So I normally get up at 4am to work while it’s quiet, but this morning I was woken at 2am by our new and apparently loud and sleepless neighbors. It was a shock because the house next door has been empty for over a year and we are an end terrace and our previous neighbors were elderly and never made a sound, so we got used to never hearing any neighbors either side. The joy of terraced house living in Britain! I’m sure by the end of today they will have heard us plenty back. And if they were planning on sleeping in, then good luck to ‘em.
Throughout my eldest son’s education, I’ve been perpetually stumped and confused about the way math is taught and learned here. It wouldn’t be an issue if Sam didn’t struggle with it. Don’t get me wrong, he is a very bright boy and does well in school, but math has always been the one subject he’s needed extra help with. He’s aways been in those booster classes in school and he needed extra time at home to do his homework. When he was in First school, I attended a class for parents to learn the methods of teaching that their children are taught at school so that I could be better at helping him. It was interesting and useful but I still didn’t quite understand the method for teaching math and I still struggled when I tried to ‘help’ him with his homework. Nowadays he won’t let me help him and all of his math homework is done online. I find this incredibly strange and cannot for the life of me understand why this is. Is it to save on paper? Is it because the teachers only want to see their answers? I’m sure there must be a very good reason for this but as a parent, it doesn’t make sense. In addition, I am NOT a whizz at math nor is my husband. We’ve debated about hiring a tutor to come to the house to help him and during our last musing on this, I said “Too bad we don’t live near my Dad. He’s a mathemetician and retired teacher. He could have tutored him.” My husband and I then both realised that this could be an actual possibility, if my Dad was willing, by doing the tutoring via Skype. Sam could use my Ipad and I could sit next to him and help with any technical glitches on the Skype end and my Dad and Sam could have a math tutor session. We asked my Dad and he agreed. I am thrilled about this (Sam less so) and am hopeful this will
A.) get Sam more interested in Math
B.) help him understand it more and get better at it and
C.) be a way for an American grandfather and a British grandson who live over 4 thousand miles away from each other and only see each other once every 6 years to bond and be close to one another.
So far, we haven’t worked out the best way to go about this because of the lack of use of text books in middle schools here. Everything is done online (perhaps this will turn out to be an advantage doing the tutoring this way?) They’ve had two sessions talking about math, about numbers and number patterns and times tables. I think it’s going well. My Dad is currently looking over the math website they use for homework. I’ve given him the log in details so hopefully he’ll be able to help him even more now. I’m not quite sure what to expect and I don’t want to put pressure on either one of them, but it’s worth a shot and if anything, it will be a nice thing for them both to see each other via Skype on a regular basis.
Has anyone else attemped this type of Skype tutoring? I’d love to hear your exprience with it.
If you like this post, get your copy of Bringing Up Brits on Kindle
As usual, you touch on two very perplexing subjects for foreigners in the UK, Meg. We live on an end terrace, too, and since very very few cars pass, and fewer people, we have peace and quiet 99% of the time. Except when our next door neighbors woke us up at 3 am one night. There was a full-blasted fight happening out on the street, with some cabbie patiently waiting on the screaming guest to get in and leave. But the screaming guest kept screaming at our female neighbour. In the US, I, or someone, would have called the police, but to my amazement, that didn’t come from any of the neighbors. My then-fiance pleaded with me not to call the police, lest the neighbour develops a grudge if she somehow finds out it was us. We already had had our first car badly scratched with a key over parking space. We kept quiet about this, even though our 6-year-old was quite upset about the scary noise that had awoken her. A few weeks later, someone from the Council knocked on my door and asked me about the neighbours: how loud, how often, what else bothered us. I didn’t file a formal complaint — we are expecting a baby and I know that soon enough it will be our turn to keeep the street up in the night. But what was strange to me was how things get resolved quietly here in Britain. In the US, we would have had the police, and ambulance, and the fire truck arrive within minutes. Here, things get done more slowly, but efficiently and less expensively for the city. Not sure what is better in the long run, but I did appreciate the lack of sirens and blinking lights, and further noise outside our house that night.
And as far as Maths is concerned, and Skype tutoring of it, I’d say, go for it and have fun. My daughter uses Mathlethics at school, but I also write down problems for her on paper, and have taught her to solve them the way I was taught in school — one number over the other, draw a line underneath and do one figure at time going from right to left. She can do the units and tens as they teach them here, but prefers my way. And she does read out loud bedtime stories to her grandparents in the US over Skype. Her reading skills have jumped up five levels in the four full months she has been schooled here. She couldn’t read a single word when she started school in September. She also has learned to write and to solve simple math problems in the Skype chat box that she exchanges with her father, and enjoys it. To encourage you even more, I have been tutoring a dentist from Bulgaria over Skype, in preparation for her IELTS exam. We both see great progress in her language skills, and she has recommended me to another colleague of hers. I guess that direct online communication in the future. I personally got bored with Facebook and recently deleted my profile there but am eagerly awaiting the next big internet invention that will let us communicate more efficiently across borders and in real time.
Thanks Elitsa, that is VERY encouraging. Your daughter soundsl like an absolute star. Well done. I have to say it’s been challenging getting family members to use Skype. Not sure why but some of them won’t use it. It’s so much better than a normal phone call because firstly, they are very expensive and secondly, you can see each other!
I will keep you updated on how it goes with the Math tutoring via Skype!
Love it! I always struggled with math and my uncle was a math teacher, since my mom and dad weren’t great at math either I remember a few times when we got on the phone to Uncle Paul who lived in Alabama to help us out. I have also turned to Kahn Academy online (youtube) videos to help me help Madison with her homework. Don’t worry they teach math differently here in the US now as well – another thing that has gone global:)) Good luck and I bet Sam and your Dad will love it!
Thanks Heidi. Will take a look at the YouTube vids you suggest. Might be helpful too. Thank you!