It may surprise you to know that I’m a bit a of a control freak. Because of this fact, and because I don’t want anyone messing with Little Yoda’s fragile psyche, I volunteer frequently at his school. And by frequently, I mean all the time. Now, you may be thinking that I’m projecting–that this is more about my own fragile psyche than Little Yoda’s. To that I say: that’s a blog post for another day. Today is about something bigger than that.
Today is about first grade math.
It has become my weekly task to correct everyone’s math homework. And because there is no answer key, every week it’s the same. I mark the same answer wrong on six or seven papers before it finally dawns on me that maybe the wrong answer is the one in my head. I flip to Carol’s homework because she’s the daughter of an oceanographer and an aeronautical engineer and she is likely right. Here it becomes clear. I’ve messed up another story problem.*
When the teacher later inspects my work and sees all my comments in red marker (Please disregard! OK! Oops!), my response is always the same, “Haven’t had my coffee yet!” Ha ha. I don’t even drink coffee; it makes me mentally ill. What I’m really thinking is: These story problems are a crock.
Let’s take Billy, for instance. He buys a package of 10 balloons. He blows up 7. How many balloons does he have now? Easy. 10. 7 of which are inflated. So why did everyone write 3? Apparently, in the neurotypical world an inflated balloon is no longer a balloon. What is it now, I want to know? What do you people call an inflated balloon?
Similarly, Bobby has 12 ice cubes. He puts 2 in a glass of lemonade. How many does he have now? 12. He has 12. Not 10. He does NOT HAVE 10. Bobby has 12 fucking ice cubes, 2 of which are in his glass of lemonade and 10 of which are…hey! Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t even know where the other 10 went. Maybe they’re gone. How should I know? There’s not enough information here.
And so it goes. Every week I mark story problem answers wrong, every week they end up right. Every week I say I need the cup of coffee that will never be. Every week Little Yoda is stuck at a B average in math because I helped him with his homework–stuck like I was all the way through school, feeling like everybody else was reading from a script I never got, feeling like….oh wait…this post isn’t about my fragile psyche.
*The story problem issue has haunted me all my life, but I didn’t realize it was an Aspie trait until I stumbled upon AspergerSadie’s blog http://ihaveaspergers.webs.com/. Thanks for the insight, AspergerSadie!
Ok, you have now both informed and greatly entertained me so I think you just might be my newest blog crush!
The other ten ice cubes when into the mother’s drink lol
LOL! Blended into her margarita…
LOL!!!! YES. Exactly. You got it! Thanks for the mention and the link!
You’re welcome!
Oh, Kirsten! I’ve read your blog pretty thoroughly today and I see that you have had a difficult year–but you still have your sense of humor. Good for you! I’m glad you survived and I’m glad you came out wiser and healthier.
To answer your question, I’m great. Or at least hanging in there. Although I’m a little afraid to leave a comment on your bog after I read the grammar post.
Thanks for stopping by, Dayner! It’s great to “see” you! It has been a rough year but I’m much better now. And I think your grammar is fantastic.
Is that an Aspie trait or a contrarian trait? Because as far as I know I don’t have the former condition, but there’s a piece of me that would have to push back against an unthinking convention.
Great to see you back, K. You were missed.
Hi Tart! That’s nice of you to stop by. I can always count on you for a little pushing back against an unthinking convention
I missed the blog world and am happy to be back!
I was working with an enchanting little girl the other day… The question was:
“A dog had 10 bones…
He buried them all…
How many bones does he have left?”
She responded, “Is the dog dead?? He only has 10 bones and they are buried…”
I love this kid!!
I love that story, Leah! Thanks for sharing it.
I feel lucky to have found your blog. It’s given me some really great insight. Thanks.
Thank you, Jay Train. I really enjoy your blog, too. It helps so much to have people who understand in your life! Thank goodness for the internet.
