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I support the educational world via my taxes even though I do not have children in the system. So every year I pay money for your children. Thus I am a customer of the system, a paying customer. I expect the system to prepare your children to be competitive in the business world. I expect this on a global scale as I know your children will compete with not only the other local kids in your area for jobs but also they will compete with the mass of green card holders and immigrants that are so interested in your children's future jobs.
I hold two degrees from a major university so I am aware of the education system, both grade and higher. In view of the tasks that your children will face I encourage you to double the homework and to add additional tasks to the basic homework program. Whatever you can do to increase their mind and talents. Search for sources to present the homework in different ways and approaches.
Yea, it is a lot of work.
The public educational system arguably does not prepare children to be "competitive in the business world" (whatever that means actually).
In the business world hardly any companies today hire workers right out of High School. In fact, the workers hired out of college are universally "trained on the job" at their occupation and hired at the bottom rung for such training.
This notion that the spelling/grammer, math, chemistry, biology, english lit, music, art, and history classes taught in grade school through High School do anything to prepare children for the business world or makes them more competitive Internationally is false; do you know why Offshore Outsourcing of White Collar jobs began 15 years ago? It has nothing to do with those folks being smarter or better at working, and instead has everything to do with the bottom line... they were and still are cheaper to hire and large corporations benefit greatly from Federal labor laws and corporate tax laws when they do so.
What really happened was that US political leaders signed into being laws favorable to corporations to outsource back in the 90s and as soon as 2000 rolled around a massive movement was made to take advantage of that to increase Corporate Profit. I was there for many such conversations/justification meetings, I know this happened. Today, no amount of memorization nor worksheet busy work at the grade school level will impact this. No increase of school year length will impact this. Lastly, no massive increase in assigned homework will impact this. When one graduates today from college with or without having all this invested after-school time, they will face this same harsh economic reality.
So now let's get back to reality, the real point of the public educational system is to turn out productive law-abiding citizens - that's it in a nutshell. What I wonder is what good is it to effectively lengthen the day that our children are going to school by sending them home with leftover "homework." It's not helping families for sure as parents who all pretty much work today come home and now need to worry about homework as well as all the typical evening activities needed to survive (put on dinner, clean, enjoy conversations with the family, etc). It's not aiding in the socialization of children with each other (they have a hell of a lot less time to play together). It's not enabling the children to pursue organized extracurricular activities (less time is available).
I hardly ever brought home more than 15 minutes of homework growing up, that's a fact (I was there). Yet I did well in school, went to college, spent years pursuing multiple degrees, and landed a corporate "dream job" which in actuality was pretty lame in retrospect (except for the paycheck). My children have a much more stressful school existence today than I ever had. What are these changes in the amount of daily homework thus really accomplishing?
First thing I would do is collect the information to sort out fact from fiction. I would keep a log for 2 weeks on each child and record every assignment. Including how long it took to do the work. After the 2 weeks is up I would take a look at the logs and if the amount of work was really excessive I would make an appointment with the school to discuss it. Perhaps the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing and collectively they are assigning too much.
Another thing you can do is teach them a skill that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. Start teaching them to multitask. There is much wasted time in school. Waiting. Things like taking attendance, disciplinary matters, etc. Passing out papers. When the teacher is not teaching, they need to be working on their assignments. Even if all they do is scan through the assignment and write down all the answers they know without doing any research. Some part of the work should be done by the time they get home. Teach them to keep all their assignments in one folder they can carry with them. Spelling/vocabulary words should be placed in the folder every week.
The principal was on the opinion that "we" have to give "her" a chance! Really? Last time we spoke to her she clearly expressed that what each individual child does is not her concern, and she is only interested in the entire class as a whole. Completely disregarding that if you put ten perfectly non issue children in the same class, each one will learn something at a different pace! Teachers don't seem to comprehend that.
She does NOT care, or make eye contact when we speak! I can't talk to someone who looks above my head when I talk, while she's shorter than me!
