Time Article - What Teachers Hate about Parents (x-posted)

Bruce Bridgman and Jeanne Yang wrote in
message ...
"Banty" wrote in message
...

The other problem was that Weekends Were Sacred. No
homework on weekends,
[snip]
I was wondering about this. DD doesn't get homework on
Fridays but I assumed it was because she's only in 2nd grade.
You mean this is true for all grades? [..]

Not in our school district, nor the others around us. Starting around
4th grade, the kids start getting assignments on the weekend -- nothing
heavy -- that will prep them for the coming week. It's not really
make-work but it feels like it some times.

The Ranger

Ericka Kammerer wrote:

At 10yo, 1.5 hours of homework still sounds excessive
to me. I think an hour is more than enough on top of seven
hours of school.

I guess I don't view reading as "homework." It's relaxation/unwind
time. When they were younger, this time was much shorter - like, 5
minutes - and slowly increased. Usually they read longer than that on
their own accord.



That's great that she is thriving on this, but while
I certainly hope DS1 will still be enjoying academics and
school in middle school, I also hope that he will continue
to enjoy some things outside of school. It would be one
thing if his talents and interests just happened to be all
academic, but as he has demonstrated other talents and
interests as well, I think it would be a shame for him
to have to give them up in order to devote more than 50 hours
a week to academics. Heck, I maintained a heavy courseload
through college, graduated with honors, and didn't have to
put in much more than that! (Good thing, too, since I had
to work.)

Well, DD12 also plays violin, swims, and skis. Last year she managed a
similar schedule while also playing the lead in the school play. She
has been wanting to add something to her schedule, now that we're half
way through the year, and feels like she has a handle on her time.
Probably a hip-hop class. She doesn't feel overscheduled.

As for other activities, we do tons of things as a family on a regular
basis, including going to plays, art galleries, museums, lectures, etc.
Actually, sometimes I feel myself downplaying how much of this we do
during the week, because I don't want people thinking I'm somehow a bad
mother dragging my kids around town on a school night. The truth is we
average going out one school night per week to something educational
and interesting to broaden their horizons, plus maybe a visit to a
museum on Saturday, a play on a Saturday night, and perhaps a dance
show on Sunday afternoon.

I have no fear that she's not well rounded. :-)


Kindergarteners can manage their homework themselves?
They are able to plan their lives so that they have time to
do their homework? Or are parents creating the time and space
for them to be successful with their homework? Most kindergarteners
can't even read a calendar well, much less have much control over
their schedule or providing the resources necessary to get their
homework done.

Well, sure, in K the kids need more prompting. You set up a place to do
the homework. You establish a time for homework. You have all the tools
they need, then you sit them down, and tell them, "Fifteen minutes."
You make yourself busy for 15 minutes. Then you come over and sign the
homework sheet.

As they progress, it changes and evolves at every grade. By 5th, I
couldn't tell you what my kids have assigned for the night. They could
tell me if I ask, however, because they've got it all neatly written
out in their planners, with due dates and check marks next to the items
they've completed.

The only logic to it is the theory that one is
establishing a *habit* of doing homework every single
day (ideally same time, same place) so that it sticks
because That's the Way It's Always Been. Personally,
I don't think that holds a whole lot of water. DH
didn't get up and shower every morning as a 4yo to
make sure he'd be in the habit by the time he had to
in order not to offend passers by with his unwashed
self, yet that habit is so engrained that I shudder
to think how he'd function without his morning dose
of hot water.

:-)

The end result is that DD12, now in middle school, is
ultra-organized,
self-motivated and a fabulous time manager. DD10 is getting there.
I
think by age 12 she will *also* be there.

But I rather suspect they could have had practically
no homework for early elementary and could still be at the
same place by now.

Could be. Hard for me to say.

Similarly, you can start a child on
piano at 4yo or at 7yo, but by the time they're 9yo you
probably can't tell the difference (except that you will
burn out some of the 4yos due to sheer frustration before
they even get to be 9yo piano players).

True.

jen

Ericka Kammerer wrote in message
...
The Ranger wrote:
That's the benefit of computers and word processing
programs.
[snip]
While my son prefers keyboarding to handwriting, that's
not the issue. Writing is hard for him, and it's coming up
with the words and the structure that takes time for him, more
so than writing things down.

Daughter-units Alpha and Beta are no different.

I was taught to use an outline to help organize my thoughts. My Sainted
Mother(tm) would sit and quiz me orally about a topic, bless her
Editor's Heart, like I was talking to one of my friends about the
subject until the outline was fleshed out with Who, What, When, Where,
Why, How, and the topic/theme sentence was formed. I use the same
technique with both daughter-units. They are now able to produce a
finished draft on their own in about 40 minutes.

