How can I work with a math teacher who is having trouble differentiating learning?

Question

My daughter is very bright, and particularly good at math. But, she gets bored easily — possibly some near ADHD traits, although generally not to the level where it causes any disruption. She's in seventh grade this year, and tells me that math class is the worst part of her day, which is sad and scary. STEM education research shows that girls often lose interest in math and science at this age, even when they excel at it.

Specifically, my daughter says that she understands the material presented in class immediately, but then the whole class is spent going over it, leaving her, as she describes it, "bored out of my mind". And evidence shows that she does get it — she's getting an A in this class and can easily do and discuss the material. (She even teaches it to her younger sister.)

I've spoken with the teacher a number of times over the year so far, and he seems receptive, but... it isn't really helping.

Initially, he said that he would "shift" the homework so that she'd be getting a more challenging problem set. (The materials are structured so for each section of the workbook, easier problems come first, and he usually assigns the first few questions as homework.)

After a month or so, though, this never actually happened — my daughter was coming home with the same problems, and still complaining. So, I talked to the teacher again. This time, he said "Oh, well, she's not doing any of the challenge problems, and that's how I really know if a student is advanced."

Challenge problems? Turns out that these are written on the board in the back of the class every week. They tend to be more like math puzzles than something which follows the curriculum (for example, one was the Knights of the Round Table Marriage Problem). Students may work on these if they're finished with in-class work — but there's no space to discuss them.

My daughter says "I'm not a mind-reader! How can I figure out how to do these things if we don't talk about them in class?" And, that point does seem to have some fairness. I encouraged her to try them anyway to help show the teacher that she can, and she has some, but... I'm sympathetic to her argument that doing brain-teasers doesn't do much to address the thing she's having a problem with.

What she really wants is for the regular curriculum to move at her pace. I know that's really hard when you've got a class of 20, but there's got to be something. Last week, I went back to the teacher again and we talked about the issue with the challenge problems, and I reminded him again that he hadn't actually done the "homework shifting" he'd first promised. So, the new thing is that he sends home a notecard with some extra, more advanced problems.

They're currently doing the very beginnings of algebra; the normal homework has them graphing equations like x = 3y and x = 5y - 5. The first notecard had problems 3x + 8y = 24. My daughter said "Dad, I don't know how to do this." I showed her how to isolate the x variable, and I could see a little nuclear lightbulb go off in her head.

The next day had y = x² and similar, and again, bam — "Dad! This isn't linear!" And last night, she was given some equations and told to find the "x and y intercept" — and to look up what that meant. I showed her on the graphs she'd drawn earlier ("Look, when x is zero, you intercept the y axis...") and again, she didn't need to be told twice.

So.... this is at least offering some challenge, but:

1. She's still bored in class,
2. She says "So, when we do get to this stuff, now I'm going to be even more bored! I'd rather just wait to learn it so I at least have something to think about."
3. If I'm doing all the teaching, what is she going to class for?

And thank goodness I can still dredge up memories of all this stuff — if I couldn't, I'm not sure she'd really do well being completely self-directed via Khan Academy. I mean, we could get a private tutor or something, but that's still extra work, not better work.

I'm kind of out of ideas. Do you have any helpful suggestions I could bring to the teacher? I could talk to the principal, but without some concrete idea for what I want, that just seems like getting the teacher in trouble, which isn't my goal.

Answer 1

I taught Spec Ed, so this isn't in my bag of tricks. If the teacher is willing to just have her sit in class, and IF she is getting all her work done, including assignments, perhaps she could be allowed to do other homework assignments, or read or draw quietly at her desk?

I don't know what country you are in. In many areas they teach to the lowest students (no child left behind) and that's horrible for anyone higher than the lowest. A good teacher would allow your child to participate when necessary but do other things when their work is completed if she is not disruptive.

Answer 2

Talk to the principal and see if your daughter can be moved to the next grade class in math. Make it clear that this request is not meant to be an insult to her current teacher, but to ensure that your daughter is being adequately challenged. That was the opportunity that was presented to me, and I am thankful that I had that opportunity.

Eventually she may run out of math classes in the last year of high school, at which point she could do self-study learning, or take more advanced classes at a community college, or use the free time to take an unrelated elective course.

Answer 3

You mentioned Khan Academy and that you think it might be hard for her to completely self-study from it, but I'd propose using it slightly differently. When I was teaching math, I'd let my students use it for homework problems instead of the assigned problems from the text book. It has the ability for teachers to see how quickly students are mastering materials and move them ahead if they've understanding it. So what I would do is say "complete questions until you're feeling comfortable with the material" instead of "finish odd problems 5-13 in the book". Then for overachieving students, I would encourage them to complete the more challenging problems/topics. They can jump around trying quizzes of content they haven't learned yet, and if they get stuck on something, they can go back and learn that material.

Thankfully, we had a Bring Your Own Device school, so it was easy for students to work on Khan Academy after the lecture. And if I knew they were already well ahead of the lecture I'd let them work through the lecture as well, and just draw their attention to really important stuff that I needed them to know.

Sadly, you have hit the nail on the head with your assessment of schooling. Schools aren't set up to help students in the extremes. As a teacher you can choose to teach to the average, sacrificing your high & low achievers, teach to the low achievers & bore most students, or isolate your teaching to the high achievers by teaching AP/advanced classes. Teachers simply don't have enough time/energy to create truly diverse lessons that will teach everybody at their skill level, so workarounds like Khan Academy are often the best they can do.

Answer 4

Well, one thing to keep in mind is that grades are important to teachers and to parents, not necessarily important to a child's life. Why do I say it? Because nobody ever asked me about my first ten years of school ever again when I had matured.

Grades are only relevant for certain educations. But in my country, only grades 11 and 12 count for that.

What's important is a neverending fun and desire for learning. Learning the good stuff. The stuff that matters to her life. Staying curious, communication, how to solve problems, how to set goals, how to decide on a purpose for one's life.

My brother once stopped doing homework because, well, he argued that he knew all the stuff (he could prove it) and that homework was only a means to achieve that. The teacher agreed.

Try to avoid the ADHD label though, because it's more of a symptom than a disease. There's usually a reason for brains to choose a certain behavior. Brains do not like data that feels irrelevant to one's life and schools are amazing at forcing to learn irrelevant stuff that will never be used again and has no impact.

Try to strike a deal with the school and prevent them fron making it the child's problem. Because they'll probably try that.

Even though boredom can be considered torture for young minds. In my opinion at least. You have the right and the obligation to protect your child from a careless school.

One course of action could be to build an emergency package for her. Stuff she can quietly train, read or practice in her head whenever she gets bored, as long as she can prove to know the stuff that is taught in class.

She could write her first novel while the other children practice stuff she doesn't need to practice. Help her to fill the gaps, ideally in a way that compounds to a worthy goal and get the teacher to ignore it.

Teachers are full of occupational hazards. They're used to being right, being the smartest person in the room and some chose their profession because of own problems in school.

Understand him a little, Ask him a lot, make him feel comfortable. Antagonize only if you must. Maybe you can get him by saying "isn't it important that my daughter keeps loving math? It'll be very bad if she feels punished for being a fast learner". Maybe flatter him a little. Because if she gets it immediately, he must explain it well. Try to align his values with your goals. Only kick his butt as a last resort.