Any Understanding

After a few years of tutoring I feel myself being pulled into some type of immediate need for answers. Students these days seem to be taught to just get the answer and move on. I am referring to math in particular. As long as they can get the answer, then it may not necessarily matter how or why.
Why are we teaching our children this? In the real world, when you are presenting a new product you need to to know about the product, how it was made, how it works, and why it is the best product. In math we are teaching students that nothing matters as long as they get the answer. Teachers are probably not purposefully doing this, but it is happening. What is it that makes students care about an answer and not the process? Do we rush them through material and never actually allow them time to absorb it? Do we not actually explain it in terms that they can understand? Do we only care about the end of course test? Are we just trying to adhere to the required standards?
Teachers should try to stop and access their students knowledge throughout a unit. Not by traditional methods because that shows the same students succeeding and "understanding" that most teachers will already know about. What are the administrators and policy makers doing to encourage this attitude about the process?
Is it not more important for students to know the process? They may actually use it and can apply it in their everyday lives. For example, I have two students that I am tutoring who are working with percents, fractions, and decimals. They can solve when I ask them 50% of a number. However, when I ask for a percent that is not quite as easy, they are not able to solve. They can make a guess, but it might not be very accurate. It is because they do not understand the process for solving. The process should be applicable for any percent, not just the ones I can simply solve in my head. What happens if I want to know 6.5% for sales tax or something? Then what?
We must stress understanding! It is better for a student to understand a few processes rather than to see several types of problems throughout the year. Those who have a considerable amount of understanding will be fine on the E.O.C. rather than those who have forgotten the tricks or particular problems for solving.

Repetitiveness

Well, it seems that everything we are having to do here at the end of the semester I have already had to do in some form or another.
Unit plan = more evaluative and detailed than all the other lesson plans
Pedagogical Rationale of my unit = isn't that the rationale included in the unit plan
Technology Assignments for LiveText = very similar to the ones we did this summer
I guess that all of these assignments are just reflecting how truly bureaucratic the school systems have become. I realize the need for me to evaluate myself.
Not much of a holiday to come back to mounds of work. I would recommend for the professors and next year's MAT students to assign/complete projects earlier. In one of my classes, the class has managed to push almost every deadline back, but we are just shooting ourselves in the foot in that everything is pilling up nowon our heads.
We need to be working too hard right now to get everything done. Somehow we will all survive.

Overwhelmed

Well, it seems that I don't have enough time these days to wonder about students and schooling. There is just too much going on. I have tried to get things done early, but I am still overwhelmed. I just don't know how everyone else is doing it.
I can't wait until Christmas first because I love the season and the reason for it. Secondly, I will be so thankful when Christmas is here because that will mean I would have finished all of these assignments and meeting every standard. UGH!
Can't we just go to our schools. Some things seem so irrelevant. I have forgotten how to use LiveText too! Why do I need that again? So that the university can become accredited?

The Bigger Picture

So, why do students not care? Well I think that a lot of it has to do with the family. It depends on what you value in your life. Those who are not taught to care about education probably won't care about education. Not only do parents have a huge impact on students, but their friends do as well. If their friends haven't been taught to value education then they probably won't care either.
What about the kids that are taught to value education? There are some who don't value it even though they have been taught. I think that these students typically still succeed because their parents are willing to go to the efforts for them like calling teachers, discussions with administrators, paying money, doing some of their work, etc.
These are also problems that the teacher can create as well. Some classrooms are very boring and students have no interest. Some teachers fail in relating it to the real world and kids never seen the purpose or reason for having to learn certain things. I also think that some teachers are very lenient and continue to give their students breaks on everything that eventually the students realize they can get away with almost anything.
Because our society values education so much, why are our children not wanting to excell in education? I think that we have taught some students that no matter what they do they can't excell which limits all of their possibilities. Some children are not taught the bigger picture and that it will help them in the long run. Why can't students see the bigger picture? Their educational career has much to do with their success in this world.
My question is why do we value education in general? I think that some schools and departments are failing at teaching students anything about the subject matter. Usually they just want to shuffle students through and do not take the time to help students learn the material. We know that some schools are actually teaching while others are a waste of time. So we do we value any education? I guess we are assuming that the schools are doing their jobs in educating children.

Valuing Education

I am trying to figure out why students do not seem to care about thier own education. I was brought up in a house that pushed education. My momma is a teacher, my grandfather on one side was a teacher, and my grandma on the other side was a teacher. I have been taught that education is essential. I guess that is why my momma pushed that we attended private schools. She also pushed that I attend a well known college. She also pushed me getting my master's before getting married to my boyfriend of over 5 years now. Why such a push for education?
I have figured out that our society values education very highly. So, here I am with all of this schooling over 20 years of schooling counting Montessori that we each ( my two brothers and me)attended as well. What has it gotten me? Well, I think that I have definately figured out the school game by now. It seems that I didn't learn much in college with this liberal arts education. It was more about bringing things to the forefront and making them an issue. Describing these issues and being able to talk about them. I didn't have the luxury to enroll in courses that I was interested in because I had to meet all of my other requirements as well as keep a high GPA, so that I could get into graduate school.
So, after all of this (hopefully in June) when I am finished, where has it gotten me? I will have a bachelors in mathematics and a masters in education. I have been taught that all of this schooling would help me make it into the real world. However, I want to be a teacher which means that I won't ever make much money, even with a masters degree. Couldn't I just have done lateral entry and saved myself time and money? I am beginning to think that it is because I want to do the best that I can and reach as high as I can, rather than cut myself short. I think that much of it comes back to what my family has valued. My momma agreed with me this weekend that much of a student's attitude about schooling has to do with the home atmosphere.

Actual Learning?

Do students just play the school game? It seems that many students are just trying to make it through. They are not concerned whether they grow and learn new material. They just want to make it to the next step (this could be anything from the next grade, to their job, to college).
After observing a classroom, last week I became very discouraged. It didn't seem that we were actually teaching the students anything. They wanted a quick or short cut way to complete the problem so that they get it right on the test. The teacher had already pushed the test back a day because they had whined and complained about not having enough time to prepare. About half of the class was working productively by actually working on the problems they had been asked to do. The other half of the class could care less about what was going on. They didn't care that they had been given another review day to help them prepare for the test. The were trying to disrupt the entire class or at least get the classes attention.
Why were they not trying to learn the material? Had they just been turned off to the subject? Were they embarassed that they did not understand? Or did they really just not care? The teacher asked me what I thought about the class period and I told him only about half were working on the assignement. He agreed. He mentioned that students are required to do more work at home with the block schedule in that they are not given days to grasp concepts like in regular scheduling. He tells me all of the time that there are many students that do not complete the homework consistently. What is going on with students? Or is it the teachers?

Writing Formally

I am wondering what the new reform ways for teaching English happen to be. I have always struggled with grammar, spelling, commas, writing, etc. I really like math and that is probably part of the reason. However, it seems to me that my English teachers just couldn't reach me. Somehow I received decent grads in English anyway. I of course had my momma (who is an English teacher) edit my papers all through school up until right before college.
I am tired and I think I am rambling, but I am just wondering how one can actually improve on their writing. Today, we can just get people to edit our papers for us and we are done with it.
Oh and another thing, why is English now called Language Arts. Why a need for a name change? Has the class changed so dramatically that it needed a new name?
I am starting to think that it is difficult to improve your own writing by simply writing. One key seems to be reading, which people tell me all the time. So, we don't need to practice writing to improve on our writing? We just need to read more, but I don't think that is true either. I could read the comics. Would that really help?