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He came home with homework in Kindergarden--assignments I had to help him with because he couldn't yet read the instructions. Half I didn't understand because I had a job and it would be 7:00 in the evening before we could sit down and do it. And sorry, but a 6-year-old doesn't remember what the teacher said to do 10 hours earlier that day.
My biggest peeve about it was that it established that homework was something "mom did". I had a horrible time trying to get him to do the work independently when he was finally old enough to do it.
Your school system sounds really poor. That was not my experience at ALL. 6 year olds are certainly not expected to remember assignments. And homework was NEVER something "mom did". My son came home with assignment sheets that were provided for each student. There was never any question of what needed to be done as it was explained in class. Honestly, my son had his homework done before I ever got home from work, even in first grade.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LoriBee62
Sorry, but you're wrong. The first hour is sorting through all the papers, unwrinkling everything stuffed in his backpack, trying to read the teacher's instructions, grilling my 6-year-old on what the teacher said we were supposed to do 10 HOURS EARLIER THAT DAY, and me trying to figure out the assignment. I could easily spend another hour on the internet trying to understand the subject because in kindergarten, anatomy is apparently now part of the standard curriculum, and my geology skills are a little rusty.
Again, I think you were saddled with either a poor teacher, or a poor school system.
There are good teachers and bad teachers no matter where you go, unless it is a private system that has the right to hire/fire outside the public system.
Our daughter was a very young kindergartener, her birthday only 3 days before the cutoff. I met with the principal before enrolling her (ironically she had previously been an administrator and started the gifted program in our district) and we agreed together that my daughter was ready for kindergarten. She knew her alphabet and had been reading simple phonetic books for over a year. Yes, she later tested as gifted, but she's not in the genius category either. So K-teacher #1 (seasoned teacher for over 15 years) tells me in October that my daughter is having significant problems in class (we're talking 2.5 hours for k-garten in our district) and that she is socially immature. Well, ok, she's younger than most of the kids, she's an only child, and she's an introvert. We also now know that she may display some traits that would qualify her these days as very high functioning on the autistic spectrum. But I digress. I decided to take a wait and see approach. In November I received a frantic call from the school secretary that my daughter was "missing" from the school. Hmmmmm...how did you lose my child? Well, she threw the macaroni necklace they were making down on the table, told the mommy helper she was bored, asked if she could use the restroom, and never returned. They checked the restroom, no. I suggested that she may have walked home and might have gone to the SAHM next door whose kids she played with. No, not there either. Then I suggested they search the library. Bingo! Slipped into the side door and was sitting on the floor reading. The teacher was furious. "We don't use 'bored' in my classroom!" Well, I found out later from a mom volunteer that this was about the 10th macaroni necklace of the year and it was only November! The teacher ended up not promoting our daughter to first grade.
I was ok with it at the time because if she had been born 4 days later we wouldn't even be having the conversation. Not wanting to put her back with same teacher, same curriulum, more boredom we opted to the school in the next zone over from us. She had this wonderful teacher who differentiated for every kid in the class. Some k-garten students were asked to point to a specific letter in a poem on the board, and my daughter would be asked to find the "two vowels go a walking." Awesome! My daughter loved school again.
First grade, went back to zoned school and have no choice in teachers as we were coming in essentially from out of the zone. We ended up with an older woman who had just started her teaching career. She openly showed her frustration to our daughter, who came home in tears on many days, and worse. The teacher suggested that we have our daughter tested for learning disabilities by the time the year was done. We had her tested...and she came up gifted without any learning disabilities.
Second grade, team taught, awesome, as they each played their strong points. They did also point out that our daughter seemed socially immature even though she was now the oldest student in the class. Well, some people are always socially immature I guess. She still is to this day. Or is that jsut being an introvert? I don't know. We never told them that our daughter was gifted (she was tested privately) and just asked that they "up the ante" when appropriate.
