Homework for a 5 year old - how much involvement needed.

bizby40 wrote:

I'm getting frustrated because time and time again in this thread,
I keep seeing, "But this isn't the perfect way to teach my child."
And I just don't see how public education can possibly make
sure that every assignment is perfect for every child.

It's not going to be perfect for every child.
However, that's no excuse for throwing unnecessary
obstacles in the way which eat up kids' time and
don't provide significant benefit over a less onerous
alternative.

Best wishes,
Ericka

toto writes:

On 16 Nov 2005 09:31:20 -0800, Banty wrote:
Exactly. Moreover, there are SO many ways to visualize this problem in
your head. For example, if I were to do this problem in my head, I'd
just rearrange the numbers so that I was subtracting 35 from 80. I know
that works, but WHY it works would take me an age to explain. Why
should I have to bother when it's clear that I was arriving at the
correct answer.
Yep.

Partly so the teacher knows that your reasoning was correct in terms of
how you rearranged the numbers. Kids do actually get *short cuts* that
give the right answer by making two errors that cancel each other out or
because a particular problem lends itself to a short cut that doesn't
generalize to other problems.

True, and I argued that to myself, but mulling this over, I'm not
convinced. The way to know *that* such a thing is happening is to set a
decent set of different problems so that a child who is using a wrong
shortcut will get the wrong answer on some problem, and the way to know
*what exactly* is going wrong for the small number of children doing such a
thing is to have them explain it orally to you, surely. Writing out the
explanation seems to be of very limited value, not least because reading
sentences is slower than recognising numbers, so if the teacher actually
pays attention to what's written, marking sets of problems for a class
where every problem is explained like this is going to take an age... and
if the teacher *doesn't* pay attention to what's written, then the point is
lost...

Now if the intention were really to have the children explore what the
properties of numbers are that ensure that their shortcuts do actually
work, and ultimately to learn how to prove it, that would be another matter
entirely - but it doesn't seem to be so!

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003

bizby40 wrote:

Second, sometimes a picture or diagram *is* the best way to describe
something.

But that doesn't help when the question is part
of your *Writing* in Math section ;-) Their whole goal
is to get you to write (in complete, grammatically
correct sentences) about math concepts.

Best wishes,
Ericka

"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article , bizby40 says...


Yes, but at 13, they are trying to teach them how to write a paper.
They don't know which kids are going to be able to just toss out
a perfect paper. So, when you are trying to teach the kids how
to write an organized and well-written paper, do you really think
it's appropriate just to give them the assignment and collect the
finished product several weeks (or even months) later with no
intermediate steps or feedback? And what about the kids that
can't just toss it out with not help? And what about the kids
that will just put off doing anything until the night before it's due?
And what about the kids whose parents are not intimately
involved with their children's homework and won't make sure that
they do it properly? And how is the teacher supposed to know
which child is which way?

But this is going off to extremes again. If someone is not for outlines
and
drafts to be handed in in steps each time, then it must be that they want
to
just assign it and do nothing for weeks or months!

I was referring to a class where they were being taught to write term
papers. It makes sense to me that it would be best to teach them
step-by-step in baby steps. Sure, after you get a few papers under
your belt, you start to figure out which steps are helpful to you and
which are not. But in learning pretty much anything, you normally
don't learn the shortcuts first thing.

And as for the weeks or months, I didn't realize that your son
was being required to show intermediary work on the short
term assignments of only a few paragraphs. When I think of
an outline and drafts and so forth, I think of a longer term
assignment, whose due date could potentially be weeks or
months off. In my high school "reference and research" class,
we had an entire semester to produce one massive paper. If
they'd required no intermediate steps to be turned in, there
would have been no indication of how anyone was doing (or
even if they were doing anything at all) until the last week of
the semester.

Good grief, no wonder
others' ideas seem so crazy to you! If they dont' agree with *you*, then
they
must think some nutso off-the-deep-end thing instead.

I've seen very few ideas. Mostly I've just seen how the schools and the
teachers are awful. And I haven't really advocated any ideas of my
own except the radical idea that perhaps educators know what they
are doing and might be supported instead assumed to be stupid,
intractible, uncaring or stubborn.

Bizby

bizby40 wrote:

I'm starting with several different assumptions:

1) Their homework assignments are extensions
of what they do in class, and therefore it is a good
idea for parents to see what kinds of things their
children are expected to do.

