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#51
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"Banty" wrote in message ... In article , Stephanie Stowe says... "Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message ... wrote: The Ranger wrote: There are several options available: 1) You write notes to each teacher quoting the district's time-limits on allowable homework allotments when a child is given homework that he cannot complete. This might seem flimsy and contrived but it works for many parents that do not feel their child should be doing such make-work, college-level-consuming homework. Do all districts have policies like this? That *does* sound like it would help, I just never heard of it before (my child's too young for homework so I'm kind of clueless about how this stuff works from an adult perspective). Many districts do have homework policies. However, having them doesn't necessarily mean they will be observed or enforced. They do give you some leverage, though. Another tricky bit is that it's *very* difficult to estimate how long homework will take, and teachers/principals may have differing takes on whether the time limit applies to the fastest child, the slowest child, or the "average" child (whatever that might be ;-) I think even the most well-meaning teacher trying to adhere to the policy can have a lot of difficulty doing that with any accuracy. Best wishes, Ericka Off the wall curiosity question here.... What would happen if you determined what *you* considered a reasonable amount of time, set the timer for that amount of time, and called it quits after that? This is assuming your child will give best effort for this amount of time. What are grades based on? If it is clear from the tests that the material is being aqcuired then what is the purpose of the homework? Is it an end in itself? I have always thought of homework as exercise, but I get the impression that a lot of what my nephews did was busy work to make a teacher happy. Of course, I got this impression from the nephews whose points of view may have been a bit distorted. Tried that. Ran into an interesting problem. It's *MY SON* who is too contientious for that - he can't just up from homework undone and turn it in unfinished, even with a note from me. And I sure wasn't going to try to override what really is a fantastic inborn trait. (He's 12 - hope it stays that way...) No WAY!!! I am with you there. It is my bad for assuming that just because I never did any homework that everyone was trying to get out of it. Banty |
#52
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shinypenny wrote:
What hour does he get home? Home at 3:30pm (12:30pm on Mondays), bedtime at 8:00pm. Trying to place this in context, to get an idea how much homework you're dealing with compared to what my kids are dealing with. The amount varies and is often unpredictable. Some days it will be within the school guidelines (40 minutes for DS1). Sometimes it's within a reasonable amount of variation from that (say, up to an hour, or maybe even an hour and a half). The days that he gets home from school and does pretty much nothing from 3:30 until 8:00 besides homework (excepting snack, dinner, and getting ready for bed) I think are ridiculous. Because my kids go to afterschool, they don't get home until 6:00. They do their homework at afterschool. For DD12, in 6th grade, she spends pretty much the entire time (2-1/2 hours) doing homework. DD10, in 5th, tends to spend about an hour, some days more; it varies but she's almost always done before I pick her up. DD12 might have more homework to do at home, and will do this while I'm making dinner. After dinner, she will often have me sit and quiz her for tests, but that takes only 20 minutes or so. DD10 rarely needs to do any more in the evenings, although on occasion there is a project requiring parental involvement (usually something internet- or computer-related), but this is maybe once a month, tops. Both then read for at least 30 minutes each night. Both will have homework on the weekends, and that amount varies. To me, that is an unacceptable amount of homework for elementary-school aged children. Where is the time for physical activity? Where is the time for socialization? Where is the time to do things with family? Where is the time to have some kind of responsibilities around the home? We've found it helps to forget the homework until the morning. I encourage an earlier bedtime, and have her set her alarm earlier than normal. Then when she is fresh, she gets up and jumps right in to her homework before school. Works well! She is most definetly a morning person. That's what DS1 does when he can't stay awake any longer, but there's only so much you can leave until the morning and still have a reasonable expectation of it getting done. But mostly, I tell the girls that if they can get it all done at afterschool, we don't have to make that choice in the evenings. The goal is to have evenings relatively clear of school work - so ALL of us can relax. I'm glad that works well for you. We'd be between a rock and a hard place, though! If my kids got home at 6pm, we'd only be able to eat dinner and get them to bed! That would be a 9.5 hour workday for the kids! 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!! Personally, I don't think that the homework is the only, or even the major, factor enabling such progress. Even if it is, I think the cost of 9.5+ hour workdays for children is unacceptable. In that case, yes, I agree, it IS too much homework. There definetly needs to be a balance, because the goal is not to undermine the children from learning to take responsibility for it. In our district, parental involvement tapers off until 5th grade, and by 6th they are completely on their own. And the benefit of having the parents manage all those early years is....what? Studies don't show the value of homework in the early grades in producing greater academic success later. Having the parents do the planning/scheduling/ etc. just makes the child dependent upon the parents' planning skills so that they *have* to be weaned off them, in my opinion. Best wishes, Ericka |