So I had the SAME experience with Math. Obviously if two apples are put in the pie there are still two apples…in the pie. I could NEVER explain why it did not make any sense until I read your comment on that other Aspie blog! I am going to share that with my parents. They hired a tutor for me in grade 12 ( so long ago*sigh*) And I barely passed “dummy” math. My tutor cracked up so many times at my responses and half way through the year he said, “Ok never mind. You are not going to get these concepts. You are obviously very intelligent but math as in this math is not your forte. Let’s just get you a fifty percent and my suggestion is that you carry a calculator around the rest of your life.” Sounded great to me. It worked. I passed with a 52:)
Anyway, your son is lucky to have you. You will give him a different perspective:) In home schooling my children are doing a computer math program called Teaching Textbooks and I am learning things I never knew. I am also finding grade one Singapore Math is teaching my children in a way I was never taught and my aspie son LOVES his math because of it:)
I love it that you’re homeschooling! I go back and forth on that decision all the time. Right now my son likes school, but I can’t help but feel homeschooling will be a better fit in the future. I’ve toured our district homeschool and LOVE it. I hope you post about your homeschooling experiences!
As a teacher, I think they sound like badly written story problems (which isn’t to say I’ve never fallen into the same trap, but I like to think that most of mine would be clearer – like, “Jenny had five pencils and she lost two, how many does she have left?”)! I think you should write an explanation for YOUR answers and attach it to the homework! Maybe the teacher will be a little more careful to be unambiguous for the literal-types!
Yes – clearer story problems would be appreciated! Fortunately, the teacher is very understanding and usually laughs at them with me. Unfortunately, the problems are in the text book.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
I just found your blog and it is fantastic. I particularly liked this post… when I was in 7th grade, I was bored to tears in the highest math class my school could put me in. But I was also flailing because of my teacher’s propensity to assign “story problems”. I couldn’t deal with them. I don’t *care* when the two trains traveling in different directions in Siberia are going to collide. They’re on different tracks, they’re not GOING to collide. I ended up figuring them out, but seriously, they drove me insane. That story ended badly, unfortunately, with my mother pulling me out of the class because the teacher suggested I had a learning disability that should be diagnosed (don’t get me started on my mother), and landed me in the other teacher’s advanced math class, where I spent the next year learning 4 years worth of mathematics on my own and teaching my peers how to plot linear equations when they got stuck. Moral of the story? STORY PROBLEMS ARE AWFUL AND SHOULD NOT BE USED TO TEACH ALL MATHEMATICAL CONCEPTS!!!!! And certainly, failure to understand the story problem shouldn’t be written off as bad at math. (case in point: I got a bachelors degree in science in 2.5 years, took an extra year+ of math beyond the requirement, and am a science PhD student now)
Anyhow, thanks for sharing the story.
I love this comment! “I don’t *care* when the two trains traveling in different directions in Siberia are going to collide. They’re on different tracks, they’re not GOING to collide” – I am seriously cracking up about this.
Your story sounds so interesting – I look forward to learning more about it on your blog.
Thanks
I hope you enjoy my blog. There’s not that much of it, but it does make a good read if you start at the beginning.
p.s. When I was in 4th grade, as a way to keep my mind functioning, my teacher had me correct the math homeworks from the 5th grade class (taught by her husband) across the hall after school… I definitely had lots of fun with those. Of course, that teacher wrote good questions, and he always made me write my own answer key that he would check before I started grading. The best part was doing the answer key and the grading all within the 30 minutes it took to wait for the bus.
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I laughed through this entire post and then laughed again when I read it out loud to my husband, who joined me in laughing. I HATED story problems, actually I should use the present tense, but thankfully no one poses them to me now that I’m over 50! I would inwardly groan upon seeing a story problem and half way through couldn’t remember the first part, would then have to reread the first part over again, but by the time I got to the end, the first part no longer seemed relevant. I love E’s comment that she didn’t care. I couldn’t make sense of them enough to know whether I cared.
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