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CaliTerp - Sorry, but I still think homework is between the student and the teacher. As mentioned before, math is taught quite different then the way I learned it and if I taught my son to solve problems the way that's familiar to me, he would get them marked off for the process part during a test, and frankly I think that would be even more confusing. If a student doesn't understand math homework, (talking MS and HS here) he should be coming in to the teacher before or after school. That is part of the teachers job - teaching the academic subjects. A parents job is to teach them who to go to for help and to be comfortable going to their teachers.
Besides, my son usually finishes his homework around 11:30 - I'm usually in bed!
My daughters school does not allow students in the buildind until the 1st bell rings. After school most kids rush to get on the bus. Things may change as my daughter gets old, but for now I would either learn how to do the math her way or send the teacher an email asking if she could recomend an extra workbook I could get or a web site to go to get extra help. My daughters education is too important to me to leave up to complete strangers. A teacher has about 28 students in a class and teaches about 5-6 classes a day. I will do all I can to help. My daughter is very bright. She would gets at least a B with no help from me. But I am trying to teach her to do more than the minimim, to push a little harder. If she can't find the answer in her text I want her to research it on the internet or another referance book we have. I expect more than her teachers. While they may be happy with the kids getting B's and C's I am not. But if a parent is happy with that I can see why they would see no reason to help wih homework.
I don't know how easy it would be to back off at helping with homework when they are older if there is so much help when they are younger. For those of you that have older children and sat with their kids and actually reviewed the homework everyday with your kids, when did you stop doing that? Do you think the kids get that you just want to help them and not that you think they are incapable of doing their homework by themselves?
There came a point with my older children when I really had very little reason to help-- they were doing fine. That was when I started asking "do you need me to look at that before you turn it in?" Sometimes they'd say yes, sometimes no. Eventually, I stopped asking (I think that was sometime later in middle school), and they'd let me know if they wanted help.
One daughter recently showed me her dissertation outline and asked me to beta-read it for her, but at this point it's because I'm a person with good editing skills who thinks her area of study is fascinating, not Mommy-checking-homework.
CaliTerp - Sorry, but I still think homework is between the student and the teacher. As mentioned before, math is taught quite different then the way I learned it and if I taught my son to solve problems the way that's familiar to me, he would get them marked off for the process part during a test, and frankly I think that would be even more confusing. If a student doesn't understand math homework, (talking MS and HS here) he should be coming in to the teacher before or after school. That is part of the teachers job - teaching the academic subjects. A parents job is to teach them who to go to for help and to be comfortable going to their teachers.
Besides, my son usually finishes his homework around 11:30 - I'm usually in bed!
If your son is graded on the process and not the answer, I'd be curious what the teacher's reasoning is. Any halfway decent math teacher understands that there are multiple ways to solve a problem. As long as the logic is correct, it should not matter what method is used to solve an equation.
Due to bus schedules, the only time my students can come in for tutoring is 1 hour a week when buses run late. An hour a week is hardly enough time to make up a subject if they're confused. In the mean time, they've gone 2-3 days lost in the classroom, and now are further behind. I cannot stop pushing forward if 2-3 kids in the class haven't mastered a topic yet.
I teach as much as I possibly can fit into a class period. If the students don't get it, I do my best to offer it to them a second time, a different way, or break it down more simply. At some point though, responsibility falls to the parent to step up and help their child succeed alongside the teacher.
I guess I don't see what the negative to helping your son or daughter with their homework is. On the plus side, they'll learn the material better, have someone to ask questions to immediately instead of waiting until the next day to ask the teacher, and they won't practice bad habits by doing an entire problem set incorrectly. On the negative side...what? Mom or dad has to relearn the material?
Cali Terp - I'm not really talking from current experience, my son is in Calculus. I haven't been able to help him with math for a good five years. The last math I understood was Algebra and that was a loooong time ago. English question, history question? I'm there. Too bad those were subjects that my kids really didn't need help with. Re-learn the math? I never even had the math they had/have.
Every single one of my kids teachers starting in 6th grade has offered before school or after school help for kids that are struggling. I guess we are lucky to be in a district where that works.
Are we talking younger grades here, or older? I'm sure a lot of people disagree with me here, but I STRONGLY oppose homework in the younger grades (outside of special projects and things like that). Why do kids need to do daily drilling and worksheets (or whatever it is they're doing) at home? Aren't the kids learning -- and practicing -- this stuff DURING the school day? I can understand why special projects can and should be assigned for kids to do at home, and I think parents should be supportive of that (discussing it, finding materials, encouraging further exploration, and overall expressing interest in what's going on), but there's still no reason for the parent to do the work. And at the high school level, well, my math skills are rusty and I sure wouldn't trust myself to teach or correct any advanced algebra or calculus classes, and the other types of classes -- writing of essays, etc. -- I don't think kids would need or want a parent's editing eye.
To start at the top of your post, my kids had a 6th grade math teacher who said, "proficiency takes practice, therefore, I assign 20 minutes homework a night". This was Mon-Thurs, none on the weekends. The same can be said for reading, and spelling in the youger grades as well.
As many have said, math IS taught differently than when we were in school. My DH, a PhD physicist did the problems differently than my kids were taught. He finally told them to go talk to their teachers, which was probably the best thing anyway.
One area where I did help a bit was with writing, especially with my older one. She claimed some concepts just weren't taught in class, e.g. use the same verb tense throughout, though I can't verify that. Anyway, she used my help for a while, but soon became proficient herself. This was middle school to early high school. Needless to say, she didn't ask me for help in college. She was in Minnesota, I was in Colorado.