Third grade, wanted to seriously hurt that teacher. She figured that the kids should be able to remember their homework assignments and gave them no opportunity to write it down. So for those of you who had a difficult time figuring out homework, I feel your pain! This teacher also did not know our daughter was gifted. But as you can imagine, our daughter is a bit unconventional. One day they had a cornucopia to color and asked me if she could color the banana purple. Shoot, she's 9 years old. If she wants a purple banana in her picture, fine with me. It was an art project, not a science project. Well, the teacher flipped out. I got called in for a meeting, she was furious about the purple banana (apparently the other kids started to like purple bananas too!), I explained that I had approved the unique perspective. From then on our daughter was set aside in a reading group of one, usually told to read independently at a table in the back of the room while the other kids worked on stuff she already knew, according to the teacher. Well, ok. She read A LOT of books that year! Thank goodness for librarians!!!
Here's my take on bad 3rd grade teachers. At the time, the kids here got Iowa tested at the beginning of 3rd grade, CRT's and Iowa at the end of 3rd grade, and Iowa tested at the beginning of 4th grade. So there's a lot at stake for the 3rd grade teachers and they know it. That year was horrific. By the end of the year we ended up homeschooling and never looked back.
The teacher she was supposed to get for 4th grade called me up for a meeting at the beginning of the year to be sure I felt comfortable with the decision. She was very supportive, offered to help with any materials or worksheets we might need (she had taught multiple grades and loved to differentiate), but we stuck with the homeschooling choice.
Fast forward...daughter takes placement exams for college when she's 15 and scores high enough at the state university to test out of 100-level English and math. We enrolled her full time at the local community college instead (thought it would be a better transition with less stress) and then she entered the loacl university when she was 18 with all of the other neighborhood kids who had graduated in her chronological class. She finished her bachelors (almost 21), took a semester off, and entered grad school. She will graduate with her masters in May 2015. She is still an introvert. She is still socially immature. She has her close friends but she does not hang out in groups. She prefers when one or two friends comes to watch a movie and have some pizza vs the typical bonfires on the beach or hanging out at parties. She is a biologist so her work is independent research (thank god, no more group projects EVER!!!) and she is mostly happy.
She has rarely done real homework. In her public school they were required to read 20 minutes each day which she always exceeded because she loves to read. And we were lucky that the first Harry Potter book came out when she was entering first grade, I think. That series kept her busy all the way to high school! Sometimes there was a math practice sheet with 10 simple problems, diorama to be built, cereal box project. Homeschooling was easy because she loved to learn, when given the chance to go deep instead of broad. It also gave us the opportunity to let her explore her own areas of interest by going to museums, concerts, and traveling a bit more than we might have otherwise.
I'm not suggesting that everyone should homeschol. But if you choose a public school system then you are choosing to have your child taught to the slowest student's level. So volunteer in the room. It's not hard to spot the slow students. Then imagine that your child has to sit every day and wait until the slowest student "gets it" before the class can move on. So if your student comes home with undone seat work, maybe they were bored out of their mind and wandered off task. Maybe your student is in the slow group and needs additional time spent to "get it." And maybe they fall somewhere in between and have the skill to cope with the situation. Remember, if you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem. Find out what is going on and make it better.
Agreed. Forcing that much work upon kids early on will only make them hate school and learning.
The problem is all the politically-correct liberals who run the show. Same kind of people that suspend kids for making guns with their fingers. They are simply too deep in the system.
Wow, you figured it out. It's the libs! If it were real American in charge, you know, the ones that see the world through the filter of Fox News, the kids would certainly have less homework.
But I'm surprised you didn't blame Obama. You know you want to.
Agreed. Forcing that much work upon kids early on will only make them hate school and learning.
The problem is all the politically-correct liberals who run the show.
Little embarrassed for you. I guess you didn't know it was George W. Bush who implemented the "No Child Left Behind Act" which most educators feels imposes too much useless and arbitrary legislation on the schools and forces them to teach to the standardized testing instead of the needs of the students.