Someone mentioned oral-dictation software? That might be just the key
for him to realize how much fun free-form writing can be.

The Ranger

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
toto wrote:
* grades 1-3—one to three assignments a week, each
lasting no more than 15 minutes.
* grades 4-6—two to four assignments a week, each
lasting 15-45 minutes.
* grades 7-9—three to five assignments a week, each
lasting 45-75 minutes.
* grades 10-12—four to five assignments a week, each
lasting 75 to 120 minutes.

HAH! Generally accepted, where? Academia? From
what I hear from other parents, our school's guidelines
are considered pretty low, and they'd stack up to yours
as follows:

Yours Ours

1-3 15-45 min/week 40-120 min/week
4-6 30-180 min/week 160-360 min/week

Ha, I'll see you and raise you:

K 60 min/week (15 min. per night, 4 night per week)
1-2 60-180 min/week

Julian, in second grade, has 60 minutes per week of reading aloud to do each
week. Getting him to do it was like pulling teeth. I finally stopped making
him read it aloud and now he quite happily and of his own volition reads for
well over 60 minutes per week (and a much greater amount, as well). This was
a case where treating it as "homework" was making something that *ought to
be* pleasurable into a chore. I'm glad I wised up on that one.

If I stopped considering his 60 minutes per week, the amount of homework he
has would be eminently reasonable (two worksheets per week, each taking
about 20 minutes if he applies himself) as long as we didn't consider the
monthly "sharing projects". But those sharing projects are killers. Last
month, he had to do a report on an animal complete with a diorama (which,
according to the teacher's directions, was to "look as though the animal is
in its habitat). If you think any of the second graders actually did their
own dioramas, you've got another thing coming! And I don't even want to
think about how much time my husband spent helping Julian on that one. This
month, it was a poster on a famous black American. That one wasn't quite so
bad from the perspective of the kids being able to do most of the work
themselves, but it still took quite a bit of work (I'd estimate it added two
hours to our homework load over the last two weeks).

But I've already complained about the homework at my school. I feel it's
*extremely* excessive (and is *very* difficult for my daughter, whose
processing delays and fine motor issues along with a natural tendency to
work very slowly and deliberately mean it takes her twice as long as anyone
else to complete just about anything).
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Mr. Congeniality (7), the Diva (5) and the Race Car Fanatic (almost
3)

I have PMS and ESP...I'm the bitch who knows everything! (T-shirt slogan)

shinypenny wrote:

Ericka Kammerer wrote:


At 10yo, 1.5 hours of homework still sounds excessive
to me. I think an hour is more than enough on top of seven
hours of school.


I guess I don't view reading as "homework." It's relaxation/unwind
time. When they were younger, this time was much shorter - like, 5
minutes - and slowly increased. Usually they read longer than that on
their own accord.

It's homework to me if you still have to do it before
you can go to sleep whether you're tired and it's past your
bedtime or not ;-) DS1 likes to read for pleasure, and will
generally read any evening he has time before bed. Just try
to get an exhausted kid to stay awake to read for 30 min. when
he wants nothing more than to fall asleep. Fortunately, that's
a good thing to do in the morning since there's a finite
amount of time involved.

As for other activities, we do tons of things as a family on a regular
basis, including going to plays, art galleries, museums, lectures, etc.
Actually, sometimes I feel myself downplaying how much of this we do
during the week, because I don't want people thinking I'm somehow a bad
mother dragging my kids around town on a school night.

I think if it works for your family, that's great. Like
I said, my kids seem to have greater than average need for sleep,
so we can't risk late bedtimes for fun things on school nights :-(
It just leads to a very cranky and unproductive boy the next day.
I'd *love* to be able to take DS1 out to more concerts, but if
they don't have a matinee, we don't go. He'd be snoring in the
seat ;-)

Best wishes,
Ericka

"Banty" wrote in message
...

The other problem was that Weekends Were Sacred. No homework on weekends,
when
our schedule was more relaxed and things like writing could be broken up
and
made more pleasant. It was all stacked onto Mon. - Thur. AND Scouts had
to be
some night Mon. - Thur. AND band rehersals and concerts had to be some
night
Mon. Thur. The after school program was iffy regarding homework time and
environment, so we'd often have four overstuffed evenings, a real tired
kid on
Fridays, and lots of free time on weekends. Well bully for the weekend,
and we
would always plan bigger homework projects for then, but didn't make sense
for
our family and it made school kind of miserable.

We never minded weekend homework, or, better yet, a project assignment which
we could someohow turn into a family outing. In the 6th grade my sons
teacher thought that was such a good idea that she sent home lists of
relavan toutings.

