Maths teachers, what is this called ?

[fastweb]

I've flicked ahead in son's maths textbook to see whats coming up next to aviod being caught on the hop.(again)

What would you call this in English ? (it's a quick video, cos I don't know how to upload pics)

A literal translation suggests "absolute rational numbers", but when I googled that it didn't look the same at all.

freemathdictionary.com/aa/absolute-rational-number/

actuallynthat mineral has a volume of 50cm cubed, not 5.

If I can't even remeber how many zeros are in the sodding thing I'll never find the answer.

"How much would 120kg person wieght on the moon? "

I have just asked my Y13 A-level students an almost identical question! I assume you were given the rate of acceleration due to gravity on the moon? 1.62?
weight = mass x gravity so 120 x 1.62 = 194.4N

Newtons is a measurement of force, so how much force the astronaut will be exerting on the ground just by standing there.

Density = mass / volume

So density of mineral = 160g / 50cm3 = 3.2 grams per cm3

1 m3 = 1,000,000cm3 (1 million)

(think a cube of sides 1m long will have volume 1m3. Converting to cm it has sides 100cm long so volume = 100x100x100 = 1,000,000cm3)

so 1m^3 of the mineral would have mass 3.2 x 1,000,000 = 3,200,000g = 3200kg

Sorry, just saw that you did the astronaut one! You should enter for A-level maths while you're doing the further maths set theory exam!

The internet school sounds really positive. 68% is reasonable, especially given their intake, and let's face it, would be far better than what his current school would get him.

Can't believe you did 11 hours of homework with him. I bet the other kids in his year are just not bothering, especially if they set work for tests that never materialise.

Density = mass / volume

So density of mineral = 160g / 50cm3 = 3.2 grams per cm3

1 m3 = 1,000,000cm3 (1 million)

(think a cube of sides 1m long will have volume 1m3. Converting to cm it has sides 100cm long so volume = 100x100x100 = 1,000,000cm3)

so 1m^3 of the mineral would have mass 3.2 x 1,000,000 = 3,200,000g = 3200kg

-

No, am not doing A level maths with specialist area in set theory and endurance fractions, cos my head just exploded.

How do you DO that?

I think maths type people have special brains.

The moon one was definatly the mass thingie ma bob, not wieght, cos ...gravity. Mass. Gravity. Apples. Well that's (sort of) what the text book said. And the moon exerts one sixth of the gravity, so I just divided by six. Which I am now wondering ...was that a massive over simplyfication if it is an A level sort of question.

Why are they doing this to me? What do they hope to achieve by pushing so hard and fast vertically instead of going for a nice solid horizontal approach ?

11 hours of homework...but we didn't finish it all.

I do think lots of kids are banking on not being tested, but so far the only tests that have been done, my son has been called up for.

S'like some kind of psycological warfare, study for three huge tests over the weekend and each night till Wed, and then we may...or may not.... test you...do you dare risk it?

oh and by the way we will have you spend your entire weekend studying for tests that may or may not happen, so your mum won't have time to go over what you learned in Italian, and that we will test you on, with no warning, Monday morning.

Oh and by the way, write a myth, by wednesday, whilst studying for huge tests hanging over family like Damacles' sword.

do not wish to write a myth.

Am TIRED.

I though 68% sounded good too, all things considered. And they were so nice. Really seemed prepared to work with me (and my slight helicopter tendenecies), happy to start him in a lower group with a view to letting him float up a year group (and feel confident as a result) rather than sink like a stone.

In a perfect world it wouldn't be my first choice, cos a nice solid state school is probably the best match for him. But all things considred as a compromise between a rock and hard place, I think it is not just the only choice, but the most positive one.

I just have to get through this year without either him or me having a nervous breakdown.

I make take up voodoo dolls as a hobby. For stress relief.

Right, it is now eight o'clock ish, so time to make the history homework stop finished or not, feed child and give him a break before bed at nine.

Poor little sod, must feel like a hamster stuck in a wheel.

Still, only eight and half more months to go.

And no labour at the end.

Silver lining.

Not sure what answer you got for the astronaut, did you just divide 120 by 6? 120kg is his mass. He would still have a mass of 120kg on the moon. His weight on Earth would be 120 x 10 = 1200 Newtons (assuming you've been given 10 for gravity rather than the more accurate 9.8?).

So his weight on the moon would be 1200 / 6 = 200 Newtons. (Which is about the same as my more accurate 194).

Weight is a force which is measured in Newtons and depends on gravity and is different from mass which is the same wherever you measure it. When you say 'I weigh 60kg' you actually mean 'I have a mass of 60kg'.

FYI compound measures such as density are a level 7 topic, which is the sort of work presented to a bright Y8.

Or to put it another way, C grade GCSE.

It did say weight, I think I got confused becuase the bit in the book that mentioned newtons was talking about mass v weight.

