The Homework Battle!

Let us know how it goes Heidi. I might just save a copy of your letter for the future as you have referenced some great resources. I don't have kids in school yet but couldn't agree more with your stance!

[MrsK]

I disagree. Objecting to the amount or work or questioning the purpose of specific assignments is different than a wholesale objection to homework. Your 7 yo's assignments are going to seem unchallenging because they are less sophistocated than your 13 yo's assignments. Singing the ABCs to my toddler over and over and over bores the heck out of me but he is learning from it. In elem school, they are trying various learning techniques to see what clicks with which kid. Each will learn differently, for some it's repetiton, for some it's writing, for some it's accountability, for some breaking down spelling words. Unfortunately, the class sizes are so large that teachers need to use all the techniques with all the kids instead of tayloring the study skills to the kid. So one kid may have to do assignments that arew useless for her but helpful to another classmate.

[poky]

Personally, I don't think I'd have a problem with tracking pages and time spent reading; the paperwork on that is pretty minimal if there's no OTHER busywork to deal with. Other than that, I thought the letter was good. Only problem might be if it's not up to the teacher how much homework she gives and how much it counts toward grades; it may be that the teacher agrees with you but really doesn't have control. I don't know how likely that is, since I'm sure it could vary by district and even school.
Help me understand, has your daughter already gotten a bunch of bring-home busywork, or is this a preemptive shot?

[Vanquisher]

No, she has already gotten a bunch of work, after I had already spoken to the teacher about it at "meet the teacher" night. She brought home a 3/12 grade for homework participation yesterday, with a note attached.

"Homework counts as a "participation" grade for Language Arts, Math, and Reading. Students receive 1 point per complete activity. It is important that parents and students work together on these activities."

Parent homework. Bull crap. I did a preemptive shot before school started.

Mrs. K, I don't want my daughter to have sophisticated assignments either. She's 7! I want her to learn how to get up from having a skinned knee after riding her bike, not be able to understand latin roots (what DS is doing in language arts).

The thing is that I fundamentally disagree with the appropraiteness for ANY homework in elementary school. It's all crap. All of it.

http://stophomework.com/fact.pdf

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080101713.html

http://www.aypf.org/forumbriefs/2000/fb112000.htm

I fall somewhere in the middle of all of this.

As I've said in the past, it does seem like a lot of truly, truly pointless work comes home for a lot of you, and I imagine I would be at a breaking point if that were our experience. I do see value in homework -- learning personal responsibility for assignments sooner-than-later is a good thing in my book. Learning that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do is a good thing in my book. I've got about 4 things I sign weekly (between the 2 boys) in addition to their daily agenda, and I'm fine with that. (The agenda actually just clues me in to what was covered during the day, and what, if any homework there is -- I like that). I don't think we can compare what we did as kids to what they do now -- school is very, very different. My kids (3rd and 5th) are learning forms of math I did't learn until jr. high. They've already learned things in Geography and Social Studies that I never learned (some of that is on me, I was lazy). I've said it before, but once I reached the point in school where I *needed* to study, or *needed* the extra work, I had no skill set to fall back on, and I wasn't accustomed to having to put in effort when effort wasn't fun (as I said: lazy). I'm grateful my kids are learning this from their academic start. *****Again -- I acknowledge that some of you seem to be bombarded with busy work that we don't seem to get. ******

Q's teacher this year sucks. She's lazy, she's been bounced around from school to school, and she's got tenure so they can't get rid of her. She went out of her way to set insanely low expectations at parent night: "I know it's hard to get your kids to do their homework. If they say Mrs. H will be mad if they don't do it, that's not true." Bullshit. If you're going to assign it, you'd better expect it be done, or don't assign it. We have a new math curriculum in our district this year, and the gap between what is covered in 2nd grade to prepare for 3rd is apparently the largest of any grades. A lot of kids are having trouble (Q isn't, but we have his Dad's genes to thank for that). She sent "optional" math homework home a couple weeks ago. That's plain stupid. Either it needs to be done, or it doesn't, but I don't know an 8 year old in their right mind that will say "You know, I'm really struggling with this concept, I think I need the extra practice." THAT just causes conflict in the home.

In the end, I don't feel that it's okay to say "MY child won't be doing ANY of this." when you're part of a public school system. I have no experience w/private schools, so I don't know if it's something that would work there, but I don't feel like you can expect a teacher to say "Oh - okay.", nor do I feel it sets a good precedent for a child to see their peers assigned work and know they're exempt. Maybe a reason to home school? Perhaps working with the teacher to find a middle ground for the class as a whole would work -- but they've got 20-25 kids to cover, and to expect an individualized plan for each just seems to be too much for me.

[MrsK]

I agree with Shakti.

[peggyfromwastate]

Jenn we have that same new math curriculum this year-- they are unrolling it nationwide I think? It's basically the new "on level" math is equal to last years "one year advanced" math. So Luke is in math 2 this year which is equal to math 3 of last year, even though he was in math 1 last year. So jumping 1 grade level totally basically.

I think we need to question the uniformity if a one size fits all approach to homework for 7 year olds. Busy work is awesome for certain kids. But if it's all busy work, where does that leave the kinetic learner? Not to mention there are huge ability differences in 7 year old classes-- you have about a 1-1.5 year age spread, different physical abilities for handwriting, and more ESL kids mixed in too. Busy work in this age benefits No one IMHO.

