not have a math coordinator.

I should have added too that in addition to teaching the kids a different method than the way I do, shortcuts are shown them. They then come back from class and have no idea what they are doing and why. It is not uncommom for them to come back and ask about a kind of problem and I have to reteach it.

Thank you for your words of encouragement.

Is anyone out there listening, I’m in a sticky situation and I stumbbled onto this wedsite by chance. I’m 31 years and I have never been able to process numbers. Any kind of numbers. I’ve just enrolled into an electronics course, I understand the basics of electronics, I just don’t know how everything works. That brings me to the subject at hand. I’t my first day of class, the instructor wanted everyone to solve problems on the board and there was no way in hell that I was going through that again. I’ve heard enough, “she’s stupid”, or “oh my God this is so easy, your just dumb.” I just sat in the bathroom for three hours, two of which I spent crying. The numbers just don’t stick. I can’t really tell you the difference between 2/3 and 3/8, of what to do or how to process multiplication tables. I have a calculator, but the process of getting to an answer from the beginning of an equation is beyond me. I’ve tried flash cards, tables, graphs, pie’s, drawing circles, and nothing gets those numbers to stick. Can you help? :cry: :oops: :evil:

underdog — you need to go to a good tutor and go back and start at the point where you first got confused. That’s the big problem — everybody is doing the hurry, hurry, got to do this work right now, and since you didn;t get step one, steps two through ten went over your head.

Sitting in the bathroom crying isn’t going to get you there.

In most courses, the advice would be to go and talk to the instructor. However, since measurements and numbers are so basic to electronics and science in general, the instructor can’t really make any meaningful accommodations — it would be like trying to teach reading without the alphabet. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to the instructor *after* you go to get help, but remember if he insists on using the alphabet of his subject he is NOT being rigid and mean to you.

Most schools and colleges have help centers and tutoring programs. Go and see what you can get. You may get a nice undergraduate with no experience who just got through the course himself — well, give him a try because he may be bursting with the desire to help and share (I’ve seen it happen) — don’t write anyone off at sight because they’re young or just starting out. But if the first tutor or two just goes through the same motions that have failed before, go to the head of the tutoring service and explain you have a long-standing math disability and need serious help on basic skills. Often professors volunteer time to help. You can also try the math department and private tutors on bulletin boards.

It might be a good idea to delay taking the electronics class until you have a better control over the prerequisite math skills. It would be best to talk things over first with a good tutor and then the electronics instructor to help you make a reasoned decision.

The other thing, underdog, is that you may need to rethink the whole idea of electronics. This doesn’t sound like a great field for someone with fairly severe math disabilities. I don’t know who advised you, but you might go to the counseling dept as well and see if you could get some better career counseling. Since you are young you are in a good position to try and find a career that matches your unique gifts.

—des

I agree with what you’ve been told — but don’t assume you have a severe disability “just” because you can’t do math. With a *good* teacher you’d still have a chance of building up from wherever you left off.
A pathetic number of people don’t know the difference between 2/3 and 3/8. For some of them it’s a real disability; for most of them it’s lack of learning it right the first time and/or practicing it.
I work in the “developmental studies” unit at a community college in Illinois and see people daily in Math 094 and 095 and 098 who have great gaping holes in their math backgrounds (and fractions are the most common issue, tho’ there are usually other ones, too). They have to learn that subtraction really isn’t as simple as “take away” — but they *can* and *do* learn it. We’ve got some options for self-paced courses here, too — tho’ that takes commitment and time management and motivation.
And the first thing I try to impress folks who are helping (we usually end up with a veritable support group of Fellow STrugglers) is that saying “Don’t worry this is EASY!” really does end up sending the message “This is so easy, you must be DUMB!” So… if you hear that from somebody, try to reframe it so you hear “This seems hard at first — but you’ll get it, and then it will seem easy.” Think about it — most things you learn are hard at first.

Just a clarification. I don’t mean to imply by what I said that you shouldn’t get someone to work on your math skills, or that you are just
really a mess without these skills. I think maybe you are in the wrong field though. I suppose IF you spent the time with a competent tutor maybe you could be ok in these electronics classes, but I think that a lot of kids get into the wrong field based on some ideas they get about it that may not be appropriate. I certainly don’t think you are stupid!

I was in industrial design, even though I have terrible 3-d skills and poor motor coordination. I was good at anything requiring drawing, but once I got to the three d stage I was totally lost. Someone would have done me a very big favor in terms of my time and money had they suggested that maybe this was not a good field for me and given me sound reasons why not.

In any kind of vocation field, you have to put what your strengths and weaknesses are and see if they match the field in question.

