Defense of a Teacher

I don't normally respond to Internet Trolls, but the visxious name calling just pushed a button and I felt the need to respond, not in kind, but to call out and correct. I don't expect to change the minds of anyone, but I couldn't just scroll by either.

So the Internet is calling out for a teacher to be fired because s\he "incorrectly" corrected a student's (admittedky poorly written) math problem. 

Here's the link to the article. 

The math problem reads:
Reasonableness: Marty ate 4/6 of his pizza and Luis ate 5/6 of his pizza. Marty ate more pizza than Luis. How is that possible?

The student gave the answer:
Marty's pizza is larger than Luis's

The teacher marked it wrong and commented:
That is not possible because 5/6 is greater than 4/6 so Luis ate more.

The article then goes on to conclude that the student is technically correct because a fraction is a unit of measurement (not really) and a pizza is not (In truth, a pizza can be a non-standard unit of measurement!) 

Anyway, one of the higher rated commenters stated:
This can't be the only instance of stone-headed thinking from this particular "educator." How many other kids did this dumb teacher turn away from math? How many times did this by-the-book teacher ruin a student's confidence in his/her reasoning skills? Teacher gets an F.

A second commenter posted the ubiquitous "this is why we need to get rid of Common Core!" drivel, and I also addressed that.

Here is my response: 

Seriously, why do you have to go calling a teacher dumb and giving a (no n - F is a consonant) F for a single mistake!?!? 

This teacher, who probably gets paid $15,000/year* less than other professionals with the same amount of education, and who pays for supplies out of his/her own pocket is an EDUCATOR!!!

 How many kids has this teacher inspired, comforted in times of distress, cleaned up from illness, befriended when no one else would, cared for because s/he can't not love them!?

Have you ever written an assessment!? It is one of the HARDEST parts of a teacher's job --next to the emotional stress of loving on and worrying about 30+ children, classroom management with real human beings and differentiating his/her for the 13 IEPs. Oh yeah, and GRADING said assessments. 

Sometimes, a teacher is so used to looking at something from one side that it's easy to completely miss the possibility of a different answer. How many times have you completely missed something that was right under your own face? 

Common Core is NOT the problem!!! Seriously! Common Core is just a set of standards! EVERY State has had standards for years and most of the "new" METHODS for teaching the Common Core STANDARDS is OLD SCHOOL math, what they taught prior to the "New Math" of the late 70s-90s!! Seriously! Just because something is different from how you learned doesn't mean that it is wrong! 

-Sarah Jean M.
Student Teacher @Eastern Michigan University
Geekyfutureteacher.blogspot.com



(*source- www.NEA.org/home/12661.htm)