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Either your school has more reasonable assigments, or your kid is one of those fortunate, non-gifted, non-perfectionist kids the system seems designed for. Enjoy your good fortune.
My son was tested for the GATE program and came up exactly 3 points short of making it into the program.
I'm inclined to believe the school has more reasonable assignments. If the system isn't for your child, you need to look elsewhere. That isn't being snarky, just my honest opinion. There are times I feel my child isn't challenged enough so don't be so quick to believe that everything is perfect for the families that support homework.
People that take issue with structure, rules and respect always pull out the "creativity and independent thought" cards. People that say this don't realize that in order to be truly creative there must be rules and respect. You can't just slop something on a paper and say it's creative. Even the most abstract art forms are confined to a framework of accepted rules.
Any expectations or standards only serve to break the spirit, don't you know? It is unfair to attempt to measure progress or learning.
Additionally anybody who manages to go far in life, exhibit personal creativity, make independent choices AND also participate in society within a framework of adherence to various rules, guidelines and standards is lambasted as being a conformist sheep, robot/automaton. Or something like that.
Any expectations or standards only serve to break the spirit, don't you know? It is unfair to attempt to measure progress or learning.
Additionally anybody who manages to go far in life, exhibit personal creativity, make independent choices AND also participate in society within a framework of adherence to various rules, guidelines and standards is lambasted as being a conformist sheep, robot/automaton. Or something like that.
I have a higher level ComArt class tonight with a teacher who owns a successful graphic design/advertising business. I'm going to ask him what he thinks about rules and standards.
We should just call ourselves Sheep-o-trons already.
There are times I feel my child isn't challenged enough so don't be so quick to believe that everything is perfect for the families that support homework.
Seriously. I have no doubt that my siblings and I were definitely not challenged enough by our public schools' curriculum. We spent most of our time coming in already ahead, simply by virtue of having engaged, committed parents who did something as basic as read to us and participate in educationally enriching activities. But in a rural, remote district, alternate options to public school were limited. My parents may well have home schooled, had they not seen the merit in the social development opportunties offered by traditional schooling, which would have been harder to come by when home schooling in said rural environment. They'd have done a fine job of it, too.
Fortunately, our parents were more than happy to do the challenging that the mediocre public school system was largely unequipped to do. We were also fortunate that, at that time, funding was also available for various G/T enrichment extracurriculars, and got a lot out of those. Bless the scant handful of teachers who did notice that they had some bright students whose intellectual curiosity was not being well-served by watered down curriculum, and were willing to volunteer their own time to offer enrichment ops.
Wow, I have never seen a school policy that forbids the issuing assignments over weekends or breaks. Interesting.
My kids elementary school (charter) had a policy of forbidding school assignments over breaks and forbidding homework over the weekend. They did have projects that spanned weekends but those were usually longer term in nature allowing parents time to figure out when to do them.
The private school that they attend now does not permit elementary school kids to have homework over the weekends or over breaks either.
who has given public schools the authority to dictate what happens or does not happen at home, related to school?
You did, when you enrolled your child in school.
Quote:
I went through school once, why should I have to struggle with math problems?
If you learned what you should have while you were in school, you wouldn't be struggling.
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Originally Posted by imcurious
Can people please address the questions posed in the thread topic about schools imposing on family TIME?
Spending some of the evening interacting with your kid, helping him/her do homework and taking an interest in his/her education isn't family time? Perhaps you need to provide your definition of "family time" for us.
In an attempt to get the conversation back on track: If anyone is interested, it is a fact that schools have dictated a large portion of society's personal lives in the assignment of homework as well as the insistence that parents must actually assist their children with assignments and projects.
In days gone by, kids couldn't wait to "grow up" to get to make their own rules. Now, you grow up, but if you have children you NEVER escape homework and projects.
When I was in school, I did my own homework and projects and yes, I hated every minute of time spent out of school on schoolwork, but I was very fortunate. I was educated at a time when homework was at a minimum and projects were once in a blue moon.
I am aware that today the level of work expected to kids spills out into family time and that is considered "normal." I guess it IS the new normal. But I think it is unfortunate.
There is much more to life than school - and if the American school system wasn't in such terrible shape, the parents defending it would have at least one point, but the fact is that NCLB is a nightmare and a known failure, "teaching to the test" and the prevalence of standardized testing above all else is not anything that I have ever heard an intelligent person say is a good thing for children . . .
Schools are failing despite all of the homework and meddlesome school politics . . . kids and adults are stressed to the max . . .our culture is materialistic (which I think relates to the objectification of children (as in the saying "Kids are our future," like they are some commodity . . . )
Some SAHM's are creating little monsters who will grow into big, entitled monsters . . .
I thank God my parents were mostly distracted and did not meddle in my life. I had lots of time for day dreaming, playing, having fun and having freedom from homework. I pity the little robots who have no lives outside of school . . . and the kinesthetic kids who need to move around and are not cut out for academics - they are doomed for failure in the current "academic" settings (not really academic, because standardized tests mean nothing in terms of learning) . . . It's just sad.
But what's sadder is that my views are in the minority and most parents are perfectly happy with the system the way it is.
Any expectations or standards only serve to break the spirit, don't you know? It is unfair to attempt to measure progress or learning.
Additionally anybody who manages to go far in life, exhibit personal creativity, make independent choices AND also participate in society within a framework of adherence to various rules, guidelines and standards is lambasted as being a conformist sheep, robot/automaton. Or something like that.
you get an A plus in your ability to create straw men. THREE GOLD STARS!!!!!!
Hell if I offer you an ice cream cone for it, perhaps I can convince you you don't naturally want to do it.
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