—des

Des gives good advice about analyzing your strengths and weaknesses.

Nonetheless, numeracy is a very good thing in almost any career, so go get that tutoring and work on it; the more you know, the more you can do and the easier it gets.

Another point: beware of guidance counsellors. They often are not math people themselves — they went into counselling because they wanted to be in a people field, not technical — and they often have very unrealistic ideas of what is needed to learn in math and technical classes.
I once taught a summer class in which for some unknown reason the college was not using its placement tests, required in all other terms. It became clear that fourteen out of the twenty-one students (exactly two-thirds) were totally unprepared and out of their depth. The day before the official last drop date I gave back an exam and seriously said, in writing, to all students with grades below 40% that they should drop the class, right now. They all got up and left, and with a sigh of relief I went to teaching those that were prepared. Alas, the next day, all the unprepared students reappeared; the guidance counsellor had given kind but totally inappropriate advice to “try harder”. How can you “try harder” when you have no idea what you are supposed to try? Two months later I had to hand out fourteen F’s to exactly those same students, a waste.
So if you get a nice person giving you vague advice to just study harder and try more and raise your hand more often, don’t listen! You want somebody who knows the A-B-C of the subject and will start back on A with you.

Sometimes it’s the math teachers who don’t get it … it wasn’t that bad, but the teacher just kept saying, “You’re so close to passing! Don’t drop it, keep on trying!” Well, she’ was almost passing on brute memory… and because the real comprehension wasn’t there the anxiety of the test meant she used the wrong steps in the wrong situations the more important a good grade was. Surprise, she *couldn’t* do “just a little better than hyou’ve ever done before” on the final, and the teacher did *not* (for which I gotta give him credit - would have been so easy to) let her slide and give her the extra point or two and pass her.
She’s doing a whole lot better on the retake, and here, if you retake a course the old grade vanishes. (Granted, this means that the “risk” of finishing the course was lower, but she takes a full load, and could sorely have used the time and just a tad less stress!!!) And I’m happy to say that — judging from other students — it seems the teacher is a little more reflective and a little less sure that students should just “try a little harder.”
Math is much more cumulative than other subjects. You can “straighten out” in a lot of humanities courses; the D because yhou didn’t proofread this paper doesn’t mean you can’t get an A+ on the next one. (OTOH, if you don’t *know* the grammar and spelling…) Sometimes a student’s grades are truly lower than their true comprehension — but a whole lot less often than people often assume.

Underdog, I understand your situation very well. I actually flunked a class in Intermediate Algebra in part because we were made to take quizzes on the quick. Like, right after a lecture on something that I tried to prepare for at home and could not take notes terribly well on; we would have to take a quiz on the quick; like speed math! That is enough to make you cry, man so I feel you. I cried really well after my final for that class, all five foot ten of me in a little bathroom stall crying. But sometimes crying steels your resolve, for after I stopped crying, I signed up to take the darned class over online so I can sit and take my precious time and all.

I am 30 years old and there are some things with numbers I do on a calculator and will always do on a calculator because I have dealt with the fact that I will never know how to do something like negative9+6 in long hand. After almost a dozen years (I have a really big gap from high school from community college to university; like the Grand Canyon this gap is). I am really sure that is something I will never understand, you know? I think a good calculator could help you if your instructor says it is alright. I assume that electronics is something where you have to be exact, so just speak with your professor about what sort of calculator you are allowed to use; those are very nice tools that I do not think should shame a person to use.

The biggest thing I am curious about after reading over your post, is if you ever got l.d. testing. Your post reads as though you should get some ld testing done. I do not know really know a fraction from a fractal from a fig newton either, there is no shame in that. You just really need to get some l.d. testing done to find out what you have the academic ability to do. I do not know anything about electronics, but I think that you really need to sit your instructor down and speak with him or her and also look into a good texas instruments calculator that jives with elctronics.

underdog

Is anyone out there listening, I’m in a sticky situation and I stumbbled onto this wedsite by chance. I’m 31 years and I have never been able to process numbers. Any kind of numbers. I’ve just enrolled into an electronics course, I understand the basics of electronics, I just don’t know how everything works. That brings me to the subject at hand. I’t my first day of class, the instructor wanted everyone to solve problems on the board and there was no way in hell that I was going through that again. I’ve heard enough, “she’s stupid”, or “oh my God this is so easy, your just dumb.” I just sat in the bathroom for three hours, two of which I spent crying. The numbers just don’t stick. I can’t really tell you the difference between 2/3 and 3/8, of what to do or how to process multiplication tables. I have a calculator, but the process of getting to an answer from the beginning of an equation is beyond me. I’ve tried flash cards, tables, graphs, pie’s, drawing circles, and nothing gets those numbers to stick. Can you help?
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Underdog

