What Gives State Run Public Schools The RIGHT To Interfere in Family Life in terms of Homework & Parent Participation? (IEP, teacher)

[imcurious]

Originally Posted by TigerLily24

'Assistants' - seriously?

So, help me out here: are you saying that it is bad that children have parents, caregivers. etc. who cook for them and take them to sports activities, music classes, dance classes?
On the one hand you seem to say that taking dance classes, etc. is a good thing and then on the other you suggest that scheduling these sorts of activities leads to a 'militaristic lifestyle.'


Of course there are children who do not enjoy the same sort of 'advantages' - are you suggesting that everyone should then operate at the lowest common denominator and forgo snacks, regular mealtimes, homework... because some children do not have someone to offer or monitor those activities?


Yes, there is and should be some expectation that parents will help their children with things. This is part and parcel of parenting.

Somehow I think that this 'assistants' perception is at the heart of this argument.
And somehow, I think that there is a lot more going on in the life of the OP than has been expressed.
School = convenient target. And that's all I have to say about that.

Cheap, nasty attacks don't make something true. There is beginning to be a mob mentality on this thread. I am not a threat to any of you - carry on with the status quo - it seems to be working for most people (which is curious because I was under the impression that the school system is considered by "most people" to be failing on many levels - from reading this thread, you would never draw that conclusion. So I am happy that it is so wonderful and that everyone is super satisfied with it!).

[uptown_urbanist]

Originally Posted by golfgal

No one is stopping you from choosing schoolwork vs sports/activities. Our kids are in activities year round and they have homework and manage to fit it in just fine. No one is stopping you from putting your child on 3 sports teams/season, piano lessons, boy scouts and church activities all at the same time but since YOU made that choice, don't complain about getting homework in school. By choosing to put sports over school you have just told your child that sports are more important than school.



Again, MOST kids DO get work done in class, or most of the work, what they don't get done in class, they finish at home. Like I said earlier, our kids spend their time wisely in class and get a lot of their 'homework' done at home but you will never be able to satisfy all parents on this because some kids, for what ever reason, take more time than others to get things done. It is impossible to have a good school where EVERY child will always get everything done in class because then you are working to the lowest common denominator in class and everyone else will be board silly. Again, what takes my child 5 minutes to complete may take another child an hour. How do you plan a day in school around that-you can't. It just is NOT possible. There are plenty of times when maybe one or two kids have homework and none of the rest of the class does.

Perfect example, I was helping out at our kids' old school one day in a 5th grade classroom. I was there for 2 math classes. In the first hour, a short lesson was presented and the class had the rest of the period to do their 'homework'. EVERY child in that class got their homework done with time to spare because they sat down, took out their books, got to work. The 2nd hour class comes in, short lesson prepared, rest of the time to work-ONE child finished in that time, why, the other kids were passing notes, sharpening pencils, chatting with their neighbor, etc. They didn't use their time wisely. They were told they could use the time to do work and anything else had to be done at home. Well that evening we had a PTA meeting and some of the parents of the kids from that 2nd hour were complaining about how much homework their kids had and it was TOO much, blah, blah, blah. I stepped in and told them exactly what happened in that classroom. They quickly changed their tune.



What exactly does your 5th grader get for homework?

Golfgal, your kids do not represent the experiences of every kid in every school or district across the country. Good for them if their schools don't have excessive homework, but that is most definitely not the case in every district. Luckily here in Minneapolis things aren't extreme, either, but take a look at some of the other schools out there and you will that things don't always look so rosy.

And for what it's worth, I don't think doing independent work within the school day counts as "homework." I think that's the ideal, actually. (Although your references to different "hours" in fifth grade, and entire classes of kids working on the same content at the same grade level, does make me even more confident of my preference for Montessori.)

[lkb0714]

I am not going to read this whole thing, but I do think all children need nightly homework in CERTAIN subjects. At the elementary level, math and language both need to be transferred from short term memory to long term, homework completed before going to bed can help transfer those ideas. I had no problem with my daughters homework levels which consistently included reading and math problems each night at the elementary school level.

If nothing else, elementary homework prepares students for middle school homework which prepares them for high school which nearly everyone agrees should exist. I cannot fathom telling a 13 year old just out of 8th grade you now have nightly homework in every subject even though you never had it in elementary school. Talk about culture shock.

Finally, it is not possible to learn some subjects like math or foreign languages without homework. Especially if your school is no on a double block schedule.