#53
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In article .com, shinypenny
says... DD10 is always exhausted by the time she gets home at 6. She gets very cranky, too. If for some reason she couldn't get her homework done at afterschool (there was a field trip, for example), then we're in big trouble, because like you're son, she is just too tired to focus. We've found it helps to forget the homework until the morning. I encourage an earlier bedtime, and have her set her alarm earlier than normal. Then when she is fresh, she gets up and jumps right in to her homework before school. Works well! She is most definetly a morning person. My son started doing this. By himself. It's simply amazing to me... He sets his alarm for 4:00 am. (!!!) Really - 4:00 am on the weekdays. He leaves at 6:50 am for hte school bus (those incredibly early Jr. High hours..) He does his homework then, most of it. I get on him to try to finish most of it during the evening, because he's toast if he oversleeps ohterwise. But he hardly even oversleeps. THEN, the other thing that amazes me, is that on weekend mornings he never awakes, and sleeps 'till noon. So he's on this amazing 5-2 sleep schedule, and it seems to work for him. Although I think he does some sleeping at school - that's not good. But his grades have actually been decent. Banty |
#54
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In article , Ericka Kammerer says...
Banty wrote: Tried that. Ran into an interesting problem. It's *MY SON* who is too contientious for that - he can't just up from homework undone and turn it in unfinished, even with a note from me. And I sure wasn't going to try to override what really is a fantastic inborn trait. (He's 12 - hope it stays that way...) Yeah, that too. I think many kids feel that way. The few times I've told my son that it was just too late and he needed to go to bed and I would explain to his teacher that he worked plenty hard for plenty of hours before stopping, he was *extremely* upset at the notion of not finishing his homework. Yep. In our case, he would be too upset to sleep, making the whole thing counterproductive. Banty |
#55
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Ericka Kammerer wrote: To me, that is an unacceptable amount of homework for elementary-school aged children. Where is the time for physical activity? Where is the time for socialization? Where is the time to do things with family? Where is the time to have some kind of responsibilities around the home? You're talking about DD12, not DD10 (who averages about one hour plus 30 minutes of reading)? Because even when DD10 gets her homework done at afterschool, she has plenty of time to socialize, run around on the playground, etc, and her homework rarely (maybe once or twice a month) interferes with family time after 6. As for DD12, she's in middle school, not elementary. I should add that she may possibly be a unique kid. She is a straight A student, and highly motivated to learn without any prompting from anyone. On her own initiative, she does MORE than the required work. She's the infuriating kid who always does the extra credit and challenge problems, completes the book report three weeks early, goes out of her way to do her own research outside of the classroom when a subject interests her. The teachers love her. :-) As for socialization, she tends to socialize around homework activities. Quite a lot of her homework involves working with a partner. She has homework dates on the weekends. For doing chores, she has plenty of time for that and is a huge help around the house, recently taking on all the laundry. For physical activity, she currently swims and skis. It is true she probably needs more on a daily basis, and it's something we've been brainstorming. When it was warmer out, we'd take walks together after dinner. For family time, we consider 6 to 8 pretty sacred, as well as the weekends. She might do homework while I'm cooking, but does so from the kitchen so we can visit at the same time. This kid is simply ultra-organized and driven, and a very good time manager. I'm glad that works well for you. We'd be between a rock and a hard place, though! If my kids got home at 6pm, we'd only be able to eat dinner and get them to bed! That would be a 9.5 hour workday for the kids! Yeah, it takes getting used to. We've been doing it since an early age. And except for the nights we might go out as a family, they manage to get to bed at a reasonable hour, believe it or not! In that case, yes, I agree, it IS too much homework. There definetly needs to be a balance, because the goal is not to undermine the children from learning to take responsibility for it. In our district, parental involvement tapers off until 5th grade, and by 6th they are completely on their own. And the benefit of having the parents manage all those early years is....what? Studies don't show the value of homework in the early grades in producing greater academic success later. Having the parents do the planning/scheduling/ etc. just makes the child dependent upon the parents' planning skills so that they *have* to be weaned off them, in my opinion. I must not be explaining myself well. :-) In our school, there is very little parental management involved. Yes, the occasional project, but otherwise, we initial the homework and that's it. By 5th, we don't even do this. I'm not managing/planning/scheduling anything. The kids have slowly learned to do that for themselves. 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. jen |
