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#1
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Homework over spring break (long)
Over spring break, the students in our daughter's third grade class were tasked
with writing a report on a country. The Kid has been to Mexico several times, so she chose to do hers on Mexico. The report consists of about 20 pages of worksheets asking for information such as population details, history, currency, national bird, national anthem, coat of arms, and so on...the usual. The trouble is most of this required that The Kid be able to do research, and, over break, we were going to *be* in Mexico, where there isn't cheap or easy access to the internet or multitudes of books. The Kid got the assignment shortly before we left, and it wasn't practical to go to the library on such short notice or to comb the internet (nor to pack stacks of materials, even if we had quickly found the information to bring with us). We did bring our guidebook, but that's all we had handy. We were gone from Saturday to Saturday. While we were there, The Kid worked on the report almost every day, doing as much as she could with the limited materials she had. (We even went to the tiny "Gringo bookshop" to find an old, used, library book about Mexico.) Still, she's left with quite a few pages that are incomplete. We got home last night, and she's worked a good part of today on it. Right now, though, she's sleeping...she's too tired from her trip to continue to do homework. Tomorrow she goes back to school, and the report is due. This teacher can be strict and by the book, and honestly, The Kid is very rigid (so she's not likely to accept any alternative that doesn't originate with the teacher). The Kid says that she told the teacher before she left that she might not be able to complete the report on time because she was going to be in Mexico, and the teacher wasn't sympathetic. (Admittedly, I take what our daughter says with a grain of salt.) I chose not talk to the teacher about the report before we left because that, to me, would have implied that we weren't going to take a fair crack at getting our daughter to do it. With today being Easter, we won't be able to speak to the teacher before The Kid goes to class tomorrow, sans completed report. The Kid is justifiably upset. My husband and I personally feel that she did the best she could, given the situation; we really don't feel it would have been right (or possible, even) to push her much harder. I believe in meeting deadlines, and I'm not sure it's right to ask for or expect an extension for our kid; but on the other hand, obviously our daughter learned a lot about Mexico *in Mexico*, whether or not she was able to complete all the worksheet pages in time. As a totally irrelevant aside: Personally, I'm frustrated that my family wasn't able to truly go on vacation...we had to bring several hours of homework and the associated homework battles with us. I feel that kids and families should get a real *break* for spring break, et al. Even if kids aren't doing anything as radical as going out of the country, breaks are often times they spend busy with family, which I think is at least equally important to kids as academics. I'd certainly be unwilling to bring work from my job with me to do on vacation, and it seems to me that kids need vacations as much as any of us. But that's neither here nor there, and it didn't stop me from making The Kid work on her report. So what should we do? I think we'll have to ask our daughter to turn in the unfinished report, along with the printouts of the national anthem, national bird, and such -- part of the information she doesn't have time left to transfer to the worksheet. Since that's not what the assignment asks for, The Kid may well balk. Obviously, we'll call the teacher tomorrow and talk with her directly. I pretty much expect that the teacher will work with us, but I'm concerned about The Kid, if for some reason she doesn't. The Kid is an "A" student who is devastated by the idea that she might get an incomplete. Personally, I think that she learned more about Mexico by being there than she ever could have by solely doing a report; and I'm proud that she persevered on the report, even if she didn't wholly complete it. I certainly don't see any failure on her part...but I don't know that I'd be able to get her to accept that if she gets a "D" on the combined report and project, as she fears she will. ("That's not a passing grade!" she said, distressed.) It is likely to be no big deal. We may talk to the teacher and hit a compromise right off. But the stress isn't the best, for us or for The Kid, and I'm very interested in hearing other folks' thoughts on this issue. Thanks. beeswing |
#2
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Homework over spring break (long)
beeswing wrote:
Over spring break, the students in our daughter's third grade class were tasked with writing a report on a country. The Kid has been to Mexico several times, so she chose to do hers on Mexico. The report consists of about 20 pages of worksheets asking for information such as population details, history, currency, national bird, national anthem, coat of arms, and so on...the usual. Ugh. Henry had one of those in third grade. It was a bear to finish, and I'm not sure he learned much other than how to work Google (I guess that's no small skill, but still...) The trouble is most of this required that The Kid be able to do research, and, over break, we were going to *be* in Mexico, where there isn't cheap or easy access to the internet or multitudes of books. (snipped detail explaining that the assignment came shortly before break and why the parents didn't talk to the teacher before they left for Mexico) We were gone from Saturday to Saturday. While we were there, The Kid worked on the report almost every day (snip) We got home last night, and she's worked a good part of today on it. Right now, though, she's sleeping...she's too tired from her trip to continue to do homework. Tomorrow she goes back to school, and the report is due. The Kid is justifiably upset. My husband and I personally feel that she did the best she could Goodness, she certainly did. I'll tell you honestly what I would do. I'd get on the Internet myself, find pages that answer the questions left, and print them off, highlighting the answers. Then I'd help her fill in the missing blanks before school tomorrow morning. I'd also tell the