Homework that is busywork - does anyone else just say no?

[Anonymous]

No, I don't think it's me. I hired you to do a specific job; I wasn't coy about what the daily tasks were. When you drag your feet, when I overhear you complaining about them, when the tasks are carelessly done, that's on you, not me. Now, if you come to me with an idea about how to improve a task or whatever, I applaud that. But your bitching and carelessness? No. And I am more than happy to work with my team to bring out their unique skills and strengths - ONLY AFTER they have proven to me that they have a good attitude, are a team player, etc. If you come in with a chip on your shoulder? Good luck. You better figure it out quick or you'll be in my office for a very uncomfortable discussion (for you anyway).

And YOU are kidding yourself if you think that parents who take this attitude with their small children miraculously change their tune as their kids get older. It's pretty much their mindset/attitude from the get-go, and it just manifests itself in different ways as the kids get older.

And you attribute ALL of this to a kid's parent not making them do homework. I don't find anything in your scenario that leads me to believe that homework has anything to with the problems you seem to have. If you still insist that what you say is true and not your perception, then please provide peer reviewed research to back up your claims. (I won't hold my breath).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are the kids who grow to be those insufferable entry-level hires at the office who think they're above doing the boring parts of their jobs.

No, they will grow up to be the workers who know how to assess workflow and prioritize tasks.

If they can manage to move up that far, what with the enormous entitled chips on their shoulders and all. Those of us who are currently in management positions find these young 'uns to be totally insufferable brats. When I get attitude like that, you can be damned sure I'm not handing you any choice assignments that would allow you to shine or going out of my way to help you. Pay your dues with a smile on your face or toil in the lower ranks for a long, long time. Or you know, leave.

Who said anything about attitude? You are mixing up work skills with manners.

No, I'm not. You just didn't comprehend my point. My point is that these kids who have great "work skills" but think they are too good for the work that I give them are never going to go anywhere in my organization, and I wouldn't lift a finger to help them. Read the bolded quote above. I am directly challenging your notion that kids who are taught that they can pick and choose which tasks are worthy of them grow up to be awesome workers. They often don't. They grow up to be smart kids with lots of skills but shitty attitudes that people HATE working with. If your 22 year old ass gives me attitude about the work I'm giving you, you can pretty much be assured that I'm not giving you anything more challenging (you know, the kinds of tasks that would help you demonstrate those amazing abilities to "assess workflow and prioritize tasks"). So I'm suggesting that your smug assertion is not assured and that you better be careful what kind of kid you are raising. Don't believe me? I recently worked for a university and knew lots of alums in management who bitched about this very situation almost every time I saw them. So I am totally not alone.

I understood your point. I just think it's flawed from the get-go to think how a young elementary school child and his/her parents approach homework is ever going to translate into what type of worker they are in 20 years. And we are talking young kids here. Not high school or college, where there are significant consequences for not doing homework. Kids learn along the way, and fostering a mindset of critical thinking and decision making benefits everyone.

You have some sort of issue with your employees, but I wonder if you ever stepped back to look at your own management skills. Today's workforce has four generations working for them, and each one brings a different set of values to the workplace. A good manager recognizes that and is able to bring out employees' various strengths. Even though their entitlement mentality can get on my nerves at times, I "like" the energy the 20 somethings bring to the workplace. I "like" that they question things in a way I never would have 20 years ago. Team work always creates a better work product.

"Shitty" attitudes go both ways and usually it's the person at the top who sets the tone and culture of the workplace environment. Not the bottom.

Not PP, but do you seriously believe that "shitty" workers don't exist outside of poor management situations? I feel like anyone who's spent any real amount of time out in the working world has come across a co-worker who was either incompetent, lazy, or both. I kind of think you're just trying to get in a dig at PP - "if you have bad workers on staff, it must be your fault".

I am the PP and I agree. When I worked in academia this was EXACTLY the attitude I saw time and again. It was never the precious snowflake's fault - it was always some evil administrator or policy, some professor who was out to get them, an advisor who didn't spend enough time with them, etc etc etc. One excuse after another. Such a pity for those kids who are being done a MAJOR disservice by their parents, who I assume are well-meaning but who are woefully misguided (and unwilling/unable to admit it).

I always promised myself I would NEVER be this kind of parent. My parents raised me to have a strong work ethic, take responsiblity for myself, and to be willing to do whatever work needed to be done - even if I didn't like it or it "wasn't part of my job description". Honestly, that's served me really well over the years...advancing quickly, lots of positive feedback from bosses. I think it's a parent's job to produce an independent, functional member of society, not to protect the child from unpleasantness and hard work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are the kids who grow to be those insufferable entry-level hires at the office who think they're above doing the boring parts of their jobs.