i’d like to share my experiences with my daughter who was diagnosed outside the school system at age 5 years with a Math-only Learning Disability. She scored in the 90th percentile on reading and comprehension but only in the 10th percentile on spatial concepts. This testing was incredibly valuable because it helped us understand what was missing and what we needed to do to compensate. Even though the school system consistently refused to provide a Math-only IEP (Individualized Education Plan) until 7th grade I was able to use manipulatives and also persuade her teachers to use manipulatives to teach basic concepts like counting, adding and subtraction. This was the key because my daughter cannot visualize any type of calculation. We switched to a calculator when we got to division, multiplication, and multi-digit adding and subtraction. My daughter was very luckily paired up with a very talented and empathetic Math teacher (Masters in Math) in the 7th and 8th grades. This teacher helped my daughter see that she could solve math problems by writing out the steps on scrap paper (right brain function) and then use the written steps as a guide and reference when solving problems during tests. She received extra time during tests, could use a calculator and could also ask certain questions. I have seen my daughter go from severely depressed to happy and confident thanks to this alternative method of teaching. So do not be discouraged. There are people out there who understand what Math Disability (dyscalculia) is and know how to help. For more information go to www.dyscalculia.org. There is also a great book written by Samantha Abeel (13 years old) about how she dealt with her math disability
- http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0439339049/ref=ase_dyslexiadyscalcuA/103-1376290-9531059?v=glance&s=books. Good luck.

sandawana your child sounds just like me! seriously, my reading and comprehension and writing scores are off the charts and have been off the charts since grade four, but my math scores for the l.d. testing are the polar opposite. I mean, we might be cousins somehow, I tell you!

You are very fortunate that your child had a good teacher for thsoe important grade seven and eight years, I hear that is when algebra is traditionally taught; so you are very lucky. you gave very good advice to underdog. I am doing something similar to what your child is allowed with an online class that has open book tests, I am only going to write enough down so that I do not get way messed up on the linear thinking front.

One thing I do wonder about is if underdog found a way to get testing. I hope so. I also wonder if underdog is going to post again because all of us ladies with straight up non verbal l.d. have a mad wicked calibar of advice to share!

On IQ tests in high school, I ranked in what they call high bright normal and tested in the advanced range on everything else except mathwhere I flat lined. I successfully masked my problems until the third grade by relying solely on memory—I was so-o-o embarassed to not “get this.” I nearly flunked Algebra II in high school. I couldn’t even begin to add and subtract numbers with more than 2 digits at that point. What I was told by the educational system was that, because I am a girl, I would not, and could not, be good at math. NO ONE–NO ONE thought that I might have a disability, or a problem or merit special attention, like a tutor. I find that odd considering that my English teacher kept insisting that I had adult help writing my essays—I agreed with her, even though it wasn’t the truth, because I did not want the special attention of a teacher. I had learned not to trust the teaching profession. I knew that I wasn’t stupid and realized, even at that young age, that there had to be a reason that I couldn’t “get” it—it wasn’t logical that I would excel at everything else but fail so miserably at one particular discipline. I am not neither saying these things to brag nor to down the teaching profession—what I want other readers to come away with here is that educators-for one reason or another, often are blinded by the what is going on for any one of several reasons.

In college, I decided to take a basic math course and finally face down my demons. Guess what I discovered??? That I could teach myself far better than anyone could teach me. It turns out, having done considerable reading, that I am a whole to parts learner. This is not the way that I was taught. Math is rules and practice—I need to know where it is going and its purpose in order to have a framework to hang the rules and procedures on. Learning styles vary greatly. My daughter is a parts to whole learner who will probably never understand the whole because she has problems with concepts—a nonverbal learning disability.

Since graduating from high school, I have taken accounting, business math, algebra and calculus, computer programming where you had to come up with the math to solve the problem, and geometry. I have excelled at them all. Math may never be my strong subject but I think that, with effort, it can be learned. My point here is that , when it comes to education—t isn’t over until it is over. Just because your kid struggles in math, as my nonverbal learning disability daughter does, doesn’t mean that they are a lost cause or that they will never learn it. High school math is not rocket science—encourage them not to be so easily intimidated by it. There is no substitute for putting forth effort and it is going to be frustrating and you may not be great at it—but the alternative of giving up is going to bring NO chance of success. Parents need to help their children put it into perspective which will keep it from trashing a kid’s self-esteem. It is one subject—NOT their entire existence! This is what I have learned from my own experience and it has helped me to help my daughter.