*Some* teachers are amenable to giving assignments due Tuesday or
Wednesday the
previous Friday, most aren't.

Some teachers flatly refuse to accommodate any requests.

When we asked for it, they made it sound like they never taught the subject
before and were going to lock themselves away because they needed the entire
weekend to plan.

The Ranger wrote:

Ericka Kammerer wrote in message
...

While my son prefers keyboarding to handwriting, that's
not the issue. Writing is hard for him, and it's coming up
with the words and the structure that takes time for him, more
so than writing things down.


Daughter-units Alpha and Beta are no different.

I was taught to use an outline to help organize my thoughts. My Sainted
Mother(tm) would sit and quiz me orally about a topic, bless her
Editor's Heart, like I was talking to one of my friends about the
subject until the outline was fleshed out with Who, What, When, Where,
Why, How, and the topic/theme sentence was formed. I use the same
technique with both daughter-units. They are now able to produce a
finished draft on their own in about 40 minutes.

Someone mentioned oral-dictation software? That might be just the key
for him to realize how much fun free-form writing can be.

We've been around the block a few times--he has issues
with almost every step, so each thing helps a bit but isn't a
silver bullet. We are still nowhere near being able to get a
finished draft in 40 minutes, though. The process of discussing
the topic to elicit ideas to outline can take longer than that,
even when he knows the material well :-(

Best wishes,
Ericka

"The Ranger" wrote in message
...
Ericka Kammerer wrote in message
...
toto wrote:
On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 14:05:31 -0500, Ericka Kammerer
wrote:
Well, how the heck am I supposed to do that if
there's only one night to produce a clean draft of
an essay?

Are you sure the teacher isn't looking at the homework
as a rough draft that can be edited in class?

Yep. It's made clear what level of editing is expected.
If it's specifically *writing* homework, there probably
will be time for edits and drafts between homework and
classwork, but she doesn't bat an eyelash at assigning
an essay for homework in *another* subject, where
the night's homework is the one and only draft of the
paper and it's expected to be of reasonable quality.

That's the benefit of computers and word processing programs.
Daughter-unit Beta is writing multiple essays this year in disparate
topics and subjects. I made sure the teacher understood that each essay
would be coming in printed from a laser printer. He didn't have a
problem with that. In fact he asked the rest of the class to make sure
they turned in their essays printed from the computer to help with ease
of reading (most are still writing using Kinder-glyphs and crayons for
handwriting). Only two kids took him up on it (because their parents
forced them!) The other 32 students use their computers to instant
message and play games! Using it for what it was designed is a totally
alien concept. shakes head

My son does everything by computer, except eat lunch and play wheelchair
basketball. Each desk in his school has a built in laptop and the teacher
can display each students work on a master screen. It gets really cute when
the teacher displays the instant messaging....

In article .com,
"shinypenny" wrote:

I don't ever remember having ANY homework until I hit junior high. The
world has certainly changed. But, I have come to believe it's not such
a bad thing. I am amazed that my kids can handle it, and amazed at how
much they know at this age, compared to what I knew at that age!!

I disagree; I think homework earlier than 4th or 5th grade is just
Wrong. There are other educational experts who agree with this, though
I can't cite names without a searching -- the reading I did was some
time ago.

There is absolutely NO evidence that homework for those younger than 10
helps in any way. DD1 just learned to HATE homework in second grade,
when there was way too much of it (and she had an evil teacher;
seriously -- she was finally fired two years later), and she never
really recovered from that. I think if she'd waited until 5th grade for
homework, it would have been a different story.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

snip
I disagree; I think homework earlier than 4th or 5th grade is just
Wrong. There are other educational experts who agree with this,
though
I can't cite names without a searching -- the reading I did was some
time ago.

There is absolutely NO evidence that homework for those younger than
10
helps in any way. DD1 just learned to HATE homework in second grade,

when there was way too much of it (and she had an evil teacher;
seriously -- she was finally fired two years later), and she never
really recovered from that. I think if she'd waited until 5th grade
for
homework, it would have been a different story.

I'm glad someone else said this . . . I don't remember having homework
till junior high school. From then on, it was usually 1-2 hours *total*
per evening, mostly either assignments or papers to be written at home.
My mom teaches primary school (K-9), and only the 6 or 7-9s get
homework, IIRC.

If you like, I can ask my dad about the "experts'" opinions on this.
He's a career teacher-administrator with an MEd in special education
and learning disabilities. He's probably done a fair bit of reading on
the issue, as well as having formed opinions from a lifetime of
experience.

Melania
Mom to Joffre (Jan 11, 2003)
and #2 (edd May 21, 2005)
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you
care