No, they will grow up to be the workers who know how to assess workflow and prioritize tasks.

If they can manage to move up that far, what with the enormous entitled chips on their shoulders and all. Those of us who are currently in management positions find these young 'uns to be totally insufferable brats. When I get attitude like that, you can be damned sure I'm not handing you any choice assignments that would allow you to shine or going out of my way to help you. Pay your dues with a smile on your face or toil in the lower ranks for a long, long time. Or you know, leave.

Who said anything about attitude? You are mixing up work skills with manners.

In the workplace, having good manners is a prerequisite to being given an opportunity to develop or showcase skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You have such a warped, myoptic thinking it is hard to reason with you. If you don't want to do homework - DON'T...but don't judge me for making my kid comply. You want to revolt - and want others to join the revolution...sorry, honey...you "teach" your kids your way and I'll teach mine, my way

Ah, I get it. It's not okay for us to judge you for making your kid do all this homework but it's fine for you to judge us for not making our kids do it. I don't know what revolution you're talking about. I don't care whether kids do homework or not. We all make choices we think are best for our families. Your choices don't work for me and I don't care whether you approval or not and I don't care what you think of me. I think you're trying to hard to justify your own choices. Makes me think you're unsure about them. But, I don't know know you care about my opinion any more than I care about yours.

I think the attitudes you're teaching your children about which homework has value won't serve your child well in later grades, college, or the workplace. In later grades, failure to do homework results in lower grades. Do you plan to say "that was then, this is now" when your child is getting Bs and Cs because they don't do their homework and say it's because they learned from you early on that some homework is optional? It may also come as a shock to them that managers in jobs often expect menial tasks to be completed and are not impressed by a failure to do so explained with "it was just busywork."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

No, I don't think it's me. I hired you to do a specific job; I wasn't coy about what the daily tasks were. When you drag your feet, when I overhear you complaining about them, when the tasks are carelessly done, that's on you, not me. Now, if you come to me with an idea about how to improve a task or whatever, I applaud that. But your bitching and carelessness? No. And I am more than happy to work with my team to bring out their unique skills and strengths - ONLY AFTER they have proven to me that they have a good attitude, are a team player, etc. If you come in with a chip on your shoulder? Good luck. You better figure it out quick or you'll be in my office for a very uncomfortable discussion (for you anyway).

And YOU are kidding yourself if you think that parents who take this attitude with their small children miraculously change their tune as their kids get older. It's pretty much their mindset/attitude from the get-go, and it just manifests itself in different ways as the kids get older.

And you attribute ALL of this to a kid's parent not making them do homework. I don't find anything in your scenario that leads me to believe that homework has anything to with the problems you seem to have. If you still insist that what you say is true and not your perception, then please provide peer reviewed research to back up your claims. (I won't hold my breath).

You are really going out on a limb with your defensiveness over a poor parenting choice, aren't you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

No, I don't think it's me. I hired you to do a specific job; I wasn't coy about what the daily tasks were. When you drag your feet, when I overhear you complaining about them, when the tasks are carelessly done, that's on you, not me. Now, if you come to me with an idea about how to improve a task or whatever, I applaud that. But your bitching and carelessness? No. And I am more than happy to work with my team to bring out their unique skills and strengths - ONLY AFTER they have proven to me that they have a good attitude, are a team player, etc. If you come in with a chip on your shoulder? Good luck. You better figure it out quick or you'll be in my office for a very uncomfortable discussion (for you anyway).

And YOU are kidding yourself if you think that parents who take this attitude with their small children miraculously change their tune as their kids get older. It's pretty much their mindset/attitude from the get-go, and it just manifests itself in different ways as the kids get older.

And you attribute ALL of this to a kid's parent not making them do homework. I don't find anything in your scenario that leads me to believe that homework has anything to with the problems you seem to have. If you still insist that what you say is true and not your perception, then please provide peer reviewed research to back up your claims. (I won't hold my breath).

Yeah, PP, just pop on over to PubMed to get all the "peer-reviewed research" that's required for this person to accept reality. I think I saw a piece about this last month in Entitled Snowflake Quarterly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, I don't think it's me. I hired you to do a specific job; I wasn't coy about what the daily tasks were. When you drag your feet, when I overhear you complaining about them, when the tasks are carelessly done, that's on you, not me. Now, if you come to me with an idea about how to improve a task or whatever, I applaud that. But your bitching and carelessness? No. And I am more than happy to work with my team to bring out their unique skills and strengths - ONLY AFTER they have proven to me that they have a good attitude, are a team player, etc. If you come in with a chip on your shoulder? Good luck. You better figure it out quick or you'll be in my office for a very uncomfortable discussion (for you anyway).