Whoops!
Oh wait. I get it. It's Obama's fault for not cancelling it, right?
Instruction sheets that heavily relied on the child reiterating what they discussed at school that morning. If you weren't there, you had little clue as to what was expected for the assignment. Things like, "Diagram the parts of the brain using the symbols we discussed in class." (What symbols? Kid doesn't know. That was 10 hours ago and being a 6-year-old, that might as well have been last century).
If it was, "Gather 5 fall leaves and bring to class tomorrow morning," I think I would have been smart enough to figure that out. But really, I'm done with school so I'm not looking for advice, nor am I looking for an assessment of my child. I only chimed in to let the OP know he/she wasn't alone.
I cannot even imagine a 6 year old being asked to diagram the parts of the brain. You say your kids are in college. This school they went to was totally developmentally inappropriate. If you are remembering this correctly, I am very surprised. In my kids school, *if* they were given that kind of assignment, there would have been a sheet with the symbols on it included, but I cannot imagine such an assignment in first grade.
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..
So what you are saying is that for some reason, you randomly discuss the differences in expectations and requests given by various ethnic groups to your teacher friends, when you personally have no ties to such information?
"Hey, Nayabone, did I tell you about the conferences with those studious, high functioning Asians? Man, no wonder they are taking over the world!"
You do realize that 'Asian children' encompasses literally hundreds of ethnic groups, ranging from Chinese to Indonesian, Pakistani to Japanese, Cambodian to Arab, a hundred different Indian groups, Iranians, Azerbaijani, Mongolian, Tibetan, and dozens more, don't you? And somehow, they 'ALL' want one thing - more homework.
Im sorry but this says more about the student then the teacher. When my 2nd grader is in this predicament its because she is unorganized and careless. Not the teacher. If anything it sounds like this child needs more consistent structure and accountability. Where I live the teacher sends a packet which has one page saying whats due each day and worksheets that go along with ita. The letterland assignments follow a daily routine,same every week. There is a math worksheet,and reading journal thats daily. My child is an average student and it usually takes around 30 min with my help. However, sometimes this same chuld will take over an hour . Frusterating because its usually her attitude not aptitude. The next day maybe its only 20 min and she does by herself. Drives me crazy.
First you say it says more about the student than the teacher, then you go on to expound on the virtues of the system used by YOUR child's teacher. Do you think their method is somehow the national standard? My children were team-taught since 1st grade, and each teacher handed out random worksheets, textbook assignments, and workbook assignments as the spirit moved them, with no consideration for what was required by the other 2 to 3 teachers in the team, and no thought as to the amount of time they added up to each night. When we complained at conferences, we were told we should stop after a certain amount of time (the amount varied by teacher), but the teachers graded EVERY SINGLE PIECE of homework, and if it was not done it was marked as an 'F', regardless of their assurances to the contrary.
Lori, if you need to spend an hour finding and straightening out random papers stuffed in your 6 year olds school bag then he probably has an organizational problem.
If you need to spend an hour on the internet trying to understand an assignment given to a 6 year old (probably to do independently) then you may have some type of problem.
Our children attended a language immersion school in our Midwestern city. Since most of the homework assignments were for the students to do independently, obviously the instructions were written for them to read, thus written in French. My husband and I could not read French, neither did the majority of the other parents, however I do not recall ever having problems with the homework given to our children. I also do not recall other parents complaining about not understanding the homework.
BTW, I used to occasionally babysit a child who attended the German Immersion School in our city. I needed to supervise his homework on several occasions when he was in Kindergarten and 1st grade. Yes, the directions were written in German and No, I can not read German, but I was easily able to figure out what he needed to do.
It just seems so unusual that so many posters are saying that they can't understand what their children need to do for elementary school homework, with directions written in English and input from their child. Could it be because of the switch to Common Core in some school districts? Or, what?