Personal vent: Last weeks homework packet... Lukes teacher did not even sign it. Wth. No acknowledgement that he did it or anything. When he has gotten graded in the past, he's always marked down for bad handwriting. Sorry. He's a boy. He's just not ready yet.

[MrsK]

I agree re one-size-fits-all. Do they still have reading groups, for instance, where the robins get different assignments than the blue jays?

[peggyfromwastate]

Yes they have different reading groups. But in our district the homework packets are given to all kids and involve mostly mind numbingly repetitive problem sets. All year long. They mix it up with stupid no child left behind type exercises to get them used to answering problems in bubble sheet format.

Really this busywork translates to a LOT of time and stress for the families and the kids. The parents are truly expected to do a ton. I don't want to explain to my 2nd grader what an adjective is bc I don't know how (or if) the teacher is explaining this in class. I have seen so many 1st concepts come home thrru homework-- and I'm supposed to teach him these concepts. Sane with my older kids. Well, my style is a lot different from their teachers invariably. It leads to confusion and frustration.

The no child left behind paranoia gave birth to busy work in alarming amounts, test anxiety for third graders (it's true), and a feeling of kids being "stupid" if they ate not routinely evaluated at ABOVE grade level in reading and math.

Jenn we have that same new math curriculum this year-- they are unrolling it nationwide I think? It's basically the new "on level" math is equal to last years "one year advanced" math. So Luke is in math 2 this year which is equal to math 3 of last year, even though he was in math 1 last year. So jumping 1 grade level totally basically.
.

I don't think it's the same thing. Ours is called enVision math. Our school district just purchased it -- apparently up to this point they'd been using a self-created curriculum. A LOT of parents are complaining b/c their A students are no longer A students. I don't really have a problem w/it, but my kids aren't having a problem w/it. I imagine I'd feel differently if they were formerly A students and suddenly struggling. I'm actually worried that my complaints about Q's teacher are going to end up lumped in with the general population's complaints about the math curriculum (although I know I'm not the only parent upset with this teacher).

[oceanchild]

Peggy, you also live in an insanely competitive school district. IMHO.

I obviously don't have a dog in this fight yet, but something DH and I have talked about is wanting our children to understand that they will be responsible to other authorities besides their parents. So that's something I would consider.

My mom is an elemntary teacher, and she's always complaining about how much evaluation the district expects from her. She teaches music. She firmly believes that K-3rd graders should not be graded in music. But the district requires it. I could see that leading to more assignments, too, just to have something to evaluate. (She ends up mostly grading on behavior.)

[MrsK]

Well, that's stupid. The teachers should be able to send home different homework for different groups of students. Even in law school, remediation was available.

I wouldn't worry about differing teaching styles. That's your chance to taylor lessons to your child. As long as they know what adverbs are, it doesn't matter that it was explained different ways. My parents were both teachers and I still remember tricks they taught me for multiplication tables and the like that I did not learn in school.

Yes they have different reading groups. But in our district the homework packets are given to all kids and involve mostly mind numbingly repetitive problem sets. All year long. They mix it up with stupid no child left behind type exercises to get them used to answering problems in bubble sheet format.

We don't have ANYTHING like that. We get workbook questions applicable to the current lesson (last week was continents and oceans). We'll get a couple workbook pages of math if they didn't / weren't able to finish it in class. We don't get a set packet of "here is the crap to complete, do it." The *only* real frustration/irritation to me is w/3rd grade spelling b/c the teachers try to make it "fun", so give them about 15 different activities they can choose from for their 3x's / week spelling practice. Most of those involve spelling out loud, and Q is a kid who can spell well when writing it down, but when saying it out loud he mixes the letters up 9 times out of 10. It usually ends up in a "let me test you - see you know the words" kind of thing, and Q gets stuck on "but we HAVE to choose from these activities". I only have 2 school age kids, I can see the frustration being multiplied and untenable w/4.

I wouldn't worry about differing teaching styles. That's your chance to taylor lessons to your child. As long as they know what adverbs are, it doesn't matter that it was explained different ways. My parents were both teachers and I still remember tricks they taught me for multiplication tables and the like that I did not learn in school.

That's not necessarily true. One thing I've found is the schools now are VERY specific about how they want things phrased/learned. The first example that comes to mind is that OVALS are not OVALS here. They're ELLIPSES. (insert rolling eyes emoticon here). "Borrowing" in math is now "re-grouping". I'm actually thrilled w/J's teacher b/c their entire math text is online, so I can see what he's being taught and how he's being taught it should he need help.

[diggitydot]

On the "Holy Shit Someone Gets It" front, I received a call from little dude's teacher today. Phone calls this early in the year from his teachers have been everything from "Are you SURE he's not autistic?" to "I have some concerns about X." Not knowing this teacher well, I braved myself for a repeat of his 2nd grade teacher's attempts to diagnose him with something he doesn't have.

I was pleasantly surprised when his newest teacher told me she wanted to check-in with me because she didn't think the school's reading program was going to be an effective measure of little dude's abilities. He's a good reader, but fails the computerized tests every time. He can tell you every story detail, could write a book report 3 pages long, but zones out and fails the computerized tests. So she wanted to see if I had any problems with her adjusting the criteria used to grade him with; allowing him to either write a paper on each book he reads or give a presentation to the class. I think it's fabulous that she's willing to work with kids whose brains work differently.

She also wanted to make sure that I knew he was one of her hardest workers in class, but that when he comes home with more than one page of homework it's stuff he wasn't able to finish in class. She only ever assigns one homework per day to go with their 20 minutes of daily reading.

I wish I could clone her.