And YOU are kidding yourself if you think that parents who take this attitude with their small children miraculously change their tune as their kids get older. It's pretty much their mindset/attitude from the get-go, and it just manifests itself in different ways as the kids get older.

And you attribute ALL of this to a kid's parent not making them do homework. I don't find anything in your scenario that leads me to believe that homework has anything to with the problems you seem to have. If you still insist that what you say is true and not your perception, then please provide peer reviewed research to back up your claims. (I won't hold my breath).

Yeah, PP, just pop on over to PubMed to get all the "peer-reviewed research" that's required for this person to accept reality. I think I saw a piece about this last month in Entitled Snowflake Quarterly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You have such a warped, myoptic thinking it is hard to reason with you. If you don't want to do homework - DON'T...but don't judge me for making my kid comply. You want to revolt - and want others to join the revolution...sorry, honey...you "teach" your kids your way and I'll teach mine, my way

Ah, I get it. It's not okay for us to judge you for making your kid do all this homework but it's fine for you to judge us for not making our kids do it. I don't know what revolution you're talking about. I don't care whether kids do homework or not. We all make choices we think are best for our families. Your choices don't work for me and I don't care whether you approval or not and I don't care what you think of me. I think you're trying to hard to justify your own choices. Makes me think you're unsure about them. But, I don't know know you care about my opinion any more than I care about yours.

I think the attitudes you're teaching your children about which homework has value won't serve your child well in later grades, college, or the workplace. In later grades, failure to do homework results in lower grades. Do you plan to say "that was then, this is now" when your child is getting Bs and Cs because they don't do their homework and say it's because they learned from you early on that some homework is optional? It may also come as a shock to them that managers in jobs often expect menial tasks to be completed and are not impressed by a failure to do so explained with "it was just busywork."

Still not convinced. Just like school not being the only place learning occurs, doing busy work isn't the only way to teach kids about 'menial' work. If homework is part of their grade or needed for learning and they choose not to do it, then they'll fail - as they should. There are no benefits of them doing homework now and there are no negative consequences. When that changes, our position on homework will change, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, I don't think it's me. I hired you to do a specific job; I wasn't coy about what the daily tasks were. When you drag your feet, when I overhear you complaining about them, when the tasks are carelessly done, that's on you, not me. Now, if you come to me with an idea about how to improve a task or whatever, I applaud that. But your bitching and carelessness? No. And I am more than happy to work with my team to bring out their unique skills and strengths - ONLY AFTER they have proven to me that they have a good attitude, are a team player, etc. If you come in with a chip on your shoulder? Good luck. You better figure it out quick or you'll be in my office for a very uncomfortable discussion (for you anyway).

And YOU are kidding yourself if you think that parents who take this attitude with their small children miraculously change their tune as their kids get older. It's pretty much their mindset/attitude from the get-go, and it just manifests itself in different ways as the kids get older.

And you attribute ALL of this to a kid's parent not making them do homework. I don't find anything in your scenario that leads me to believe that homework has anything to with the problems you seem to have. If you still insist that what you say is true and not your perception, then please provide peer reviewed research to back up your claims. (I won't hold my breath).

Yeah, PP, just pop on over to PubMed to get all the "peer-reviewed research" that's required for this person to accept reality. I think I saw a piece about this last month in Entitled Snowflake Quarterly.

Whose 'reality' are you referring to? Not mine, I'm sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You have such a warped, myoptic thinking it is hard to reason with you. If you don't want to do homework - DON'T...but don't judge me for making my kid comply. You want to revolt - and want others to join the revolution...sorry, honey...you "teach" your kids your way and I'll teach mine, my way

Ah, I get it. It's not okay for us to judge you for making your kid do all this homework but it's fine for you to judge us for not making our kids do it. I don't know what revolution you're talking about. I don't care whether kids do homework or not. We all make choices we think are best for our families. Your choices don't work for me and I don't care whether you approval or not and I don't care what you think of me. I think you're trying to hard to justify your own choices. Makes me think you're unsure about them. But, I don't know know you care about my opinion any more than I care about yours.

I think the attitudes you're teaching your children about which homework has value won't serve your child well in later grades, college, or the workplace. In later grades, failure to do homework results in lower grades. Do you plan to say "that was then, this is now" when your child is getting Bs and Cs because they don't do their homework and say it's because they learned from you early on that some homework is optional? It may also come as a shock to them that managers in jobs often expect menial tasks to be completed and are not impressed by a failure to do so explained with "it was just busywork."

Still not convinced. Just like school not being the only place learning occurs, doing busy work isn't the only way to teach kids about 'menial' work. If homework is part of their grade or needed for learning and they choose not to do it, then they'll fail - as they should. There are no benefits of them doing homework now and there are no negative consequences. When that changes, our position on homework will change, too.