[sskkc]

Originally Posted by imcurious

[color=DarkOrchid]Cheap, nasty attacks don't make something true. COLOR]

Yes, so please stop making them

[TabulaRasa]

Originally Posted by sskkc

When I was in 8th grade (80s), we had a 'page' minimum per quarter of 500 pages. After I finished that minimum reading (the second week of school), the teacher called my mom and they agreed my minimum should be raised to 5000 per quarter - most books that I read (at least 1 per week) were more than 300 pages each. I remember thinking of it as a huge compliment. In my freshman year, we were required to read some book... I don't remember what it was, but I couldn't get through the first chapter. I got in trouble at school and my mother was called. She asked me to hand her the book. The following day, she called the teacher back, said the book was awful and that she wasn't going to require me to read it. I don't know what else was said, just that after that the teacher gave me an alternate assignment/book and gave me options for the remainder of the semester. Of course, that was a GT class. Maybe that's why the rules were bent.

Yep...I, too, was a grade schooler in the 80s and into the early 90s, which coincided with the advent of the original incarnation of the variously apparently controversial Book It! reading incentive program. My second grade teacher, who was already very, very reading-focused, employed the program with some of her own twists and incentives. The result wasn't an assigned minimum of reading, but that you had the option of logging the number of books read, giving oral reports on what you'd read to the class (public speaking for second graders...awesome!), and earning various reinforcers for passing different benchmarks. It was cool, but a seriously below grade level book was generally given the same weight as something significantly more challenging and time-consuming. Whereas some classmates were reading Garfield comic strip books (remember, this was the 80s), my books of choice were from the 39-book Trixie Belden "girl detective" mystery series, which were novels of something in the neighborhood of 30 chapters, and averaged probably in the neighborhood of 300 pages or so. My teacher, I remember, allowed me to count each chapter as a "book," since the books I was reading were so far ahead of what my classmates were reading. I still remember getting to stand up and report, chapter by chapter, on those mysteries.

I was in accelerated English classes in high school (not AP, because my small, rural, consolidated high school didn't at that point in time offer AP, although it does, now), and there was quite a high degree of freedom given to choose our own books to read and upon which to complete papers, projects, and presentations. Seldom was there an assigned novel.

My parents were in general very supportive of our school projects, but would not become overly involved in any way that could have verged on doing the work for us. My dad was a carpenter, and rather than build us nice boxes for sturdy dioramas and the like, he taught us to use the tools and took us to the lumberyard to offer advice in selecting the appropriate building materials....you know...TEACHING US. Of course, prior to opening a carpentry business, he had taught middle school Language Arts and Social Studies, and knew the value of teaching kids by giving them hands-on experiences versus doing the work for them. I don't ever recall there being concern on the part of my parents about the amount of time that schoolwork was taking away from our family, probably because the time spent working on projects and the like (which were much more common than worksheets, rote memorization, drilling, etc.) was time that was spent together, being a family.

[uptown_urbanist]

Originally Posted by lkb0714

I am not going to read this whole thing, but I do think all children need nightly homework in CERTAIN subjects. At the elementary level, math and language both need to be transferred from short term memory to long term, homework completed before going to bed can help transfer those ideas. I had no problem with my daughters homework levels which consistently included reading and math problems each night at the elementary school level.

If nothing else, elementary homework prepares students for middle school homework which prepares them for high school which nearly everyone agrees should exist. I cannot fathom telling a 13 year old just out of 8th grade you now have nightly homework in every subject even though you never had it in elementary school. Talk about culture shock.

Finally, it is not possible to learn some subjects like math or foreign languages without homework. Especially if your school is no on a double block schedule.

I had no or little homework in elementary school, and only small amounts in middle school. Just because something is valuable at a later age does not mean that it's worthwhile at a younger age. Despite having no homework in elementary school I still managed to do extremely well in school (and had absolutely no problems making the jump from no homework to homework; kids realize that different ages and milestones in the academic career come with different responsibilities) I don't buy the "culture shock" argument, although I do think that middle school is an appropriate time to start phasing in homework.

[Magritte25]

Originally Posted by imcurious

To all the posters accusing me of being lazy and not defining what "excessive" is - please see the opening post . . . that is the post that set out the parameters for this discussion. I am not interested in debating with mean-spirited people whose primary source of argument is insult. I don't wish to spend my time or energy in that manner. If you go back and read the first post, you will see that the issue of time is a crucial one, in my estimation.

To all the SAHM's or "assistants," as I like to call the ones who are fervent in their efforts, of course this is not an issue for you or your kids - you have bought into "the system," and actively support it. You make it so your kids don't have to worry about time management because you have done it all for them - you pick them up from school (god-forbid a child should have to walk anywhere these days), you take them home and make their snacks, give them a schedule of when-to-do-what, cook their dinner, etc.)

