9 grade teacher needs some help

Steven G

Steven G

Elite Member
Joined
Dec 30, 2014
Messages
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My daughter is in 9th grade algebra and her teacher worked the following inequality in class as follows:
ax+bx>cd
(a+b)x >cd
x>cd/(a+b)
I asked the teacher if there was any addition information given with this problem (mainly to see if a+b>0) and was told no.
I then responded then in that case the problem can't be answered and if she saw why. She told me that I am wrong and that I should not question her ability to do math.

I funny thing is that I 100% do not question her ability to do math!

I get so upset when a teacher teaches their class incorrectly.
 
I would say this is unacceptable from a teacher. It's pretty bloody fundamental that multiplying/dividing by a negative flips the inequality.
 
Jomo said:
My daughter is in 9th grade algebra and her teacher worked the following inequality in class as follows:
ax+bx>cd
(a+b)x >cd
x>cd/(a+b)
I asked the teacher if there was any addition information given with this problem (mainly to see if a+b>0) and was told no.
I then responded then in that case the problem can't be answered and if she saw why. She told me that I am wrong and that I should not question her ability to do math.
I funny thing is that I 100% do not question her ability to do math!
I get so upset when a teacher teaches their class incorrectly.
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Join the effort to change secondary education certification requirements.
I began in the early 80's to push for mathematics education reform in our state.
I along with others pushed for reform that said: whatever else is required to be certified in secondary mathematics there must be the exact same list of courses as a undergraduate major in mathematics. Well it was adopted. Then the areas such a science education, English ed, Language ed, etc, all wanted to the same for their requirements. Who do you think were the most vehement opponents of that change? It was the universities' departments of education. The fact is, under those reforms the Ed depts would loose students. I retired before having to fight the good fight.
Here is an example: in the third grade my daughter took a mathematics test. On the test was a pie chart divided int eight equivalent sectors. The girl coloured every other sector. Her teacher marked it wrong, zero marks. I had to sign the test. I signed but wrote is large format: "sense when is four eights not one half? In this case that teacher was one of our graduate students in a required course for continuing education. But what a joke! Had the undergraduate education been done correctly to begin with all of the might have been avoided.
 
How do I join this fight? I complain all the time but I am also willing to help change things.
In all the years I taught, the business majors were the worst, then came the math ed major. They were so awful! And always started in Arithmetic of Algebra. How can someone who wants to teach math be so terrible at it that after high school they still need to take arithmetic!
 
I don't know about the US but in Australia a lot of teachers who teach primary and lower secondary years (Yr 7-10) are not adequately trained to teach mathematics. They may be science teachers, humanities teachers, anything-else teachers who are given a maths class or two to teach. Many of them don't want to, but a shortage of qualified maths teachers makes it necessary. Many of them try their best, but unfortunately this is not good enough for the students. As a qualified specialist maths teacher (with a primary degree having a double-major in maths, a post-grad diploma in education, and a second education degree (maths ed)), I always try to mentor teachers in schools who don't have adequate background and always make myself available to help. Qualified specialist maths teachers often want and are given senior classes where we have to sometimes "unteach" bad habits before we can get on to new material. It's a sad state of affairs.
 
Jomo said:
How do I join this fight? I complain all the time but I am also willing to help change things.
In all the years I taught, the business majors were the worst, then came the math ed major. They were so awful! And always started in Arithmetic of Algebra. How can someone who wants to teach math be so terrible at it that after high school they still need to take arithmetic!
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You can do what I do: run for scool board.

It's 6 am here, and the polls open at 7. I am off to work them in about 40 minutes.
 
Jomo said:
My daughter is in 9th grade algebra and her teacher worked the following inequality in class as follows:
ax+bx>cd
(a+b)x >cd
x>cd/(a+b)
I asked the teacher if there was any addition information given with this problem (mainly to see if a+b>0) and was told no.
I then responded then in that case the problem can't be answered and if she saw why. She told me that I am wrong and that I should not question her ability to do math.

I funny thing is that I 100% do not question her ability to do math!

I get so upset when a teacher teaches their class incorrectly.
Click to expand...
Could it be possible that the statement "a and b are positive integers" were included in the original problem?
 
Subhotosh Khan said:
Could it be possible that the statement "a and b are positive integers" were included in the original problem?
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I emailed the teacher and specifically ask if there was any additional information for this problem and was told no. Then I emailed her back saying that if that was the case then the problem could not be done.
 
Jomo said:
I emailed the teacher and specifically ask if there was any additional information for this problem and was told no. Then I emailed her back saying that if that was the case then the problem could not be done.
Click to expand...
The problem can be solved - but will have 3 answers for 3 conditions of (a+b)
 
Subhotosh Khan said:
The problem can be solved - but will have 3 answers for 3 conditions of (a+b)
Click to expand...
Yes, of course I know that. This reminds me of students who say \(\displaystyle \sqrt{25}\, is\, 5\) but write\(\displaystyle \sqrt{25}=\sqrt{5}\). I knew there were answers but I wrote that there were none. I'll be in the corner for \(\displaystyle \sqrt{5}\) minutes.
 
Jomo said:
Yes, of course I know that. This reminds me of students who say \(\displaystyle \sqrt{25}=5/, but/, write, \sqrt{25}=\sqrt{5}\). I knew there were answers but I wrote that there is none. I'll be in the corner for \(\displaystyle \sqrt{5}\) minutes.
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That is totally irrational response to a perfectly rational problem.
 
Jomo said:
Ok, you got me again. I'll be in the corner for \(\displaystyle \sqrt{6}\) minutes. Does that make you happy?
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Nope...... still "irrational". You'll need to choose 9 - to be rational about it!!

or you could choose 5.29 - to be "fractionally" rational about it!!
 
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