Homework over spring break (long)

wrote:

even if I have no clue of what Maudy Thursday is (something with
washing feet?).

Maundy Thursday is actually a disconnected Passover. It's in remembrance of the
Last Supper, the seder Jesus was at the night before the crucifixion, when he
changed around the blessing over the bread and wine to what Christians now use
as the communion service.

--Helen

"Robyn Kozierok" wrote in message
...

If it weren't also vacation week, I'd say that giving a week to do a
project, the last day of which was a holiday on which the library
would
be closed and many families would be having major holiday celebrations
would not necessarily be unreasonable. If you hadn't been out of the
country, presumably you wouldn't have been doing your library work on
the last day. So I doubt the library issue impacted many people.
Similarly, those who weren't travelling for the vacation could have
planned their time to complete the work before their holiday
celebration.

Hypothetically, if a teacher gives more than enough time to complete
the project, so that one wouldn't need to work on it every single day
to get it complete in time, then having that time include a day or two
when some children wouldn't be able to work on it, or do certain parts
of it (like the library visit) doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

In the situation you describe, it sounds like the project given was a
lot of work to expect students to complete in one week, so perhaps
my hypothetical doesn't apply. And of course, that doesn't even touch
the whole issue of giving students a BREAK from school/homework over
spring break!

Thanks for your perspective; I appreciate it, and you are right -- most
kids wouldn't have had any need to access a library on that last day.
For what it's worth, our kid worked on the project in question for an
*average* of maybe an hour to an hour-and-a-half a day...which I think
is a lot of time for a third grader to spend on homework, whether it's
over a break or not. And she did work on the report throughout the
break, BTW; she just couldn't do a bunch of the research work until we
were back in the U.S., which meant a lot of it was left for Sunday. This
was complicated by the fact that the two pages of self-evaluation
questions couldn't be completed until the rest of the report was done.

Though I've never spoken to the teacher about it, I also have had an
issue in the past with the amount of homework sometimes given on
weekdays. I think our family has a fairly typical schedule for the area
in which we live: Our daughter goes to before- and after-school care and
usually doesn't get home until 5 p.m. or later. We eat dinner around 6
p.m., and The Kid is supposed to be in bed by 8 p.m. And if she has
something scheduled, such as Girl Scouts or a school choir concert, that
can further cut into the time to complete assignments. If the teacher
would truly stick to the 10-minutes-of-homework-per-grade guideline
issued by the school, then it wouldn't be an problem, but she often
doesn't. I don't know if she just has high expectations of what the kids
should be able to achieve in a certain amount of time, has the
perception that these kids can do homework in the afternoon after
school, or what, exactly. It could get very stressful. Our daughter
suffered from writer's block in first and second grade, so the
overlongish writing assignments were often a real bear. This teacher is
great, over all; she is well respected, and she has been teaching
forever. I've never wanted to come forward as the one parent who
complained.

I really liked the idea someone presented (Kevin?) of homework
assignments given by the week...that would make time management a lot
easier.

beeswing

"Banty" wrote in message
...

I'm with ya on pretty much everything you've said up to this point.
But I don't
think anyone is obliged to make sure the day before a due date is a
good one for
research on a project. To make sure there is plenty of time and
opportunity for
a task from its assignment and due date, yes. To make sure the night
before has
things open for a last-minute scramble - no.

Banty (sorry, procrastinators!)

Okay, I withdaw my comment. It was only hard for us because we didn't
get back into town until Saturday, and Sunday was our only time to do
research. Well, that and the fact that the assignment was assigned over
the break in the first place.

beeswing

"Beeswing" wrote in message news:...

Okay, I withdaw my comment. It was only hard for us because we
didn't
get back into town until Saturday, and Sunday was our only time to do
research.

Correction: It was our only time to do *much of* the research...we did
have that used library book dated from the 1970s.... Either way, it
wasn't procrastination that was the problem.

Well, that and the fact that the assignment was assigned over
the break in the first place.

beeswing

I wrote:

Okay, I withdaw my comment.

withdraw, even.

beeswing

Aula wrote:

, and, as in this case, not expecting the child to turn it in on the due
date *and* expecting that that child's parents would know that they would be
given that grace.

Yup. That's what particularly irritated me. Personally, I'm a legalist, and
unfortunately in this case, so is my daughter. If the teacher says it's "due
Monday," it's due Monday, period. It's not "due Monday -- unless you have a
valid reason to turn it in later."

This particular teacher is not thinking of others much,
if I understood the situation correctly, or, perhaps, is not an effective
communicator.

Or just wasn't thinking.

beeswing

"beeswing" wrote in message
...
My husband caught our daughter's teacher on the phone this morning just as
The
Kid was about to hand her my note. Apparently the teacher had had no
expectation of The Kid turning her report on time, given the fact that we
were
going to be out of the country, but she'd never said as much. I don't know
whether to be relieved or angry.