I'm sorry, in my state a child must be in a special education program to receive a related service such as OT or PT, and I assumed that was typical in other states. Whether or not your son is receiving OT through the school district, the OT still may be able to assist in helping your son's teacher understand that he needs homework modification (if he does) to do less writing or a different type of writing or doing it on a computer or do fewer math problems or whatever.
Is she a brand new teacher? Maybe, the principal is right. I once worked with someone who I thought was so bad at what they did, potentially even harmful, that I wrote a letter of concern to my boss. That was the only time that I ever did that in my entire life. My boss told me to "give him a chance". As it turned out he was just having difficulty adjusting to working in a public school setting compared to an educational setting based in a medical facility. After a few months I realized that I was wrong in my initial perceptions and he was really outstanding in what he did. I worked very closely with him for over a decade and really regretted how I had originally misjudged him.
However, maybe your principal is wrong. In that case, you and the other parents should band together to insist that he helps her improve her skills. Be specific in your examples, such as saving poorly written & unclear homework assignments. Perhaps, administration is already aware of her deficits and she is working to improve them.
Regarding preschool or kindergarten homework, it is important to clarify exactly what is meant by "homework". Our 4K/Junior Kindergarten teachers used to give a mini-magnifying glass to each student in the fall and each week they would be letter detectives at home. The students would search for the letter of the week around the house in magazines, newspapers, junk mail, envelopes or old notices/newsletters from school. They would cut out the letters (of course with parental approval), paste them on a piece of paper that was decorated all around with that letter in various easy to read fonts, and return it to school as weekly homework. The kids loved it and the parents loved it.
The above homework is much different than expecting four year olds to do worksheets or practice certain skills every night for a long period of time.
My son comes home with a homework packet every Monday that is due Friday. Probably 12-15 worksheets plus 8 pages in the math book. Also you're supposed to do flash cards with the week's sight words but I don't do that. He is in Kindergarten!
Having a couple of close friends who are school teachers, they tell me that without exception, the parents of the Asian children are constantly demanding more homework. It's a recurring theme when ever they have conferences, "please give my children more homework". They are demanding it, you are complaining about it.
Guess what ethnicity has the higher rate of success in future employment?? Every profession that requires a higher level of education and intelligence, and thus far more financial gain, are usually a large % of Asians..
Doctors, scientists, engineers, the list goes on and on..
Regarding preschool or kindergarten homework, it is important to clarify exactly what is meant by "homework". Our 4K/Junior Kindergarten teachers used to give a mini-magnifying glass to each student in the fall and each week they would be letter detectives at home. The students would search for the letter of the week around the house in magazines, newspapers, junk mail, envelopes or old notices/newsletters from school. They would cut out the letters (of course with parental approval), paste them on a piece of paper that was decorated all around with that letter in various easy to read fonts, and return it to school as weekly homework. The kids loved it and the parents loved it.
The above homework is much different than expecting four year olds to do worksheets or practice certain skills every night for a long period of time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redrunner+2
My son comes home with a homework packet every Monday that is due Friday. Probably 12-15 worksheets plus 8 pages in the math book. Also you're supposed to do flash cards with the week's sight words but I don't do that. He is in Kindergarten!
At first glance that does seem like a lot of homework for a Kindergartener.
Even if the worksheets have a lot of pictures and only a few problems or things to do on each page, and take less than 5 minutes each to do, that is 100 to 115 minutes per week, divided by four nights is 25 to 30 minutes a night. That would not be acceptable in the school districts in my area.
Part of the problem is that the curriculum has changed so much in recent years. What used to be 1st grade goals and expectations are now Kindergarten expectations (or even Junior Kindergarten expectations).
If parents are unhappy about the amount of homework they need to discuss it with the teachers first, and then the principals. If parents are still unhappy take your questions and complaints to the school board.
My son had no homework in PreK, only had homework in K if he didn't finish his class work, and gets about 15 minutes every Monday-Thursday now that he's in 1st grade. He also has a spelling packet that has 5 sections. It comes home on Monday and must be handed in on Friday. He has to do 20 minutes of online math per week. We have to read every night (we do that anyway). It's not much and doesn't take much time, but sometimes I just want him to play. He's been in school for 7.5 hours, can't he just run around?
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