teacher what I did, and raise holy h*ll about the way the assignment was handled. At minimum, some sort of warning should have been given to parents, or a few days grace provided at the end of the vacation. My mother lives in the north woods of Wisconsin and has spotty, dial-up, webTV internet access. Had we been in your shoes and spending Spring Break with her, we would have had a similarly difficult time completing the assignment. I would take the concern to the principal and the PTA. IMO it's time we parents demand our family time back. Spring Vacation should be just that, a vacation -- the only exception I would agree with would be a reading assignment to keep kids up to speed on their reading skills. I'd have had no problem with the assignment if it had come two or three weeks ahead of the break, with the due date after break, to allow families the *option* of using Spring Break for project completion if their plans allowed for that. Help your child be successful. She's already gone the extra mile. -Dawn Mom to Henry, 11 |
#3
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Homework over spring break (long)
"Iowacookiemom" wrote in message ... I'll tell you honestly what I would do. I'd get on the Internet myself, find pages that answer the questions left, and print them off, highlighting the answers. Then I'd help her fill in the missing blanks before school tomorrow morning. This is EXACTLY what I would do, too. Why stress your kid out thinking she didn't do enough, when she did way more than she SHOULD have, considering she was in the country she's reporting on, and didn't get to have fun due to a looming busywork assignment. I'd be furious myself. I'd also tell the teacher what I did, and raise holy h*ll about the way the assignment was handled. At minimum, some sort of warning should have been given to parents, or a few days grace provided at the end of the vacation. Yeah, me too. I don't like when teachers spring surprises like that, and I REALLY don't like that teachers don't respect vacation time. Some families go places and do things that interfere with school assignments. There was no opportunity given for optional work. I'd be in the teacher's face myself! My mother lives in the north woods of Wisconsin and has spotty, dial-up, webTV internet access. Had we been in your shoes and spending Spring Break with her, we would have had a similarly difficult time completing the assignment. Well, not respecting that this week was Passover, and that several of the days were days when a Jewish child could not use the internet would set me off, but that's just my issue. The fact that the teacher didn't even consider this would set off my alarm bells, though. Help your child be successful. She's already gone the extra mile. I agree. Marjorie |
#4
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Homework over spring break (long)
Marjorie wrote:
"Iowacookiemom" wrote in message ... I'll tell you honestly what I would do. I'd get on the Internet myself, find pages that answer the questions left, and print them off, highlighting the answers. Then I'd help her fill in the missing blanks before school tomorrow morning. This is EXACTLY what I would do, too. Why stress your kid out thinking she didn't do enough, when she did way more than she SHOULD have, considering she was in the country she's reporting on, and didn't get to have fun due to a looming busywork assignment. I'd be furious myself. Isn't that *so* ironic? My kid wasn't out learning about Mexico because she was inside her hotel room gleaning through a 30-year-old book, trying to find the answers she needed to fill out a worksheet. You hit the nail right on the head; that's exactly what made me the maddest. Well, that and the fact that we'd spent precious vacation time and a fair amount of money to fly down to Mexico for a week, only to be stuck in our hotel room egging on our daughter to do her homework... Yeah, me too. I don't like when teachers spring surprises like that, and I REALLY don't like that teachers don't respect vacation time. Some families go places and do things that interfere with school assignments. There was no opportunity given for optional work. I'd be in the teacher's face myself! I suppose it's my fault as well, though. I probably should have seen this coming and asked the teacher in advance. I still think vacation time should be respected. Kids need a break as much as anyone else Well, not respecting that this week was Passover, and that several of the days were days when a Jewish child could not use the internet would set me off, but that's just my issue. The fact that the teacher didn't even consider this would set off my alarm bells, though. You're right; she should have thought about it and respected it. In all fairness , because of the demographics of the school, I don't think it would have been an issue for any of the kids in the class. For many of those families, though, Easter is a huge holiday...and if nothing else, the public library is closed. Help your child be successful. She's already gone the extra mile. I agree. We did. Things are looking up, this morning. Thanks so much for your comments. beeswing |
#5
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#6
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Homework over spring break (long)
In article ,
animzmirot wrote: Well, not respecting that this week was Passover, and that several of the days were days when a Jewish child could not use the internet would set me off, but that's just my issue. The fact that the teacher didn't even consider this would set off my alarm bells, though. What kind of alarm bells? I'd certainly chalk something like that up to ignorance rather than malice. I don't think most people, teachers included, have any clue that traditional Jews would not be allowed to use computers/internet on a Holy day. Part of this is because of the diversity of Jewish people they come into contact with, many of whom do not follow the rules as strictly. So they end up thinking, well, little Noah did X, Y and Z and he's Jewish, so Jews must be allowed to do X, Y and Z. There are Jewish children in my children's school who do not follow the passover dietary rules as strictly as we do, and there are still others (none in our school, though), who follow them more strictly. Teachers get a small and possibly unrepresentative sample set from which they often draw faulty conclusions. I consider it my responsibility to educate my children's teachers about religious issues that might impact their schoolwork (and attendance). Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01) -- "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." -- Theodore Roosevelt |
