(no subject)

[felicula]

I hit a breaking point in calculus this past week. Something's awfully wrong when I understand the mathematics of it, but just can't seem to come to the same answer as the solutions guide.

Or not.

Sometimes it's just the mess created when stress and hurrying homework means that I mix up numbers and operations on a problem I otherwise get. Just to make sure, I reviewed how to play around with exponents: fractional, negative, or otherwise, and revisited the trigonometric identities. I even touched base with the order of operations just in case my head was mixing that up.

The sick part is, when I analyze what I did wrong it is usually some nigglingly tiny detail I mixed up. A few times it was just a case of switching one sign by accident in the final copy-over. I'd had it right down to the last cosine until I copied it over. It's just no fun being a generalized, big-picture person when it comes down to little details that like to hide in a haystack of numbers, variables, and operations.

And it really isn't that I don't understand the formulae. It's just that I need to be in a fully-mindful, selfless, Zen-like mode of focused concentration as I go through the process in order to keep track of all that I need to keep track of. Even keeping it all on the paper doesn't help. One miscopy and *BOOM* my answer's wrong.

I feel so stupid when I do that. It's like I ought to know better. Yet, no matter how hard I try, these little details trip me up.

To make matters worse, it's an online class. Eduspace, the online tool through which we submit graded homework assignments, is algebraically inflexible. It's equasion palette is counterintuitive in many respects, but also the code that processes the information once you submit an assignment for grading often alters the equasion that was entered into a different form. It's annoying at best and mindbendingly frustrating at worst. In addition, having to work on my answers in a notebook then enter them into the computer is one more step where I can accidentally miscopy something. It pisses me off.

Other than that, my classes are going fine. What's not going fine is trying to make sure Aidan does his homework and trying to have enough of a head left on my shoulders to do my own. Some days it takes hours and hours and hours and hours to get him to take his assignments seriously. I fear that the grade skip may have been too late in that respect. On the other hand, he really could use more hands-on practice with neatness and caring about his work. I don't know a way to do that without boring him to tears or taking more time than we have in a day.

And to escape the stress that is my life: World of Warcraft. I know. It is more of an addiction-escape into virtual reality when I really ought to be cleaning things up in actual reality. But it feels good to kick ass and feel like I'm accomplishing things even though the world I'm achieving them in isn't real. I'm garumphy enough trying to deal with things. In WoW, Garumph becomes a power, a name, not just an icky mood. I've been pulling away from actual reality in my free time. I realize that's not a positive coping mechanism, but for now it helps bring me back to a state of level-headedness.

Anyhow, that's pretty much what's going on in the state of me.

Comments

[phoenixsong]

Some days it takes hours and hours and hours and hours to get him to take his assignments seriously. I fear that the grade skip may have been too late in that respect.

Sweetie, he's six, in second grade, and he's been there less than two months. Unless you'd put him straight into first grade last year -- before you even knew for certain he was TAG -- it's not too late for anything. I seem to recall, from what you've said, that it took him a while to get the hang of things last year, too, but once he caught on, VROOOOM! Maybe ask his teacher for ideas?

I'm curious what sorts of assignments he's getting, since the only homework I remember having until perhaps 4th or 5th grade was for math.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

Every day he has a math assignment and reading to do (including copying the title and author into a log and sometimes a synopsis paragraph), depending on the day he could have spelling word sentences to write or a paragraph to write. His hangups aren't usually with how to do it, his hangups are with starting them, staying at them, not erasing thousands of times (sometimes he does quick-sloppy-not following directions work and I can't sign it until he actually completes the assignment the teacher asks for. And all the writing has to be in a specific notebook using a specific page, or the teacher takes off points. And the math sheets are just that: worksheets that he needs to fill in and get messy fast if he needs to erase. I try to tell him to do it in a separate notebook and copy over so that he doesn't get docked for neatness, but he balks at that. He'd rather just read what he wants to read, write very little, play with math only in his head, and play on the computer.

It's more that he doesn't care about the quality of the output he's giving than what he's capable of. He's still bored out of his mind in some respects. In others, he wants to do it his way or no way at all. And the assignments either ask for specific ways. For example, yesterday's math was the same problem three times, asked to use a different specific approach each time. He just skipped that part and put the equals. I'm trying to tell him that the point of this assignment isn't to get the answer, it's to explore different ways to get the answer. He'd just rather ignore that than take a look at what could be generalized into a valuable tool. Meanwhile he counts on his fingers to get the problem, even though he knows how doubles work and how finding tens work. He'd just rather do it his way, even though his way does not give him the flexibility that he'll need for math later on this year.

So I'm kinda stuck. I want to teach him the value of quality and flexibility, but I don't know where to start. In the meantime he's getting 2 grades (below the standard on a scale of 1 to 4) and isn't learning what he's there to learn.