Today a student of mine was deducted 1.5 points out of 4 possible for a completing the square exercise on a test. The students only mistake was putting an extra equal sign in one line even though the next line makes it absolutely clear that the student was not confused and used the correctly placed equal sign AND GOT THE RIGHT SOLUTIONS.

All the red writing is the teacher upset that the student did completing the square in a more logical different ORDER than the teacher had them MEMORIZE. The teacher did not understand and seemed to be unmoved by the fact that the answers were right.

Unfortunately this is the reality of school math and so even when helping students understand better we must keep in mind that atttention must be paid to how to actually get the teacher to give you points. The WEHM has many such ways to make hacks more effective in “fooling “ the teachers into thinking the student is doing it their way.

After the lesson the student went back to try and talk with the teacher about maybe getting those points back since obviously the teacher had simply misunderstood her method right? The teacher said:”THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO DO COMPLETING THE SQUARE”

This is not happening in the Middle Ages it happened last week at one of the best schools in the country.