I got 194 N as the answer..

which I think is what you are saying, but am now having a crisis of confidence, cos that was the easiest question, the rest were full of dm amd hm, which I loathe.

He started studying km hm dam m dm cm mm and the same for volume and wieght (mass?) in third year elementary, and we still trip up over the damn things, zeros flying in all directions till we end up with a decimal point spagetti junction.

Or to put it another way, C grade GCSE.

And he is an average student at the start of year seven with a mother who failed her maths o level.

No wonder we are having trouble.

Still, are least I can't complain that my brain never gets a workout.

Ah yes, your method is correct - I thought you meant you'd only divided by 6, but you'd also multiplied by 9.8.

What are hm, dam, dm? I thought we used an international system of units!

The mind boggles as to what your DS would be presented with in Y8-11 if the curriculum continues in this accelerated fashion (no differentiation? The poor lower ability kids, they must be left behind already).

Yay! I got one right!!!

Hm, dam, cg, dal, are all metric measures, it's just as school here, from 3rd year elementary, you have to learn all the ones that nobody (outside certain specialised fields) uses.

So Uk teaches km, m, cm, mm

and over here they teach all the ones between the ones above, like dm, which is either decimetro, or decametro, one or the other, so its either 10 meters, or ten cms, can't remeber which way round.

Now now they are making me cube the damn things middle of a conversion and formula problem, so you can why I don't like them much.

oh found pic of all of the meter ones

weights

volume

will print them and stick on fridge so I can stop fannying around trying to remember the order.

Oh good grief. I've got a masters in maths and physics A-level and I've never even seen those extra ones. More pointless time-wasting!

I remember learning all of them - in some ways, it's actually quite nice to know that there is a name for them all, as you can draw a nice table and show how many zeroes you have to move in either direction. You do tend to come across them more often on the continent though, but even my bottle of Buxton water next to me right now is measured in cl, and I sometimes find bottles in dl as well.

But with all the other stuff that you are struggling with at the moment, i can see why you don't need all this added on top!!

It has taken me two years off contant reteach, refresh, revise, repractise, recycle in other contexts...complete with tables amd a moveable decimal point decorated as Bart Simpson just to get the three full on tables in place with much work on relating it to place value and x or/ by ten.

But when faced with a question that say if a dm cube of air is the equivilant of 1l of air (or something like that, maths book at school) how many litres of air is in a room 105 m cubed...Bart just doesn't cut it anymore.

I have reached my cielimg.

In the list of pronlems that included how much a man wieght on the moon in newtons half the questions contains forumla regarding density/newtons etc as well as gymnatics of unit conversion.

And now I have to write a myth.

A fucking myth.

While he paints a picture of the seabed with no other instuctuons inclided. Which means we won't paint what she wants cos we can't read her mind.

Is it really bad that I sort of hope he catches a cold bad enough to keep him home for a two weeks ? so I can have a break from doing his homework with him, or even for him, cos there are times when I simpy don't have the time or energy to teach rather than do it and let him copy the answers.

I am in my jammies, the house is a mess, my lesson for this evning unplanned, mumsnet awash with posts from me, cos I'm in full on procrastination mode at this point.

All fingers crossed for todays test in set theory and tomorrows huge test in History please.

When you say your son has been called up for the tests that have been done, does that mean that they are oral and the other kids get off scott free??

I can't help but think that if things continue at this pace you are both going to burn out.

Yes, that is exactly what happens. One kid at a time, oral test, not all the kids get tested, you never know who will get tested, grades highly subjective, no offical record of who was asked what and no need to prepare anything to standadise/judtify the quesrions or grades awarded.

And we have, tonight, burnt out.

We are all too tired and fed up to deal with MORE homework, that rarely gets checked and prepping for test that keep getting postponed. DS is cooking a cold and looks miserable to boot.

So DH and I have decided that from now to June maths and Italian take priority, anything else that is

1. reasonable
2. might teach him something
3. looks like it could be fun if jazzed up a bit
4. does not require us to cancel family/kid social life full stop due to sheer time required

will be done, maths and Italian homework load permitting.

and the school can like that or lump that.

We are now arguing about discussing the contents of excuse notes that we will have to get good at writing for his diary.

And I've registered DS with Inter High this evening, will be sending a payment to hold his place for 2012 next week.

If I could yank him out right now, I would. I've told him that as long as I have full co operation with what homework we do do and I can see he is making a serious effort, he is not to worry about grades at all.

The only grade that I insist he is to keep at 8 or above is behavior, but he has never had less than a 9 so I can't see him seeing a proffered inch homework wise and trying to take a mile and suddenly starting to be a pest in the classroom.

I have also been deeply mencing about this being a one school year deal only, and in the new school homework will be done unless limbs are hanging off, and I will be talking to his teacher who will be fully available to me, to see if his grades reflect his ability and demonstrate real effort.

