Reply to If you're a non-contributer parent to "school extras"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the parents who do all these things for their kids at home and one on one (that's great!) are missing the point that their kids also do a ton of things at school that other people are apparently organizing and paying for out of pocket.

Do you think that's fair? Would you rather your kid be excluded? Or that these things didn't take place at all? (but they do)[/quote]

I think people have pretty clearly stated that they would prefer those things didn't happen.

I don't have kids yet, but I have thought a lot about this.  I think that the parties and the activities are more of a distraction than anything else.  What I have seen with my friends' kids is that they spend a lot of classroom time doing parties, but then they go home with hours and hours of homework and, worse, the teacher hasn't had time to even teach them how to do the homework.

I don't think those activities benefit children as much as the PTA people like to think.  I think an educational field trip every now and again is a good idea, but most often, parents have to pay for that separately anyhow.

I think it actually does kids a disservice to constantly try to entice them into learning, this belief that everything has to be fun.  What kids need to learn is discipline, that everything isn't fun all of the time, but they still have to do it.  Children should have recess and PE in school, so that they run around and get a physical break.  But I think fewer parties, more in-class time on education and less homework (so that the incentive for kids to pay attention in school is that they'll have less homework and can go home and play) is the better way to go.

This approach of more activities has been in play for a decade now, and I don't think it's yielded any results/improvements.

I also think that in schools with active PTAs, most kids' parents can afford iPads.  The problem with the PTA buying technology is that technology becomes very quickly outdated.  It is far better to have some kind of arrangement with Apple or Microsoft of HP where parents can buy their kids equipment at a discount.  For schools with high FARMS rate, a different strategy needs to be employed, but I don't think making kids and parents do fundraising is the answer, given most FARMS kids' parents aren't exactly sitting around the house with lots of time and disposable income to participate in those things.  And usually schools with high FARMS rates don't have a bunch of wealthy SAHMs kids.  If anything, it's a mix of FARMS kids and solidly middle class kids, and the middle class families usually have two working parents. [/quote]

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