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Homework over spring break (long)
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#8
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Homework over spring break (long)
In article ,
dragonlady wrote: I'm on a committee that inadvertently scheduled a meeting for the first night of Passover. We DO know better -- at least one of the people who was in the room when we did the scheduling was Jewish -- somehow we just missed it. (We rescheduled it once we DID figure it out -- and I like to think that I'd have somehow caught the mistake eventually, myself, though I don't celebrate Passover -- but someone did have to draw our attention to our goof.) This is made more challenging by the fact that the holidays move around on the secular calendar. It's quite easy for even most Jews to miss the fact that a certain secular date is going to wind up conflicting with a major holiday more than a few weeks before the date. --Robyn |
#9
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Homework over spring break (long)
Dawn wrote:
I'll tell you honestly what I would do. I'd get on the Internet myself, find pages that answer the questions left, and print them off, highlighting the answers. Then I'd help her fill in the missing blanks before school tomorrow morning. Basically, that's what I did. I found the coat of arms, a recipe for quesadillas, the national anthem, and the national bird and printed them out. (In all fairness, The Kid had already located some of the sites I used.) Our daughter is bringing them to her before-and-after school program to plug in this morning (she's very motivated to do so; she really wants to do a good, complete job on this). Once she got up from her nap last night, she and I found some of the details she lacked with regard to the population of the three biggest cities and the size of the biggest and smallest states. And this morning, her dad helped her find the information to fill in a couple of the other lines. She still will have all the self-evaluation questions at the end to fill out, and I don't think she's going to be totally finished come 9 a.m. But she will have made such an effort that I'm thinking the teacher will give her a break. Even The Kid this morning felt encouraged by how much she had completed. I sent her with a letter of explanation, just in case. I'd also tell the teacher what I did, and raise holy h*ll about the way the assignment was handled. At minimum, some sort of warning should have been given to parents, or a few days grace provided at the end of the vacation. They got the assignment a couple of days before the break, and this is typical for this teacher so I probably should have asked in advance for it. That of course would have given The Kid an unfair advantage timewise, so I don't know that the teacher would have given it to me. The one thing that made the assignment even harder was that yesterday was Easter Sunday, so the libraries were closed...and that's the one day we otherwise could have gone to the library to do research. That seems like poor planning on the teacher's part. I don't know what we would have done if we didn't have an Internet connection (and I doubt that all that many kids in our daughter's class do). I would take the concern to the principal and the PTA. IMO it's time we parents demand our family time back. Spring Vacation should be just that, a vacation -- the only exception I would agree with would be a reading assignment to keep kids up to speed on their reading skills. I don't know if I want to push the issue because this is my daughter's last "break" with this particular teacher. But I agree with you...I'd like to "take back the break." I'd have had no problem with the assignment if it had come two or three weeks ahead of the break, with the due date after break, to allow families the *option* of using Spring Break for project completion if their plans allowed for that. Thanks for that suggestion. I wrote it into the letter I sent the teacher today. Help your child be successful. She's already gone the extra mile. We did, and she made incredible headway last night and this morning. We can't help her fill out the self-evaluation questions, though. The teacher needs to give her added time. Thanks for alll your timely advice. I really appreciate it. beeswing |
#10
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Homework over spring break (long)
Hi - My first reaction was that project homework over spring break is unreasonable for the 3rd grade. Even more, any project homework should allow a reasonable amount of time for a family to get to the library .... and DURING spring break doesn't count. If I were you, I'd have explained all this to the teacher BEFORE you left for the break (in a note if necessary) and asked for an alternative assignment, questions to answer that would have required primary research (looking around, talking to people in Mexico) rather than library research. Then your daughter could have written up what she learned in a journal rather than having to spend time she didn't have answering library-type questions. But that's split milk, so send in a note with your daughter along with her (incomplete) assignment tomorrow, explaining what she DID accomplish, that she used the only library she had available. (Was she able to ask any of these questions to local residents? DId you or she try, by the way?) Explain in the note that she's willing to complete the work next week (or whenever you can get to the library), but that you'd prefer if she could write up an account of her trip to the actual country, perhaps using some teacher-provided questions that are relevant to her experience. Our school, thank goodness, doesn't give our homework over weekends or holidays, and projects are given at least 3 weeks for completion so that families can get to libraries. My two cents, --Beth Kevles http://web.mit.edu/kevles/www/nomilk.html -- a page for the milk-allergic Disclaimer: Nothing in this message should be construed as medical advice. Please consult with your own medical practicioner. NOTE: No email is read at my MIT address. Use the AOL one if you would like me to reply. |
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