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

In article ,
"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? 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.

It would depend a lot on the teacher. Some would accept it, others
would give your child a much lower grade.

And some teachers DO give busy work; they are asked to make sure they
send home homework, to keep the kids off the street and out of trouble.

Now that my kids are in college, in most of their classes they don't GET
homework they have to turn in. This has been especially welcome for my
mathematically gifted son; he used to get low grades in math, even
though he aced the tests, because he didn't turn in all of the homework.
Now, he does enough to make sure he understands it well, then quits.
Since he got an A in his college calculus class, that seems to be
working well!
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

In article .com, shinypenny
says...


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.

Not everyone finds reading relaxing. Even those that do, don't necessarily find
reading what someone *else* wants them to read relaxing.

Banty

In article gktTd.81178$Yu.32811@fed1read01, Circe says...


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).

"Sharing", meaning sharing work with parents, or "sharing", meaning a group
project and one or more parent gets too involved?


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).

Yep. My son doesn't have any particular issues affecting homework (except an
eye problem which means his vision isn't perfectly corrected). But in the
elementary grades he took a llooooong time. But his experience didn't 'count'.
Some other kid apparent is the clock they use for homework times :-(

Banty

Melania wrote:
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.

(excuse piggyback on own post)
Just got off the phone with my mom and dad. They are both vehemently
opposed to assigned homework in primary school (as opposed to work the
child was supposed to have completed in class and didn't manage).

I also asked about the child referred to earlier, who had some six
hours of homework a night at the highschool level, and my dad said it
was "ridiculous." He's an assistant superintendent, was a principal for
7 years, and was a primary/middle school teacher for 20-odd years
before that. My mom added that there were a lot of variables that might
contribute to a kid taking 6 hours to do homework (easily distracted,
taking lots of breaks, really unable to do the work at that level), but
that if it was work that it would take anyone 6 hours to do, it was
probably only stressing out and overtiring kids, rather than educating
and enriching them.

Melania
Mom to Joffre (Jan 11, 2003)
and #2 (edd May 21, 2005)

In article ,
Ericka Kammerer wrote:


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.

It can also be a problem if the teacher has to approve the book -- and
doesn't approve of your child's taste in books. DS loves to read, and
reads well. However, his middle school teacher (7th grade, as I recall)
would NOT approve any of the books he brought in, because she considered
them inappropriate for a child. He was heavily into Stephen King and
Michael Crichton at the time, and she just did not approve. This meant
he had to spend time reading stuff he didn't enjoy -- most of it well
below his reading level -- before he could get to the reading he DID
enjoy.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

In article . com,
"Melania" wrote:

(excuse piggyback on own post)
Just got off the phone with my mom and dad. They are both vehemently
opposed to assigned homework in primary school (as opposed to work the
child was supposed to have completed in class and didn't manage).

I also asked about the child referred to earlier, who had some six
hours of homework a night at the highschool level, and my dad said it
was "ridiculous." He's an assistant superintendent, was a principal for
7 years, and was a primary/middle school teacher for 20-odd years
before that. My mom added that there were a lot of variables that might
contribute to a kid taking 6 hours to do homework (easily distracted,
taking lots of breaks, really unable to do the work at that level), but
that if it was work that it would take anyone 6 hours to do, it was
probably only stressing out and overtiring kids, rather than educating
and enriching them.

Melania
Mom to Joffre (Jan 11, 2003)
and #2 (edd May 21, 2005)

Thanks, Melania.

It's nice to know there are still some level headed people out there.

I have a friend who teaches high school music (has a dynomite choir!)
and she specifically looked for a school that did not assign homework
before 5th grade for her kids. It took her a while to find one, but
both she and her kids are happier for it!
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

Melania wrote in message
ups.com...
[snip]
I also asked about the child referred to earlier, who
had some six hours of homework a night at the
highschool level, and my dad said it was "ridiculous."
He's an assistant superintendent, was a principal for
7 years, and was a primary/middle school teacher for
20-odd years before that.

Is his school district driven by test scores or real estate prices?
Those are the two items that are driving the school districts here. My
ILs, many of them former teachers and administrators, voice very similar
sentiments regarding my daughter-units' school district's mountains of
homework, especially starting at Kindergarten. shrug It's a favorite
topic of discussion at family gatherings.

The Ranger

In article ,
"The Ranger" wrote:

Melania wrote in message
ups.com...
[snip]
I also asked about the child referred to earlier, who
had some six hours of homework a night at the
highschool level, and my dad said it was "ridiculous."
He's an assistant superintendent, was a principal for
7 years, and was a primary/middle school teacher for
20-odd years before that.

Is his school district driven by test scores or real estate prices?
Those are the two items that are driving the school districts here. My
ILs, many of them former teachers and administrators, voice very similar
sentiments regarding my daughter-units' school district's mountains of
homework, especially starting at Kindergarten. shrug It's a favorite
topic of discussion at family gatherings.

The Ranger



Yes, but is there ANY evidence that those mountains of homework help the
test scores? (I know they don't change the real estate prices . . .)
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article gktTd.81178$Yu.32811@fed1read01, Circe says...
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).

"Sharing", meaning sharing work with parents, or "sharing", meaning a
group
project and one or more parent gets too involved?

Sharing meaning that they present to their classmates the resulting project
and all the information they've learned in researching and putting it
together as "show and tell".
--
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)

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?

All that has gone away in importance, because of International
Competitiveness (tm) and No Child Left Behind No Matter How Much It
Kills Them (tm)

"Family values" is something that only exists to pound on people who
dissent from Right Thinking. Thus, parents who want their kids to
socialize must not have "family values".

Or something like that.

lojbab
--
lojbab
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org