Another letter to teacher....

Dear Basic Math Instructor,

Really? Our test over basic operations (i.e. add, subtract, multiply and divide) and fractions was mostly the operations themselves. The reason for this being that YOU can't figure out the word problems and we can. Had you even looked at the book the first night? It didn't appear so, or you would have completely skipped the questions you didn't know how to do. Or maybe you would have asked a colleague (or any jr high math student) instead of us having to correct you all night.

Now back to that test. You gave us scratch paper and had us turn it in. In any math class I (or any of the rest of us, I checked around) have ever been in this was done to help. That way if I had a wrong answer, the teacher could look at my work and recognize that I had done all the steps correctly but had added wrong on step 3 making the rest of the problem incorrect but the steps were right. This way I could at least get partial credit. NEVER has turning in my work work against me. On number 7b I obtained the same answer you did but it was marked off. But in checking my work against yours I realized that I used a different method to get my answer. This method was one of two I was taught as a child to solve these problems. Either one of course being correct. It is just a different way.

If I get the correct answer using a correct method (and using the same method every time) WHY do I get punished for it. That is CRAZY.

Give us some credit, at least that which we have rightfully EARNED!

Thank you,
your frustrated student