Minor Gripes

I'm not a perfect teacher, but some of the things that bother other teachers really don't bother me.

Like if a kid does all the work, but doodles.

In Shane's case, there was one question unanswered. It took us all of a minute to say, "do it." I get that he should have finished, but I feel like there have been a couple of times his work has been done and there's been a "look at the doodles" remark.

With as hyper and social as Shane is, if the doodles prevent him from distracting others I'd consider them a positive replacement behavior.

Doesn't worry me. On to the next.

This next one is a partly a pet peeve of mine. Shane completed this homework in the car in under five minutes on the way to school. He let us know the morning of and we hadn't checked the night before. He did all the math in his head and I was proud.

However, the instructions said to rewrite each problem vertically.

I get that Shane didn't follow instructions. I have high school students who don't know what vertical and horizontal mean, but this worksheet is proof that teachers in my school system say those words.

I also get a lot of students who don't like math, feel like they're no good at it, and math problems as a series of "Gotcha!" moments. I feel like these types of worksheets help cause that.

Some edits:
1 - Replace the answer blank. There could be a question mark after the '=' sign instead. A student would have to write on top of it (a source of discussion) or they'd have to reread the directions if they recognized something was wrong (a source of self-correction). Shane filled in the blanks provided.

2 - Move the answer blank to the bottom. If #1 isn't enough or the teacher still wants a spot for an answer, move it vertically to the bottom (see what I did there?). Both of these are subtle but should make the kids who miss the directions think twice and hopefully correct themselves. Self-correction is awesome.

3 - Don't send the paper home with the direction circled and nothing else. Recognize what did go well. Put a sentence at the bottom, "Needs to read directions, but great job doing your hw and solving everything!"  Or pull the kid aside, let them see the directions. Show them. Let them feel that sinking feeling of "I made a mistake," and then proceed to tell them what they did right. Ask them to redo it if it's important or let it go from there. If it's not the first time this has happened, I can see more frustration. This was the first sheet I'd seen, though.

Mini-rant over.

I need to be careful not to be too critical. I'm a teacher, so on one hand I think I know a bit about teaching (especially math), but I've never taught at the elementary school level and I have never stepped foot in Shane's classroom. There could be some crazy kids (my son being one of them).

I know that Shane's abilities are probably part of the problem with him focusing and following directions in class. He did his math homework in his head in a few minutes. With his energy level, he's not going to sit quietly and wait patiently while he's done and bored (especially if the teacher gets on his case about drawing).