Well, I'm angry on your behalf.

Honestly, without knowing the teacher, it sounds like BS to me. If it's for
real, then it was really irresponsible of her not to have told someone!

It just should never have been an issue anyway -- none of the kids should
have been sent home for vacation with a research project to do. Not at that
age. Beth

While it was good for our daughter to have the
push to get the work done reasonably promptly, the stress the false
deadline
had on all of us really wasn't necessary.

And I want my vacation back.

beeswing

beeswing

Beth Gallagher wrote:

Well, I'm angry on your behalf.

Thanks, Beth; we can be angry together, then. (Although I guess I'm more
irritated than truly angry. Irritated, or frustrated...something along those
lines.)

Honestly, without knowing the teacher, it sounds like BS to me. If it's for
real, then it was really irresponsible of her not to have told someone!

I dunno. I'm guessing she just didn't take enough time to think it through.

It just should never have been an issue anyway -- none of the kids should
have been sent home for vacation with a research project to do. Not at that
age. Beth

I agree. But this is my daughter's third (and last) year with this specific
teacher, and it's par for the course. Otherwise, I have to say, the teacher has
been terrific. And a good match for my daughter.

beeswing

"Beeswing" wrote in message
...
"Banty" wrote in message
...

I'm with ya on pretty much everything you've said up to this point.
But I don't
think anyone is obliged to make sure the day before a due date is a
good one for
research on a project. To make sure there is plenty of time and
opportunity for
a task from its assignment and due date, yes. To make sure the night
before has
things open for a last-minute scramble - no.

Banty (sorry, procrastinators!)

Okay, I withdaw my comment. It was only hard for us because we didn't
get back into town until Saturday, and Sunday was our only time to do
research. Well, that and the fact that the assignment was assigned over
the break in the first place.

It would be hard, well, impossible for us, too if we were in your situation.
Saturday we just don't write or research or do work, so Sunday *would* be
our main library day. And as a working parent whose kids are in camp during
school vacations, there is no way, as Dawn said, that we could fit in a
major project during those vacations.

I think the teacher needs to rethink her priorities and let vacations BE
vacations. They're not sabbaticals...they're vacations.

Marjorie

beeswing

In article , Beeswing says...



Though I've never spoken to the teacher about it, I also have had an
issue in the past with the amount of homework sometimes given on
weekdays. I think our family has a fairly typical schedule for the area
in which we live: Our daughter goes to before- and after-school care and
usually doesn't get home until 5 p.m. or later. We eat dinner around 6
p.m., and The Kid is supposed to be in bed by 8 p.m. And if she has
something scheduled, such as Girl Scouts or a school choir concert, that
can further cut into the time to complete assignments. If the teacher
would truly stick to the 10-minutes-of-homework-per-grade guideline
issued by the school, then it wouldn't be an problem, but she often
doesn't. I don't know if she just has high expectations of what the kids
should be able to achieve in a certain amount of time, has the
perception that these kids can do homework in the afternoon after
school, or what, exactly. It could get very stressful. Our daughter
suffered from writer's block in first and second grade, so the
overlongish writing assignments were often a real bear. This teacher is
great, over all; she is well respected, and she has been teaching
forever. I've never wanted to come forward as the one parent who
complained.

I really liked the idea someone presented (Kevin?) of homework
assignments given by the week...that would make time management a lot
easier.

My son's third grade teacher did that to some extent, and it greatly helped my
family. In our district, elementary school teachers avoid giving homework over
weekends because of the expectations of many families. Activities like Cub
Scouts also wanted to avoid weekends (team sports in my area seems to take
precedence over all...). But in my family, like yours, it's much more
disruptive to have the whole homework load dumped on the same four Monday
through Thursday nights that other activities take place, than it is to have
some work over the weekend. So when my son got part of his assignments on
Friday, the earliest due time being the following Tuesday, we could offload that
portion to the weekend, when *we* had the time to have him do it.

I've also been very frustrated about the amount of homework given in terms of
the time it takes. It seems that the 10 minutes per grade is taken to be 10
minutes performed by a wunderkind who sits right down with sharpened pencils and
supplies ready, focusses, and works right through it. (OK, not wunderkind -
there *are* some kids that do that... :-) But not my kid. He's just not into
the writing and drawing and the like that school wanted him to perform, and 10
minutes would easily stretch to an hour, although he's truly trying. Over the
years, we've come up with coping techniques to make things go easier, but
really, IMO especially in the early grades schoolwork should happen in school so
that the rest of growing up can happen at home and in the community. And if
not, then "10 minutes" of homework should be in units of kid-minutes.

Banty