That at least should knock on the head any future inclinations to see homework as optional.

It's all so counter intuative, teach your kid to aviod doing all his homework and colloaborate by writing excuse notes for him.

Jo Frost would have my guts for garters.

Fastweb - from this thread i would say you have made the absolute right decision.

I do wonder what the heck the other kids do though, esp if they aren't particularly academic.

No wonder the tests keep getting postponed/cancelled - they're bloody useless. You can't compare the kids with each other because they don't all take it. The kids can't learn from it because their questions and answers aren't recorded. It sounds like they're just there to try to scare the kids into learning the work. I fully agree with your decision to bin any pointless looking homework. For excuse notes I'd just write 'ran out of time'. If they're that slack about tests, I expect they're just as slack about chasing up missing homeworks.

At least there's a light at the end of the tunnel for next year.

I think I've had an ephiniy.

Was up last night with a feverish child (who is off school-yipee!) and realised the Status quo in the school looks just like the tax system.

The gov raised taxes to the point of being burden as their first solution to every issue. So the people looked for ways to cut down on paying tax by going under the table for the small stuff. In response the gov created new taxes and higher taxes. So the people got more creative at avioding tax, and paid less than they has originally. So the gov created a flotilla of new taxes, higher taxes, backdoor taxes, sneaky taxes. And the people became the world leaders in tax aviodance.

There are two economies here, one offical, one black, I suspect the latter is thw greater of the two.

Ten to one that is what is happening at school. The new NC curriculum raised the bar, as did the new state exams. The first choice to combat objective, standardised prog. and tests was to increae the volme of work made the learners sole responibility. So kids found ways round it. And so on and so on until you get me, who is adverse to aversion techniques trying to get it all done, while everybody else just carries on as per normal.

I've found references to 30% of kids failing the year at scuola media, not sure if that is every year, or they must pass them through each year, and then fail them at the end of the three year cycle.

Also found a letter to the min of ed from an infuriated mother of one of 11 kids failed in first year middle school in one school. If that is as big as my sons school that would be about 10% of the cohort (and does ot include the statmented kids who have specialized exams).

I know in my son's class there is a 14 year old who has never got past first year and in the class he goes to sit in for when his class has the religion hour there is a 13 yo, two 14 yos and a 15 yo.

My son best friend does not do homework, I've had to lay down the law in their "study group" becuase I discovered that the homework claimed to have been done was more a case of guess the answer or read one paragraph and assume that isthe same as reading all 5 pages required.DS does some homework post great big threatening session, while his (honestly, lovely, bright, great family) friend pretends to write something, but is actually laying out his next Pokemon stratagies.

I can't work out if his other friends are some sort of wunderkind, who can dash off a myth in five minutes, ten pages of set theory in 7, memorise 11 pages of history in 3, do a huge technical drawing thing in 4, copy reams of musical score in 6 and write a ruddy huge list ofmcountires in differnt time zone in 5. OR they aren't dping the homeowrk and patents are xhosing to assume they only got about half an hours wotht that could be fitted in just before bed.

Cos they are all out and about in youth club, going to their sports clubs, shopping sat morning, mass sunday morning, youth club again sat and sun afternoons, passesgiata in the piazza both weekend evenings.....

I have wo dered if my son is basically thick, and In my mummy love I just didn't want to see it, or I did amlousy job for two years HE.

But his ex school tested him, his ex teachers wrote the test, examined him, marked it and I have two certificates declaring him to be "equivilant", and less formal letters fro the teachers using words like excellent, lode and very good.

Oh well, if you can't beat 'em, jion 'em. But only fpr this year, I don't want his edication to be centered around aversion and aviodence techniques.

He is an average student, he is not cream, he will not fulfill his potential If I rely on him just rising naturally above the roadblocks his education has turned into.

DH was cream, he is really bright, and rose above the school system no problem, but I'm just average and unfortunaly the intelligence gene DS got from me.

Those are the children Italy fails, the average and below average students who leave school well below their potential becuase they were allowed to spiral into a decade long state of falling behind, cos the pitch and volume was far too high and far too much, far too soon.

IMO.

epiphany, even

Please immagine I have done the same for all typos and spelling cock ups.

Really must get proper keyboard and word processor for my my son's ipad.

An ipad I might point out we agreed to get him for his next ten xmas and birthday presents cause it would be so useful for HE. And then after I ordered it the little bugger decided he wanted to go back to school.

Ditto all the books I bought in preperation.

I actually think online school fees will work out cheaper than what we have ended up spending on his education this year....so far.

Especially if you count the petrol for the four trips a day to the school.

4 trips a day to school???

I think you're spot on about the tax comparison. The other kids have grown up with the black market and know how to play the system. You turn up and diligently pay all your taxes because that's what you expect to do and end up floundering, because dodging taxes is written into the system.