#56
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"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message ... Ruth Baltopoulos wrote: Here is my strategy: I provide a place for homework to be done and access to computers. I ask if it has been completed (sometimes). I stay in touch with the school (PTO, Conferences, Open Houses, School Committee) and teachers are aware that I am interested in knowing of any challenges or foibles. The end. That strategy works fabulously under normal circumstances. Under other situations, it doesn't work out quite so well. There are nights my 4th grader comes home with so much homework that if it happens on a day when we have to do *anything* after school other than eat dinner, he's up well past his bedtime to finish it. Once he's that tired, if one of us is not sitting with him to keep him focused, he falls asleep at his desk. And heaven forbid you have a child with attention issues, for whom it tends to take longer for homework to get done in the first place and who might well require parental attention to keep focus. And then there are the children who are struggling with the material and require substantial help from the parent to *teach* the material in order for the child to be able to complete the homework. And that's before we get to the stupid assignments designed to create more "parental involvement" that *require* the parent to participate--we have quite a few of those. The instructions actually *tell* the parent what the parent is supposed to be doing (so it's not the child just conning the parent into doing it). There are far too many nights when I'm wrung out from attending to the needs of two kids' homework. I resent that there are so many fun and educational things we could do as a family, but our time to do so is severely limited by the amount of homework that is sent home. I do not see how well over an hour of homework is appropriate in elementary school--add the homework to the amount of time they're in school, and many of these kids are putting in 50+ hour weeks! So, if you have a school that is sending home reasonable amounts and types of homework, and is teaching the children the material before assigning homework on it, and your children don't have any extenuating circumstances that make homework more challenging than normal, I envy you. In that situation, I would happily stay the heck out of the way while my kids got their homework done, just as my parents did for me. Unfortunately, I believe that the situation here actively *UNDERMINES* children learning to be responsible for their own homework by making it virtually impossible for the children to take full responsibility for it. Some years we have teachers who don't buy into the homework overload madness, and those years are *so* much better for us as a family--and (surprise, surprise) the kids still manage to learn just as much or more in those classes as the ones with mountains of homework. OS has AD/HD with serious attention/focus problems. Fortunately, he is out of HS, and about to graduate college with a BFA. YS has CP with significant fine motor problems, and until this year needed 100% assistance with his HW. IOW, he got home from school at 3:30 and my wife would work with him on English (she teaches that) and Social Studies until dinner. After dinner, I took over and did the math and science until around 9 PM. Our regular district school's staff could not figure out why we wanted his assignments for the week coming home on the preceding Friday. When I finally got the point across to the individual teachers, they said that they would not change their practices for *our convenience*. Needless to say, he is now in a private special education school, paid for by NY State, and the teachers there SUGGEST ways for us to better manage our time. He is doing 30-40% of his own work now, using dictation software and large type multiple choice handouts. |
#57
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That is terrible. It's unconscionable (sp?) that a child's quality of education should suffer like this. Incidentally, that business with the student teacher was ludicrous. I made a point of talking to the principal today in regards to the issue with the student teacher. She swallowed hard and basically back peddled. "OH no the reason you and the other parents are being told not to come into this classroom is that now that the teacher has the student teacher there she is able to work with the students having trouble." I wanted to say "well why didn't they say that in the first place!" It appears that she was caught in the middle and wanted to make excuses anyhow. Oh well. I made my point telling them that I hope the students who need help will get it even if it means the student teacher is uncomfortable." Anni |
#58
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shinypenny wrote:
