His final exam

Today, a 9th grade Algebra I student came in for his final exam, which is tomorrow. This was a partial school day aimed for the teachers to assist students prepare for the exam. Over the past week, the students had been given a practice exam to do for class work. The teacher has NOT showed the students how to correctly work out these problems!?! The review for today was cut short as the teacher told them if they were struck on an exam problem to go to the end of the exam and work backwards – whatever that is supposed to accomplished. Parents: please note that it seems to be a common practice in many classrooms today that the teachers assign a pile of home work or class work BUT the teacher NEVER works out the solutions for the students – this is a MAJOR GAP in math classrooms and it is why American students have fallen to #27 in the world in math ability. Be involved and find out if your student’s teacher is solving problems. The proper teaching technique is that “any and all” class work, home work and test problems be correctly worked out step-by-step on the board for everyone to see. My question goes to: Can teachers today actually solve the problems they are requiring students to do; if so they need to provide the work they were hired to do. My assignments for students were to assign some problems of each type to stimulate the mind and I took classroom time to answer all problems. By the teacher being able to produce the correct solutions this inspires the students to think: if the teacher can do this, then so can I. Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Rescue Your Math Student Now [Paperback] http://www.amazon.com/Parents-Teachers-Guide-Rescue-Student/dp/0988316242