Parents provide a place for children to do their homework. Your home should be *homework friendly.* You need to figure out what works best for your child though. One child may need a very quiet room, another may do better with music playing. Most children need a place with little action, so younger siblings may need to be in a different room and the tv should definitely be off. The homework space should have adequate lighting.
Parents provide a set amount of time for children to do homework. If they do not have any homework that day, they must use that time to study something. The homework time can be negotiated and may be different on different days due to extra curricular activities, but there should be a set time every day to sit down and do the work.
Parents provide supervision for the child to get his materials together. This should become a habit with the child. When doing homework, all the materials s/he needs should be available at the homework space. If your child is hungry, a snack might be a good idea either before, during or directly after the homework time.
Parents oversee the homework time and are available to help *if* asked. When helping, parents ask leading questions rather than correcting wrong answers. Parents should not worry about the correct answers so much as the process.
The idea is to make the homework *the child's* responsibility. Empower your child to take control of his own learning. You may have to explain the rules to your child at first, but eventually, they become ingrained.
I can envision some negatives: what about parents who think they know all the answers? Parents who get overly involved? Parents who don't know how to back off? Helping if needed is great, but the average student shouldn't need or want their parents hovering over them overseeing their work. And while much of the discussion here has centered around math, there are are other subjects, too; I'm not a teacher, but I can't imagine as a teacher wanting a parent to be editing his or her student's English or history papers, for example. For one thing, many parents don't know the content all that well themselves, and haven't been in the classroom to be a part of the discussions, and probably haven't read all the materials, either; interference in some of those cases could do more harm than good. That doesn't mean that the parent shouldn't or can't be involved, but in those subjects it doesn't need to be through the actual oversight of the homework. Better to discuss it over dinner or by doing something on the weekend relating to the topic at hand.
I guess what I'm getting at is that it's not always a given that a parent helping with homework, especially in the upper grades, is actually going to help the student learn the material better. I think there are more constructive ways in which a parent can be supportive and involved. I fully acknowledge that in some cases parents do need to take an active role, but I find the increasing trend towards assuming that ALL students require such hands-on oversight is troubling.
Some people also seem to hold the viewpoint that a parent who doesn't actively check homework is okay with mediocre work; I think that's also a big stretch, and isn't giving students (or their parents!) the benefit of the doubt. Some of us feel that less direct oversight (unless needed) gives the students MORE, not less, incentive to master the material -- not because their parents are standing there watching, but because they themselves have taken ownership for their own work and for their own learning. There are ways to encourage your kids to push themselves and work to their highest potential besides overseeing their homework. Not all kids will do that, of course, but I wish there were fewer people automatically assuming that kids will inherently be unwilling or unable to rise to the occasion. Or, especially for the older kids, have the ability and willingness to seek out help on their own when they need it (or at least first have the chance to correct any problems themselves before the parents step in to take control of the situation).
One should expect that the homework fits what was studied in class, and that the answers could be found in the textbook or whatever resources the child is using.
Take the example of history. If a child is supposed to read a section of the textbook and answer questions, one would expect the answers to be in the text or whatever supplementary materials were assigned. Of course, this does not apply to a research project.
For kids of all ages, I think the parent's responsibility should be to provide the workspace, nana did a good job with that; and assign a time, which, again as nana says, can be flexible. Actually, I agree with everything nana said re: leading questions and so forth.
I do not think it's the parent's responsibility to check the work, or 'make' the kid correct his/her mistakes. It's better for the teacher to know that "Johnny doesn't get it" instead of finding out far after the fact. If the kid says s/he is done, so be it. When you go to parent-teacher conferences, you'll find out if your kid is handing in all his/her homework, projects, etc. Then it's time to talk to your kid about missing assignments.
If your son is graded on the process and not the answer, I'd be curious what the teacher's reasoning is. Any halfway decent math teacher understands that there are multiple ways to solve a problem. As long as the logic is correct, it should not matter what method is used to solve an equation.
Due to bus schedules, the only time my students can come in for tutoring is 1 hour a week when buses run late. An hour a week is hardly enough time to make up a subject if they're confused. In the mean time, they've gone 2-3 days lost in the classroom, and now are further behind. I cannot stop pushing forward if 2-3 kids in the class haven't mastered a topic yet.
I teach as much as I possibly can fit into a class period. If the students don't get it, I do my best to offer it to them a second time, a different way, or break it down more simply. At some point though, responsibility falls to the parent to step up and help their child succeed alongside the teacher.
I guess I don't see what the negative to helping your son or daughter with their homework is. On the plus side, they'll learn the material better, have someone to ask questions to immediately instead of waiting until the next day to ask the teacher, and they won't practice bad habits by doing an entire problem set incorrectly. On the negative side...what? Mom or dad has to relearn the material?
Our teachers are in the building a hour before school and at LEAST an hour after school-most are there for about 2 1/2 hours after school. They ALL have time to come in an get help as needed. Many teachers offer Saturday sessions to prep for AP tests too. Our school has buses at 5:00 for those that need a ride home but most kids can walk even if that wasn't offered. We have 5 VERY large computer labs for kids that don't have computers at home, well over 200 computers for kids to use at school. If kids need extra help beyond this, I haven't heard of a teacher yet that has turned anyone down. This is the reason why our schools are tops in the nation.
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