What does your son think about Inter High?

It's four trips cos one round trip to take him (and then DH come home, cos we both work from home) and one round trip to pick him up and come home again.

We live 4k from the school, and it's just not walkable cos in the winter its dark with no streetlamps for 3/4 of the trip and once we are on the (very narrow) main road there are no pavements, so you end up hurling yourself in a ditch to escape the people who think they are battling for the formula one championship

He seems less interested in Inter High than he seems interested in escaping from Italian school.

he'll have a try out of the online school this weekend or next with the head, so maybe that will get him thinking of the alternative as a choice in its own right rather than an escape route.

He is dead chuffed I have let him have a (heavily supervised) facebook account against all my better'judgement so he can practice text based communication. I'll set him up with some supervised "chat" once he has got the hang of something less instantanous.

I still think he'll use the mic more than the text communcator section. But at least then it is a real choice rather than evidence of a skill gap.

When I think of all the angst I wasted on weaning and dummies....wouldn't have bothered had I known how much complicated it gets when they are bigger.

Please tell me it doesn't get that much harder as they continue to grow, I think I've reach my limits in stress managment.

Stroppy teenagers can't be worse than this can it?

(lie to me if needs be)

Right, back to the myth, we have nicked one a kid wrote on the myth site, and are reworking it, jazzing it with further detail, doing a chech list that all required myth elements are in it and rewritting it in Italian.

He is a bit poorly still so slow going, but we'll get there by tonight, including writting it all out by hand.

If nobody looks at it the temptation to go and slap somebody around the head with it....will be resisted at all cost.

It's actually a nice homework, very creative and allows him to really think about how the turn of phrase being chosen can take a story from OK to v.interesting, just too time consuming when buried under all the rest of the homework.

Teenage boys are delightful. Especially when they hit about 14 years old. Y9 at school is just a joy to teach. Honest.

My DS is only 2. I'm thinking this is the hard bit. Right?

It's good to hear that your DS isn't too enamoured with school either, so at least you won't have a fight on your hands at 'taking him away from his mates' again.

2-3 is indeed the hard bit, at least it was for me. Mine turned into spiderman with a deathwish around that time. I felt like I needed eyes studded all over me and more arms than a fleet of octopi.

I think I'm in mourning for the 4-11(?) "golden years" Where it all suddenly got so so so much easier, a lot more common sense with increased bidability, independance with cuddles, sleeping better, open to being more reasonable about things, 2 way communication with full sentences rather than howls of outrage. Far less deathwish.

If I put him in the freezer can I cause some kind of reverse back to ten and keep him "golden age" forever. Then microwave him to adulthood in ten seconds flat when the time comes?

He has cried more this week than he has in the last three years, all over homework and how much/hard it is, so he's not that heartbroken about leaving school. I've given him free range with the IKEA catalogue to design a bedroom that will be a total kid magnet so on the two days when he doesn't have youth club he can make his place the best choice for a "my gang" hang out which has left him well chuffed, although I need to remind him of the "budget" word in my original offer of letting him take the lead in planning the new room. I moved his bed into our room last night so we can start plasticing up his room ready to paint it a more "grown up" colour this weekend (while ignoring piles of homework) in readyness to eliminate all traces of "little kid" for his new "teen in waiting" pad. So he is all excited about something concrete happening rather than it just being all plans.

I'm really not sold on dark blue as a room colour though, think it is going to look as inviting as a a hideout in Batmans knickers.

He sat down with me to plan a rough timetable for next year to fit in Italian, Italian His&Geo, Music and Art (some of which I have to find tutors for, who want to barter for English lessons) around all the other subjects and is very chuffed that all academic schoolwork, including homework can be contained in five days a week, 9-3.

He has come to the conclusion that whatever the downside of not being at school with his mates, the disadvantages of being in class with them just aren't worth it.

Then only thing he is disappointed about is losing gym, he loves the pole, it's like a firemans pole they have to shin up, and he can get to 3m, which apparently is very impressive.

I just wish they'd use the bloody safety harness the thing comes with, or at least put something on the floor to cushion any falls. It's like his 2yo self's spiderman phase has reasserted itself.

I'll hunt down the association in town that promotes athlectics, pretty sure they do a session on sat mornings that looks much like school PE class. That'll have to do as a sub.

Roll on June 8th. I cannot wait.

I have lots of regret at prioritising his wants and direct request over my internal qualms though, right back when he brought up going back to school. I think he is struggling with the knowledge that he chose the going back and so it all going wrong is down to him, IYSWIM, he is taking far more responisbility for the fall out than I am comfortable with.

Think I seriously misjudged the "right balance between child's growing need for autonomy and parental life exeperience" thing back this summer when a return to school was first floated.

Oh well he'll be 14 before I know it and all will be easy again, right