Huh. In our school, failure to complete homework does, in fact, result in lower report card scores. 2nd Grade.

[Anonymous]

I would hope this is a small minority of parents who don't support doing homework of any kind. I think for purposes of this discussion we are all agreeing that we are only discussing homework that we might not think is important for our kids to do for whatever reason. My kid brought home math work tonight that she did in mere minutes. I would have PREFERRED she had harder homework (to her level) so it took longer and more thought. I don't think my preference, however, has anything to do with whether the homework merrited being completed.

You all who don't 'make' your kids do homework are a sorry lot. Your kids are the ones who grow up feeling sheltered, entitled, questioning everything, and are usually annoying to others. I was made to do homework and didn't grow up without creativity or creative outlets. I had plenty of family time and learning outside the classroom and outside homework time. I'm STILL glad my parents made me do every assignment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You have such a warped, myoptic thinking it is hard to reason with you. If you don't want to do homework - DON'T...but don't judge me for making my kid comply. You want to revolt - and want others to join the revolution...sorry, honey...you "teach" your kids your way and I'll teach mine, my way

Ah, I get it. It's not okay for us to judge you for making your kid do all this homework but it's fine for you to judge us for not making our kids do it. I don't know what revolution you're talking about. I don't care whether kids do homework or not. We all make choices we think are best for our families. Your choices don't work for me and I don't care whether you approval or not and I don't care what you think of me. I think you're trying to hard to justify your own choices. Makes me think you're unsure about them. But, I don't know know you care about my opinion any more than I care about yours.

I think the attitudes you're teaching your children about which homework has value won't serve your child well in later grades, college, or the workplace. In later grades, failure to do homework results in lower grades. Do you plan to say "that was then, this is now" when your child is getting Bs and Cs because they don't do their homework and say it's because they learned from you early on that some homework is optional? It may also come as a shock to them that managers in jobs often expect menial tasks to be completed and are not impressed by a failure to do so explained with "it was just busywork."

Still not convinced. Just like school not being the only place learning occurs, doing busy work isn't the only way to teach kids about 'menial' work. If homework is part of their grade or needed for learning and they choose not to do it, then they'll fail - as they should. There are no benefits of them doing homework now and there are no negative consequences. When that changes, our position on homework will change, too.

Huh. In our school, failure to complete homework does, in fact, result in lower report card scores. 2nd Grade.

Can't be FCPS - HW is not counted in FCPS in lower grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would hope this is a small minority of parents who don't support doing homework of any kind. I think for purposes of this discussion we are all agreeing that we are only discussing homework that we might not think is important for our kids to do for whatever reason. My kid brought home math work tonight that she did in mere minutes. I would have PREFERRED she had harder homework (to her level) so it took longer and more thought. I don't think my preference, however, has anything to do with whether the homework merrited being completed.

You all who don't 'make' your kids do homework are a sorry lot. Your kids are the ones who grow up feeling sheltered, entitled, questioning everything, and are usually annoying to others. I was made to do homework and didn't grow up without creativity or creative outlets. I had plenty of family time and learning outside the classroom and outside homework time. I'm STILL glad my parents made me do every assignment.

Agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would hope this is a small minority of parents who don't support doing homework of any kind. I think for purposes of this discussion we are all agreeing that we are only discussing homework that we might not think is important for our kids to do for whatever reason. My kid brought home math work tonight that she did in mere minutes. I would have PREFERRED she had harder homework (to her level) so it took longer and more thought. I don't think my preference, however, has anything to do with whether the homework merrited being completed.

You all who don't 'make' your kids do homework are a sorry lot. Your kids are the ones who grow up feeling sheltered, entitled, questioning everything, and are usually annoying to others. I was made to do homework and didn't grow up without creativity or creative outlets. I had plenty of family time and learning outside the classroom and outside homework time. I'm STILL glad my parents made me do every assignment.

Yawn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would hope this is a small minority of parents who don't support doing homework of any kind. I think for purposes of this discussion we are all agreeing that we are only discussing homework that we might not think is important for our kids to do for whatever reason. My kid brought home math work tonight that she did in mere minutes. I would have PREFERRED she had harder homework (to her level) so it took longer and more thought. I don't think my preference, however, has anything to do with whether the homework merrited being completed.

You all who don't 'make' your kids do homework are a sorry lot. Your kids are the ones who grow up feeling sheltered, entitled, questioning everything, and are usually annoying to others. I was made to do homework and didn't grow up without creativity or creative outlets. I had plenty of family time and learning outside the classroom and outside homework time. I'm STILL glad my parents made me do every assignment.

Yawn.

A well-reasoned and compelling counter-argument, if ever there was one.