I don't particularly buy the "homework as
a way to force/foster parental involvement." Last
year, DS2 had very little homework. I never found
that the slightest impediment to knowing what he
was up to in school or helping him address any
areas of difficulty.

2) Most kids won't have enough trouble with a
particular type of assignment for their parents
to feel the need to intervene and/or a particular
type of assignment won't come up often enough
to be a problem. I think, as a parent, that I'd
only feel the need to talk to the teacher if it was
an ongoing thing that my child had continuing
problems with.

I don't find this to be the case in my
experience either. Homework tends to follow
patterns, and I find that any difficulties
with type or quantity of homework are likely
to be repeated on a fairly regular basis.

3) That if a child is having an overall problem
with the way they are being taught, then sending
home less specific assignments is not going to
cut it. The child may need an individualized
education program, or perhaps some extra
tutoring.

Again, I disagree. If my child is doing
poorly in spelling because he has spelling homework
that isn't effective at helping him to spell and
too much other homework for us to throw in *additional*
homework tailored to his skills, it is indeed a
*very* effective solution to back off the homework
so that he can spend time learning to do his
spelling words using a technique that is actually
effective for him.

4) That the discussion had moved beyond just
"too much homework". Because if that's what you
are talking about, then we're not really in dis-
agreement. I personally like there to be *some*
homework, but I think that more than a little is
detrimental.

Absolutely the volume of homework
complicates all other issues. If my kid could
zip through his homework in the 30 (or 15!)
minutes that are theoretically what he is
supposed to be doing, then it wouldn't be
so much an issue if every bit of homework
was efficient for him. However, even if
the volume of homework is fine and it is
possible to develop workarounds, that in
no way justifies poorly conceived homework
assignments that are less effective than
they could be.

Best wishes,
Ericka

bizby40 wrote:

I've seen very few ideas. Mostly I've just seen how the schools and the
teachers are awful.

I think you're missing some stuff and reading into
others.

Ideas:

- have less homework
- allow students to tailor homework to their individual needs
- design homework appropriate to the abilities of the
students (e.g. homework that can be done by the children,
rather than homework that requires adult management)

Hmmm...isn't that interesting? Those are the ideas that
most studies of homework come up with! What an odd
conincidence...

And I haven't really advocated any ideas of my
own except the radical idea that perhaps educators know what they
are doing and might be supported instead assumed to be stupid,
intractible, uncaring or stubborn.

Again, almost no one has said that teachers
are any of those things (though there are occasionally
really bad teachers). What I've been hearing (and saying)
is that we increasingly have a *system* that forces
the hand of teachers and administrators and leads to
excess and inappropriate homework.

Best wishes,
Ericka

On Wed, 16 Nov 2005 22:59:35 +0000, Sidheag McCormack
wrote:

Now if the intention were really to have the children explore what the
properties of numbers are that ensure that their shortcuts do actually
work, and ultimately to learn how to prove it, that would be another matter
entirely - but it doesn't seem to be so!

That is one purpose of the assignments.

Note that a few things are true about both math and writing.
One is that you don't generally become better at either without
practicing. The other is that not *everything* has to be corrected
by a teacher in order for the student to be doing better and
better at the task.

One writing assignment that I think can be helpful to students
in algebra, for example, is to have them correct their own
tests showing the new work in tandem with the old work
and giving some explanation of what they did wrong on
the old work. If a student is making consistent errors on
signs, they can they see that and hopefully make the step
into the correct way of doing the problems.

Another way of doing that is to hand out a sheet of problems
with common errors and have the students find the mistakes
and do the problems correctly with a sentence explaining
what the error was.



--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
. ..
bizby40 wrote:

I'm starting with several different assumptions:

1) Their homework assignments are extensions
of what they do in class, and therefore it is a good
idea for parents to see what kinds of things their
children are expected to do.

I don't particularly buy the "homework as
a way to force/foster parental involvement." Last
year, DS2 had very little homework. I never found
that the slightest impediment to knowing what he
was up to in school or helping him address any
areas of difficulty.

I wouldn't complain if they had no homework,
but I do find a small amount valuable personally.

2) Most kids won't have enough trouble with a
particular type of assignment for their parents
to feel the need to intervene and/or a particular
type of assignment won't come up often enough
to be a problem. I think, as a parent, that I'd
only feel the need to talk to the teacher if it was
an ongoing thing that my child had continuing
problems with.

I don't find this to be the case in my
experience either. Homework tends to follow
patterns, and I find that any difficulties
with type or quantity of homework are likely
to be repeated on a fairly regular basis.

