Math made harder. What to do?

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This year I entered high school, worried about a math teacher that by so many accounts is "weird." Apon reaching her class I find she isn't so bad but infact is a quite compatent teacher.

Now though a new "student teacher" has entered into our midst. She is by all discription the worst math teacher I have ever had the missfortune of being taught by. Now understand I hold nothing against her as a person, but she can't teach.

My delema is I don't know how to handle it, do I grin and bear as is my nature, or should I try to talk to her and give her some ideas? Maybe even talk with my real teacher, who seems so oblivious to mine and the suffering of others in my class?

 

Does she bite? If not then tell her. For starters I like to get input from the younger students. And I don't bite either.

 

To be completely brutal to myself, I am by nature a coward, I don't know how too tell her. I do not wish to offend or hurt her feelings. Plus, i'm not sure what to tell her what she needs to do. I can't just walk up to her and say "hey your teaching methods suck, work on it."

What do I tell her and how?

 

Well I don't assume there is any way of hiding it... I usually try and figure out or talk directly to the younger students to see if there is anything they dislike or wants changed.

If your "student teacher" is reluctant to do so, the initiative is sadly yours. Anyway I am sure she is eager to learn and even improve. Just ask her if she doesn't want any feedback? good and bad. Or just bad in your case. Nothing wrong with a little cowardice though. Then just ask another student to do so. Or ask your real teacher if she would like feedback on the "Student teacher project". Someone on the school must be interested in feedback? Of course telling your "student teacher" directly would seem best in my opinion.

Just don't spoil your education by sitting by.

[This message has been edited by ArchAngel (edited April 11, 2002).]

 

Thanks I appreciate it, I think I already knew what I needed to do I just wanted someone to justify me. I think the best thing to do is to talk to her streight out.

Now in her defense I am not trying to say she is totally incompatant as a teacher. I don't think I would come out and just tell her, her problems, that would be abbrasive, so I will probably tell her her strong suits first. Then give her constructive critisisum so I don't just sound like i'm just B.S.ing

Again thanks for the advice, it is much appretiated.

 

wow ... the name of this topic really threw me for a loop

 

Is she hot at least?

 

No she looks like a duck.

 

I can really sympathize with you, Horborg. My health teacher is incredibly incompetent, although she does have a little bit of teaching skill. But she arrives ten minutes late after the bell rings, has absolutely no control over the students, is way too lax on homework and quizzes, and basically lets all the idiotically over-social students get rowdy and destroy order. Simply to say, I cannot stand Period 1. I can only thank my stars that health is only for my freshman year.

And the people I sit next, *sigh*. . .

[This message has been edited by C'Jakob (edited April 11, 2002).]

 

My advice:

Endure. In enduring, grow strong.

You'll be a better person for it!

 

Well, what really is stupid, is that when you go to university/college to learn to teach, they give you exams and stuff but they should really start testing your ability to teach kids. I have a student teacher as well, and it sucks because for my french, all my work are 2s. Nothing else, no matter how lousy I try or how hard I try. She is really a bad teacher. Well, you should tell her, otherwise she will never learn. It's like have a "kick me" sign on your back and you don't know it.

 

And what if you ask if you can be placed in an other class, with your former teacher? Wouldnt that be possible? At least, that's what i did with my lessons in Anatomy...

 

In college they do teach you how to teach kids. That's why they're called student teachers.

 

I've experienced some quite difficult teaching since coming to university. I've had two lecturers who seem to forget just how little first year students actually know. Both rattle through material really quickly, with explanation which is either too brief, or too complicated to be much use to students such as myself. One gives out a photocopied handout, puts the same notes up on an overhead, then basically reads the notes aloud. I found that really difficult to pay attention to. Hopefully this situation will improve when (if) I make it to the later years when the stuff I'm learning is less "trivial".

 

Ok first to answer Master of Nuhn's question. No the problem is that the student teacher is in the class that my real teacher teaches, "gaining real life classroom experience," she is not an actual teacher but a Student Teacher[/b. So she is suppposed to be being wached over by my real teacher (I think). Ironically all my real teacher dose is sit at the back of the room at her desk and plays solitair, obliviouse that everyone is strugling.

C'Jakob almost every teacher in my junior high was like that. That's why I am so glad to be in high school. I pitty you, I would rather have a teacher like my student teacher than like the one you've got.

 

Hey man, I know how you feel. Last semester I had the worst teacher I could possibly imagine. I was in the hardest possible math class in my grade (grade 11, university [Ontario, Canada]) and he just rambled on and on about something only 1 person in the class understood (mostly conics and other stuff you need a good teacher for) and my teacher made ALL the tests, quizzes and assignments for her. The rest of us in the class (25 or so students) basically got screwed. Unfortunately no one had the heart or the guts to ask the teacher to change, so we suffered for the semester and I finished with a cruddy mark (69%). Don't do what I did, ask the teacher or the student teacher to change, or at the worst, change classes.

 

Well unfortunatly since i'm in a very small school, changeing classes isn't an option, so I will talk to her. Oh and I do belive in teaching to the higher denomanator, but if nobody gets it but her that just sucks.

 

Something else very disturbing that I found out last week. . .

My health teacher, the incompetent one, is sponsor of the PFLAG community in our school - Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

*shudder*

But I'm not homophobic, in case I've offended anyone. (sorry!)

 

Horborg and C'Jakob how I sympathize. I too have an incompetent student teacher and health teacher. On a math test I took recently, I did not miss the answer to a single question, but because I did not show my work in it "entirety", I recieved a D on the test. What does she think I happended to guess all the correct answers? What a bugger that I am still stuck with her more who knows how many more weeks.

 

As a to be teacher I must say you really should talk to her. I was out practicing in the field last fall and I enjoyed it immensely, I think I did pretty well considering that I am not done by a long shot. I appreciated all the feedback I could get from the students, good and bad preferable bad believe it or not. As a student teacher you are very unsure and should try to have a dialogue both with your pupils and their teacher. Nothinh is worse than doing bad and not even knowing it. I think she is very keen on improving even though she is a matematician and thus evil by default