Ericka Kammerer wrote: To me, that is an unacceptable amount of homework for elementary-school aged children. Where is the time for physical activity? Where is the time for socialization? Where is the time to do things with family? Where is the time to have some kind of responsibilities around the home? You're talking about DD12, not DD10 (who averages about one hour plus 30 minutes of reading)? Because even when DD10 gets her homework done at afterschool, she has plenty of time to socialize, run around on the playground, etc, and her homework rarely (maybe once or twice a month) interferes with family time after 6. 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. As for DD12, she's in middle school, not elementary. I should add that she may possibly be a unique kid. She is a straight A student, and highly motivated to learn without any prompting from anyone. On her own initiative, she does MORE than the required work. She's the infuriating kid who always does the extra credit and challenge problems, completes the book report three weeks early, goes out of her way to do her own research outside of the classroom when a subject interests her. The teachers love her. :-) 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.) And the benefit of having the parents manage all those early years is....what? Studies don't show the value of homework in the early grades in producing greater academic success later. Having the parents do the planning/scheduling/ etc. just makes the child dependent upon the parents' planning skills so that they *have* to be weaned off them, in my opinion. I must not be explaining myself well. :-) In our school, there is very little parental management involved. Yes, the occasional project, but otherwise, we initial the homework and that's it. By 5th, we don't even do this. I'm not managing/planning/scheduling anything. The kids have slowly learned to do that for themselves. 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. 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. 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). Best wishes, Ericka |
#59
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Banty wrote:
In article , Ericka Kammerer says... Banty wrote: Tried that. Ran into an interesting problem. It's *MY SON* who is too contientious for that - he can't just up from homework undone and turn it in unfinished, even with a note from me. And I sure wasn't going to try to override what really is a fantastic inborn trait. (He's 12 - hope it stays that way...) Yeah, that too. I think many kids feel that way. The few times I've told my son that it was just too late and he needed to go to bed and I would explain to his teacher that he worked plenty hard for plenty of hours before stopping, he was *extremely* upset at the notion of not finishing his homework. Yep. In our case, he would be too upset to sleep, making the whole thing counterproductive. Adriain actually woke up screaming at 3am that he needed to do his homework one night during Nutcracker season when I told him he just needed to go to bed and I would talk to his teacher about it. I think that's sad that he should feel so pressured about homework at this tender age. Best wishes, Ericka |
#60
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On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 13:34:56 -0500, Stephanie Stowe wrote:
"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message ... Stephanie Stowe wrote: Off the wall curiosity question here.... What would happen if you determined what *you* considered a reasonable amount of time, set the timer for that amount of time, and called it quits after that? Bless his heart, that's exactly what my DS2's teacher does for math--they're to do 15 minutes of work. What isn't done after 15 minutes just doesn't get done. He evaluates both the accuracy and amount of what's completed to get a bead on how well the students understand the material. Fabulous. Love it. This is assuming your child will give best effort for this amount of time. What are grades based on? If it is clear from the tests that the material is being aqcuired then what is the purpose of the homework? Is it an end in itself? I think how it's viewed depends on the teacher. In my experience, the teachers who deliberately give a lot of homework are True Believers. They believe that regular significant amounts of homework will teach children to be responsible, to have a good work ethic, to develop good study habits, etc. etc. etc. They view not completing the homework as a character flaw, and see any parent who isn't on board with the program as insufficiently interested in a quality education for the child. Other teachers can be more amenable to various strategies, but this one can be a bit tricky. It can appear pretty unfair to other kids who are doing the homework until it's done, whatever that takes. Let me ask you this philosophical question from *your* opinion. What is your child's math teacher's responsibility to your child regarding work ethic, responsibility and whatnot as a primary goal? There is a need to assume that the child has a degree of responsibility in order to achieve math skills. But I think that a child's math teacher should be primarily focused on achievement in math. Perhaps I am nuts. I don't think you're nuts. In my not-so-humble opinion, the Math teacher is there to guide my kids though the math that I can't teach them. The Science teacher is there to handle the science that I can't teach them. The Music teacher is there to teach them everything about music, since I don't have the foggiest idea about even the most basic concepts. ;-) But it is the responsibility of my wife and I to teach my children to be good, responsible, contributing members of our society. We had kids so that we could teach them how to live a good life - not so that some teacher could try to turn them into workaholics because he or she has some extreme idea of what constitutes "good study habits". There are more than enough kids being taught to be drones, already. - Rich |
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