Why are parents now expected to help with all their kids' homework?
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Anonymous
Sounds like you're building terrible study habits. |
Anonymous
PK & K students gain more by playing after school than by doing homework. There's plenty of time to develop good study habits when kids are older & homework is age-appropriate. |
Anonymous
15 minutes of homework is no big deal. There is still play time, activity time, snack and dinner as well as bath/shower time. Why can't there be a balance of learning and play. |
Anonymous
Because the homework is 100% unnecessary. |
Anonymous
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I let my kid do his homework. I review it when he is done. If something is wrong or is he doesn't understand it, we go over it together. I use homework as a way to learn what my kid understands, give him a chance to ask questions, and to help him develop a deeper understanding of things. Does he understand it fully or is he missing parts? A teacher may not catch that a child doesn't get part of a math concept when they have 24 or more kids to teach, until its too late. Why wait for the teacher? If I feel that my kid truly didn't understand a concept, I will send a note or email the teacher. IMO, grades may not convey the complete picture.
I don't mind looking on the internet about particular methods being taught in school. I often find better ways to convey the info to my kid and its helps me understand some of the new techniques as well. I do mind the amount and variety of homework being assigned. K students having the same repetitive homework every night, except Friday is a bit much. I have re-written assignments to make them a little more engaging and turned in the re-written assignment with no problem. I would never dream of cutting things like music, art, and PE just to stay competitive. Many kids would get these classes if they didn't have them during school and they are just as important as math and reading. Relegating them to after school activities means that way too many kids would miss out because they would like have to be paid for out of pocket, some parents wouldn't prioritize them over sports, and time constraints. Classes like these are great ways to enhance what's being taught in math or reading. |
Anonymous
Yep. And even 15 minutes (which I am sure ends up being more like 30-45 minutes if you don't have the Model Child and you need to wrangle them to sit down) takes up a big chunk of the daily time I have with my child, as a working mom. With an 8:30 bedtime (which we might have to push even earlier when naps get dropped), that means I have around 2 hours to accomplish cooking dinner, PJs on, and bedtime stories. 30 minutes ends up being 25% of the evening time I have with my child M-F. Something's gotta give, so that's going to mean fewer bedtime stories, fewer conversations, fewer games, less time to coach DS to do chores, less time for me to cook a wholesome dinner so he develops good eating habits ... NO THANKS! |
Anonymous
This is interesting, if inadvertent, commentary on the usefulness (or lack thereof) of a lot of what we learned (or rather briefly memorized in many cases) in school. |
Anonymous
| Homework sucks! They go to school for 7 hours. Isn't that enough to learn something. High school homework is ridiculous and my kids barely sleep. |
Anonymous
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My daughter had the notoriously bad music teacher (who makes about 90,000 as per Fairfax underground. She would have gladly done math during that time. My son got the uppity art teacher (who makes over 70,000. He too would have preferred math.
I'm all for the arts if you make it truly worthwhile. Otherwise, what a waste of taxpayer money to have Music 2x a week with an angry nut who hates the job. |
Anonymous
NP. Once my kids are in later elementary school, that is something I directly teach them. Some of what you learn in school will be useful; some of it is only a hoop-jumping exercise that you need to do in order to get other benefits. Good grades don't only measure knowledge and don't always measure knowledge or learning effectively. And yes, some stuff in school is pointless, but good grades are the gateway to many things that will help build a desirable future. It's up to them to decide what they need to do to get what they want. Some homework can (and in our cost/benefit calculations, should) be ignored but that doesn't exempt anyone from the consequences of not doing it or doing it poorly. There's always a cost that we have to be prepared to pay for every choice about how to use our time. In some cases, doing the homework is NOT worth it; in other cases skipping or hurrying the homework is the choice that would NOT be worth it. In grades k-2 the kids do all of their homework with as much of my support as is needed, in order to 1) teach study habits, and 2) make sure they have a solid academic foundation. Even if the work itself is pointless, they need to learn that sometimes the world requires pointlessness in order to get useful or desired things. And in early elementary, most of the homework was either beneficial or fun. In 3rd, I start to help them prioritize and very occasionally this would mean an assignment is not done or not done with much effort. In 4th grade and beyond, I had/have nothing to do with homework unless asked as long as all progress report/report card grades are a B or better. With 3 kids older than 4th grade, so far this has meant most homework is at least attempted but some is poor quality or just ignored. In middle and high school, my older three have definitely prioritized some assignments over others based on the utility of the assignment to their learning and/or the impact on their grade. |
Anonymous
kids in other countries work harder. Your kid will be competing with these kids for jobs. |
Anonymous
| I wish I could stay out of my children's academics, but school is now so much about collaboration and creativity and testing, that it seems the teachers don't have time for anything else. They're tasked with helping kids come up with new ideas all the time and meeting each child at their level, so they can never have the same curriculum for all of their children. They also have to keep re-teaching material with spiral curriculums, so subject content switches all the time before the students achieve any mastery. I like the emphasis on collaboration and creativity, but it seems like the change is leaving my child with a lot of holes in their education and a lot of unfinished work. Half the time the teacher doesn't even check the homework nor the classwork, so there's no way for them of knowing whether or not the child understands the assignments. We've gotten assignments returned back that aren't even started much less completed with no teacher comments and no requirement to finish them. I just can't stand by and watch when I'm seeing this stuff happen regularly. I don't blame the teachers. They have too much to teach with too little resources and too many kids. |
Anonymous
But does that 'working harder' result in better outcomes? Work smarter, not harder. In some cases that looks identical, in others it does not. |
Anonymous
| Except for one or two projects, I haven't experienced this, and both my kids have now entered middle school. |
Anonymous
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Here you go posters who despise homework. Maybe this will spread to other districts:
http://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/grade-smarter-not-harder-baltimore-co-public-schools-revises-grading-system |