Don't find what to be the case?

3) That if a child is having an overall problem
with the way they are being taught, then sending
home less specific assignments is not going to
cut it. The child may need an individualized
education program, or perhaps some extra
tutoring.

Again, I disagree. If my child is doing
poorly in spelling because he has spelling homework
that isn't effective at helping him to spell and
too much other homework for us to throw in *additional*
homework tailored to his skills, it is indeed a
*very* effective solution to back off the homework
so that he can spend time learning to do his
spelling words using a technique that is actually
effective for him.

You misunderstand. What I said was that if the
child has an overall problem -- that is, it isn't just
spelling or just one subject, but struggling in many
or all subjects, then simply cutting back on the
homework isn't likely to help.

4) That the discussion had moved beyond just
"too much homework". Because if that's what you
are talking about, then we're not really in dis-
agreement. I personally like there to be *some*
homework, but I think that more than a little is
detrimental.

Absolutely the volume of homework
complicates all other issues. If my kid could
zip through his homework in the 30 (or 15!)
minutes that are theoretically what he is
supposed to be doing, then it wouldn't be
so much an issue if every bit of homework
was efficient for him. However, even if
the volume of homework is fine and it is
possible to develop workarounds, that in
no way justifies poorly conceived homework
assignments that are less effective than
they could be.

Yes, but the homework assignments are the
same things he's doing in class, right? And
if it's bad at home, it's bad in school too,
right? And if you don't want him wasting an
hour at home on it, then you surely don't
want him wasting even more time on it during
the school day, right?

So I see two separate issues:
1) Is there too much homework being sent home?
And it sounds like in a lot of places there is. And I
don't really feel strongly enough about homework
to debate whether there should be a small amount
or none at all.

2) Is the new "integrated curriculum" better than
the methods it replaced. My opinion on that one
is yes. I appear to be in the minority, but it's hard
to tell because there really haven't been all that
many participants in what has become a very
long thread.

Bizby

"bizby40" wrote:


"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
bizby40 wrote:

If my child was bad at math, and if that was causing him to
get bad grades across all his subjects, I can see that I would
be frustrated. I might even feel that it wasn't fair. I'd also
feel that it was vitally important that he learn his math. I'd
ramp up our practice at home, I might consider tutoring if
I felt there was a real need.

But what if he was *great* at math?

Then that would be an entirely different question than the
one I was answering.

But that was the question that was being asked originally. Someone
who is great in math and could do it fine except that he couldn't
supply the appropriate verbal description. And you couldn't see that
it wasn't fair because that was an integrated curriculum. So the
question was turned around the other way - someone who was good
verbally and poor at math being required to supply a numerical answer
for all the language questions, and you agreed that he might be
frustrated.




grandma Rosalie

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
bizby40 wrote:

I've seen very few ideas. Mostly I've just seen how the schools and the
teachers are awful.

I think you're missing some stuff and reading into
others.

Ideas:

- have less homework

Which does not address Banty's problem of having her
son forced to do and be graded on written work in his
math classes.

- allow students to tailor homework to their individual needs

one idea

- design homework appropriate to the abilities of the
students (e.g. homework that can be done by the children,
rather than homework that requires adult management)

um....well, I guess I'll count this as two ideas. I don't
remember it coming up that the homework was considered
to be too hard.

Hmmm...isn't that interesting? Those are the ideas that
most studies of homework come up with! What an odd
conincidence...

Most of my posts in the past two days have not dealt
directly with homework as opposed to in class work.

And I haven't really advocated any ideas of my
own except the radical idea that perhaps educators know what they
are doing and might be supported instead assumed to be stupid,
intractible, uncaring or stubborn.

Again, almost no one has said that teachers
are any of those things (though there are occasionally
really bad teachers). What I've been hearing (and saying)
is that we increasingly have a *system* that forces
the hand of teachers and administrators and leads to
excess and inappropriate homework.

Well, I've heard several stories of teachers who refused
to help, didn't understand their own curricula, parroted
out what was in the workbooks, and so forth. Along
with the notion that since teachers are more verbally
oriented people (okay, I'll buy that) they can't really
understand the math they are teaching, much less
the mind of a mathematically inclined boy who might
be learning it. Taken as a whole, and without the
presence of equivalent positive stories, yes, the thread
comes across as assuming that teachers are either
unable, unwilling, or both, to teach their students.

Bizby