Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Airhead Math Teacher

I didn't feel well today.  Still, I managed to get up at 4:45 to start my exercise.  The only problem is yesterday I went before school to the church baseball diamond and caught while Jorja practiced pitching. Now my shoes have mud on them.  Some of the exercises felt weird without shoes, especially when I was on the treadmill.  I really should get new ones.  I have had these for several years and the traction is completely gone.

I had parent/teacher conference for Preston this morning.  He is doing fantastic.  I love hearing him talk in Chinese.  I love both of his teachers too.

I had parent/teacher conference for Jorja this afternoon.  I do not love all of her teachers.  Jorja has student led conferences, which are just a joke.  I hate them.  We go to their second period class and listen while they read us papers they fill out.  We don't get to talk to the teachers unless we make a special effort.  I always feel uncomfortable and like I'm bothering them.  The administration says that we are allowed to talk to the other teachers, but it doesn't feel like it.  Well, talking to Ms. Wu was fine.  She was totally nice.  Jorja's math teacher, not so much. Jorja has all As except for a D- in math.  A D MINUS!  It is annoying because there is only one quiz that is in the grade.  This quiz was taken the day after Jorja missed class for being sick.  She got 6 out of 9 on it. She retook the quiz, but it has never been changed.  I went up to the teacher and asked her about Jorja's grade.  I told her she had a D- and we needed to figure out how to fix that.  She said that I needed to lighten up and it was her fault for only having a few things in there to be graded.  (A few things?  Try one!)  I told her that seeing a D- on her grade was giving me anxiety.  She just looked at me like I was the biggest waste of time.  I don't know how to explain it.  I asked her if she had Jorja's make up quiz in there or if this grade was from the first time she took it.  She told me that she had the second one.  I said, "Really?  Jorja, is this the first quiz or the second one?"  Jorja with a slight panic in her eyes said it was the first.  Her teacher looked it up. She was quite annoyed with me at this point.  (The feeling was mutual.) She pulled up Jorja's grade and said, "Oh!  There is only one quiz on here.  How did that happen?"  Exactly.  She said, "Well, it looks like I'll be busy this weekend."  Jorja had this same math teacher last year.  She always complained that her teacher didn't teach them.  She would say things like, "I'm not sure how to do this, so we will learn it together." Also, they don't have math books.  Only worksheets.  I try to help her but I would like to look at a few examples so I don't teach her wrong.  I have had Stockton work with her the last few days.  Hopefully he can keep her from falling behind.  I'm not worried about her falling behind in this class, I'm worried that she will have learned nothing in two years and not be able to handle math in high school.

Jorja had a softball friend come over today.  They played in the batting cage for quite awhile and seemed to have a great time.

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