You're Wrong HA HA HA

Ellen asked her 4th graders to write down what helped them in solving math problems, and what did precisely the opposite. This is a great assignment, as it requires kids to think about their own study habits and student skills: metacognition at its finest.

It was also fun to read the replies. Most students said that a quiet room helped. (More students, it strikes me, than there are students who actually help KEEP the room quiet, but it's the thought that counts.) Many said that having manipulatives to work with was helpful. And a few were very specific: What helps, wrote one student, is "people keeping their feet to themselves."

More interesting, however, were the things that children said did NOT help. Here they were usually quite detailed and focused in their complaints.

It makes it hard, said one child, when "people [are] invading my personal space." (Presumably that includes invading it with feet; see above.)

"Being told that your idea is terrible," suggested a classmate.

"When people are unnice," commented a third. (I agree. I much prefer it when people are unmean. Not to mention unloud.)

Another student wrote: "To hear any bragging or any kind of DISTRACTION." [caps in the original]

Another hated hearing "I wish you'd catch up with me so we can work together, since I'm so much farther than you." (A subtle slam, couched in nice enough words but with a very unnice message.)

"To say 'I'm right and you're wrong HA HA HA," wrote another student. (Bad enough to be wrong, worse for someone else to be right, but I agree, the HA HA HA really puts it over the edge into no-jury-would-ever-convict territory.)

And this one, which sounds like a couple of lines from a 50s song, maybe sung by one of those girl groups I can never remember the name of:

"I don't like to be pressured
I don't wanna be bugged."

(If you'd like to take a stab at completing the lyric, please note that "pressured" rhymes nicely with "Eschered"--presumably the act of being turned into an impossible figure or a slightly bizarre tessellation--and "bugged" with "hugged," "chugged," "plugged," "tugged," and "mugged." Among others. Good luck!)