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Playing Dumb

wth was I thinking's picture

Submitted by wth was I thinking on Mon, 09/14/2015 - 10:16am

I recently decided that school work is one area where I will actively be engaged and help skids. Their mother is an idiot who can't keep up with 4th grade math (no joke, she can't even add in her head, forget fractions/algebra) and DH's idea of 'helping' involves lots of yelling, although he is working on that.

Anyway.

OSD needs the most help. She's never had someone who was really able to help her, so I know she is lacking a strong foundation, so she requires extra patience. What kills me though, is when she will give a completely absurd answer to something simple, like, 9/3=1. I'll ask her to double check what she just wrote, and more often than not, I get 'oh, it's wrong, I know teehee!' I'm afraid she's falling into that trap of playing the 'dumb girl' to impress boys, or whatever crooked reason women do that. How do I impress upon her the importance of NOT doing that? She's got a hard enough road ahead of her, without her intentionally screwing up to be 'funny'.

ETA; She is 11

Comments

BethAnne's picture

Submitted by BethAnne on Mon, 09/14/2015 - 11:00am

My SD's BM couldn't cope with 1st grade math....

With my SD she did this for a while last year, deliberately giving the wrong answer or just not trying to work out the answers. I did a little system of drawing stars or smiley faces on a piece of paper every time she got something correct the first time and then counted them all up at the end of the homework or section of questions and praised her lots. Not thinking about the question, giving the wrong answer or getting it wrong didn't get a smiley face/star. FYI there were no rewards for stars etc, just praise. She soon got out of the habit. I'm not sure if something like that would work with an older kid, but it might be worth a go (perhaps you can adapt it)?

I also have lots of conversations with her where I tell her how much I love math (which I do) and how trying to work out the answer to something helps our brains to grow, even if we get the answer wrong. When we asked her what she was looking forward to about going back to school she said it was math! Not sure how much I believe it, I think she just couldn't think of anything else to say...but I'll take it as a win anyway!

wth was I thinking's picture

Submitted by wth was I thinking on Mon, 09/14/2015 - 11:29am

Common core is kind of convoluted, and I may catch flak for this, but from what I've seen, I like it. It's a somewhat misguided attempt to teach the fundamental ideas of math, and to provide an understanding of it, not just to be able to regurgitate numbers. Poor implementation and untrained teachers made it a recipe for disaster.

Tuff Noogies's picture

Submitted by Tuff Noogies on Mon, 09/14/2015 - 11:39am

i love convolution. i could take a simple equation in 8th grade honors algebra and fill up two pages solving it just to have fun playing with the numbers. my teacher made it fun, but the other kids in the class HATED it - they'd say "just teach us ONE way so we can pass the test and move on, 14 different ways of solving is too confusing!!!!"

but even with my brain working in unusual ways, common core math just makes no sense to me, it seems like backwards thinking imho. i'm good w/ numbers, but i could not imagine a 10, 11, 12 yr old trying to learn things the c.c. way...

wth was I thinking's picture

Submitted by wth was I thinking on Mon, 09/14/2015 - 11:27am

Nope, not even CC, just basic, easy, simple math. That bitch can't do it, and apparently her excuse is that she can't speak English very well... Last I checked, they (Spanish) use the same numbers as us... :? Her 'checking' OSD homework just consists of making sure that something is written down, she can't actually check for accuracy. Those kids are so screwed. I had to have a long talk with DH about how yelling and slamming fists on the table is not an effective teaching tool.

WalkOnBy's picture

Submitted by WalkOnBy on Mon, 09/14/2015 - 11:59am

When my kids were in grade school, it was Chicago Math that made we parents go nuts!!

Thankfully, Common Core has only recently been adopted in Michigan, and only my skids have to deal with it. And, I am disengaged, sooooo.... }:)

Tuff Noogies's picture

Submitted by Tuff Noogies on Mon, 09/14/2015 - 11:44am

OP - homework is also one thing i will engage with if they need help. dh has no patience to walk them through things. yss plays dumb with dh, trying to frustrate dh enough that he'll just give him the answer.

i refuse to do that Wink and he knows it. if he genuinely doesnt understand i'll help him. but he mostly wants someone to hold his freaking hand through it, have someone tell him to try again if it's wrong, and pat him on the head when he's got it right. we'll be slowly phasing that out this year, he needs to be responsible for his own effort - i'd rather he get an 85 on his OWN, than a 95 with me coaching him.

Monchichi's picture

Submitted by Monchichi on Mon, 09/14/2015 - 12:21pm

I would rather chew my own arm off than tutor SS, who has the attention span of a gnat and a very unpleasant attitude.

Glassslipper's picture

Submitted by Glassslipper on Mon, 09/14/2015 - 1:04pm

SD did this same thing, in 3rd grade, they even moved her to the "special help" class because she was falling SO far behind! I went to the school to volunteer and they asked me to help her classroom and when I went I felt uncomfortable and even refused to help out in her class because she was the MOST behind out of all the special help kids in the class!

I had a feeling she was playing dumb, so I made up a "project" I needed her help with. I told her I was assigned new lockers at work for storage, but they are all on different levels of the hospital, and I have to memorize the locker combos to unlock them, and I needed her to review them and then quiz me at the end of the night, I gave her a stack of locker numbers and the combos (example: floor 4 locker 2 combo 8 all the 3's 4's 6's
She memorized them in less than an hour while at bible study, so she wan't even focused on it the whole time!
I told her at the end of the night it was multiplication and she just learned all of her 3's and 4's and 6's.
BUT did it help at school/ with BM...NO!

Then, one day she was all upset and DH was all mad and BM was on the phone, and I didn't know what was going on, but came to find out, that SD was SO behind that if she didn't learn ALL her times tables in the next 6 weeks, she would have to do summer school and they told her she might be "held back"

Well that was enough to scare her and see "playing dumb" doesn't work for attention from Mommy (BM) she had her times tables memorized within 4 weeks, and she is now in advanced math.
It was all a game!

notsobad's picture

Submitted by notsobad on Tue, 09/15/2015 - 1:45am

I was that smart stupid girl who played dumb.

It wasn't because of the boys, it was because of the girls. I really really wanted to fit into jr. high, grade 7-9, and all the girls were dumb. They would mock me and make fun of me when I got 100%, so I started to get 80%, then 70%, then 50%

It drove my teachers and parents insane but nothing and I mean nothing was going to make me the smart nerd.

In HS I did better in school but only because grades weren't announced to the whole class, I could lie about my grade. I never studied and I still made the honour roll. I wish I could go back and have a heart to heart with that girl!