I'm very sorry, but I can't believe that your experiences in sending your child to a language immersion school can in any way compare to the normal public education system, used by average American students.
However, I would be interested to know where one finds such schools, in diverse languages, in the American Midwest. Along with your rationale in sending your children there. Are mathematics, English, and other essential subjects somehow easier to learn in a foreign language?
Lori, if you need to spend an hour finding and straightening out random papers stuffed in your 6 year olds school bag then he probably has an organizational problem.
If you need to spend an hour on the internet trying to understand an assignment given to a 6 year old (probably to do independently) then you may have some type of problem.
Our children attended a language immersion school in our Midwestern city. Since most of the homework assignments were for the students to do independently, obviously the instructions were written for them to read, thus written in French. My husband and I could not read French, neither did the majority of the other parents, however I do not recall ever having problems with the homework given to our children. I also do not recall other parents complaining about not understanding the homework.
BTW, I used to occasionally babysit a child who attended the German Immersion School in our city. I needed to supervise his homework on several occasions when he was in Kindergarten and 1st grade. Yes, the directions were written in German and No, I can not read German, but I was easily able to figure out what he needed to do.
It just seems so unusual that so many posters are saying that they can't understand what their children need to do for elementary school homework, with directions written in English and input from their child. Could it be because of the switch to Common Core in some school districts? Or, what?
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Originally Posted by rugrats2001
I'm very sorry, but I can't believe that your experiences in sending your child to a language immersion school can in any way compare to the normal public education system, used by average American students.
However, I would be interested to know where one finds such schools, in diverse languages, in the American Midwest. Along with your rationale in sending your children there. Are mathematics, English, and other essential subjects somehow easier to learn in a foreign language?
You missed my main point, which was homework, at all levels, is designed for the children to do not the parents. And also homework, especially at the lower levels is usually so self-explanatory that even when the directions are written in a language not spoken by the parent, the parent is able to assist if needed.
Many large cities have language immersion schools. We sent our children because it is much, much easier to learn a second language at a young age. Most schools of that type do everything, math, reading, spelling, writing, science, social studies in the immersion language. And these subjects would not be easier to learn just because they are in French, German, Spanish or another language.
Depending on the school, English reading/spelling/phonics/writing may be introduced in first or second grade and the school may spend 1/2 hour a day on that "subject". Sort of how an elementary school with a foreign language class would devote just a small part of the school day to the foreign language.
You missed my main point, which was homework, at all levels, is designed for the children to do not the parents. And also homework, especially at the lower levels is usually so self-explanatory that even when the directions are written in a language not spoken by the parent, the parent is able to assist if needed.
Many large cities have language immersion schools. We sent our children because it is much, much easier to learn a second language at a young age. Most schools of that type do everything, math, reading, spelling, writing, science, social studies in the immersion language. And these subjects would not be easier to learn just because they are in French, German, Spanish or another language.
Depending on the school, English reading/spelling/phonics/writing may be introduced in first or second grade and the school may spend 1/2 hour a day on that "subject". Sort of how an elementary school with a foreign language class would devote just a small part of the school day to the foreign language.
Ok, so back on track... I understand that homework SHOULD be designed for the children to do, not the parents. I also understand that your experiences with what are surely exceptional schools with extraordinary curriculums are in no way indicative of what is happening in the average school system in the lower 95% of educational systems.
I can assure you that there are school districts that operate very differently than yours. My 5th grade nephew is in a math class that is run like a college math class. The class period is spent discussing the problems of the previous day's homework, and he is expected to learn the basis of today's homework on his own, after school. Then apply it in the homework. This homework is graded just as a test would be, with the results weighed in with all other graded work. When my son was in middle school, he often had social studies (history) homework that would require researching over a dozen questions per night and then answer them in grammatically correct paragraphs. Misplace a comma? Forget a period? One point off a five point paragraph. 80% is a 'C' in that district. For a comma.
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