There are many, many children who do not have these "services" at their command. They have to figure out how to get home on their own, may have sick or drunk or otherwise indisposed parents, and then they have the homework to contend with.

They don't have "assistants" to run out and get them the needed supplies for the "important projects" (not to mention the extra funds to purchase the materials), no one is going to help them figure out how to plan and implement the project, etc. They are obviously at a disadvantage in a society where parents are EXPECTED to assist their children with homework on a regular basis.

That's just one scenario - there are many, many others . . . there are kids who like to play sports, which has been ridiculed on this thread as being excessive . . . there are kids who like to dance, take music lessons, or just lie around and stare at clouds. Is that last one even an option anymore? Every second is accounted for. Kids and parents are stressed to the max. This is not good for anyone. So there are health concerns on top of everything else. And lifestyle concerns. You are teaching your children a very militaristic lifestyle. Where is the fun in that? Why does everything have to be about "achievement?" Who died and made that the ONLY value in life?

Are you seriously taunting those of us who have put our money where our mouth is? Really?

[Magritte25]

Originally Posted by sskkc

I've noticed something else in this thread - the reading 'issue'. My kids read at bedtime, every night. They both have logs to keep and have signed by their parents with weekly or daily minimums. They have certain book lists they have to choose from for AR or other classroom activities. My children complete those books during schooltime and always have.

The reading logs can include those books, but we do not. As I've stated, bedtime reading has been a part of my kid's life since birth. My dh and I are voracious readers. When my son learned to read, he and our daughter asked if HE could start reading to her at bedtime - they still do it 3 or 4 days a week. The reading time counts for them both - and all of their teachers, since dd started school, are aware of it and support it. Neither child has a reading problem - though our dd did struggle for some time prior to 2nd grade. In 2nd grade, I found the teacher was the problem - refusing to allow her to count any book that was over her 'level'. I just lied on the form. *shrug* - Because it was BEST for my dd - when she realized that I would support her 'free' reading choices, her attitude changed. She no longer resents reading the mandatory books and looks for every opportunity for extra time to read at school so that she can enjoy anything she wants here at home. Her reading improved so greatly that she is now part of a program at school (typically reserved for 4th graders) to read to and to help kindergartens read on their own, twice a week.

Anyway, I realized this was becoming an issue. For those who are having problems with 'required' reading - have you looked over their choices? For instance, with AR reading, they generally are assigned a point level per quarter or certain types of books - but they usually have choices. My kids used to ask me to help them find something they'll like (choosing a book can be intimidating) and I'd use the public access through their school's website or the public library to find them books that fill their requirements. They haven't requested my help this year though. Sometimes kids need to be taught not just how to read, but how to choose a book, rather than just grabbing something off the shelf.

If you have a 1-3rd grader who hasn't read "Diary of a... {spider, worm, etc}" I HIGHLY recommend them! They are very entertaining - and they ARE on the AR list!

Sounds like something my son would like. I'm going to look into them. Thanks for the recommendation!

[Magritte25]

Originally Posted by sskkc

BTW - this has been a lively and interesting discussion thread that I have enjoyed- though it should be noted that the OP is NOT a parent - which is why their posts are laughable to me.

Wow! Really? That certainly puts things into a whole new light for me.

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by Magritte25

No, it really isn't a red herring. If you are so fundamentally and philosophically opposed to the way your school is teaching your children, you can and will find a way to secure a different educational environment for said children.

What constitutes a large amount of homework? I have yet to see this question answered. Your daughter's flip response to an assignment is troublesome as is the cavalier attitude you display towards insubordination.

We homeschooled her for a year, but didnt feel confident about doing that for HS. We could not afford a private school. She went to a magnet where at least most of the assignments made sense, but there was too much homework, and some did not make sense. Not everyone has the resources to escape the public schools. Our DD was strong enough to get through. But it took a toll on all of us.

The large amount was 3 to 4 hours a night in fifth grade. It was big assignments over weekends, and yes over breaks (despite that being officially against school policy).

My daughters INSUBORDINATION????? this is precisely the attitude we despise in the public schools. She is not a soldier receiving orders. Its supposed to be about learning, and NO, not learning to be good little subordinate. She DID do the assignment, of course. I was PROUD that she could see its stupidity, and express it with wit.

Your response is exactly in line with the notion that the goal of homework (and of many people) is to squelch creativity and independent thought.