Silence

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So when a student shows up to class on day 1 with elementary level handwriting, can’t write a complete sentence, and can’t do any math without a calculator, that’s my fault personally? Their years of being pushed to the next grade level despite getting 0 questions right on the state tests, that’s my fault and I just need to “do better”?

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I think you might be in the demographic I’m referring to.

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Comment Deleted

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Look up whatever state you're in learning standards for a subject. Thats what teachers need to get through in a year. There isn't much time for reteaching.

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You think they’re the Virgin Mary who can fix every kid in the span of the year that they teach them? They’re supposed to teach something specific, not everything for the total of 13 years

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One of the classes I teach is Geometry. The year before Geometry, they take Algebra 1. Of my 90 Geometry students, only 17 passed the Algebra 1 state test. Am I meant to reteach the entirety of Algebra 1? When would they learn the standards for the class they’re actually in? This is years and years of academic failure. It is not possible for me to fix all of that in the 40 minutes I have them each day while also doing my actual job of teaching them geometry.

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Anonymous OP 1d

I have seniors in my upper level math class that have not passed a single state test since the 4th grade. Explain to me how I, a first year teacher, am supposed to fix that.

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Anonymous #1 1d

It’s especially tough with math because each year, they build off the stuff they learned in the previous year. So when they fail a math class and are moved on to the next one, it’s inevitable that they’ll fail that one too. The idea behind pushing people along even when they fail is to prevent destroying their motivation and keeping them from just dropping out because they’re too behind. I’m not sure what the proper solution is, but whatever we’re doing now is not working.

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