ADS 336x280 Here...
I'm sure I'll be getting notes home as to why my child doesn't have his work done, is unprepared for the test, is so disorganized, is daydreaming in class etc. Mea culpa, lay it on. But first there are a few things I need to bring to the techer's attention (most of whom had the summer off, or in the very least had that option). I would expect that there would be a comprehensive list of school supplies, required for your class, posted well before school started. Instead, I am given a generic list, I somehow find time in my busy schedule to shop (and frankly as a man I resent every second of that experience) only to find out that some items aren't needed. Then comes day two of school and there are more things to buy, different notebooks or folders and you want them by tomorrow. Well it ain't gonna happen so fast. I work til 8pm and cant wait to come home and try to finish all the excess homework that the kids forgot. Shop? No way! I need more advance notice. I have no spouse to run errands while I work (I guess that's really why men marry). So it will have to wait. And why did it have to go down like this in the first place?I wonder how come I have to go to back to school night (taking off work and losing money that pays for tuition) to find out how the class is run, what color folders gets which course designation, homework policy etc. Shouldn't there be a clearly defined mission statement sent out to the parent at the start of school or earlier? My son was given a 21 question sheet on a book he read that night. OMG. He worked himself silly. Well at back to school night, the teacher said he only has to answer ONE question a week. WELL, HELLO....Do ya think you can write that at the top of the page?!? How can you expect a third grader to get all the particulars straight and even if he does, it isn't clear to me. Tension ensues.
Parenthetically, there is always one helicopter/overachiever parent in the bunch. One woman's God-honest comment: "Do you give extra credit for more homework done?....Frankly I love homework...at least they aren't wasting time...Am I the only parent who likes homework?" Holy Crap on a Popsicle, Batman. I said directly and firmly "Indeed you are." What I wanted to say was, "Shut the hell up, you and people like you are ruining it for the rest of us regular folk who want our children to experience childhood, to run and play and not have ever-looming pressure to do work, to succeed, or to make the parent/teacher happy." Read my post, "Homework, Homewreck" and the book, "The Case Against Homework, and you'll learn some of the real pitfalls of homework and how it destroys the family.
Back to our regularly scheduled rant on back to school night 2010.
On a more positive note, one of the rebbes was asked about homework grading, to which he replied that he uses it as a guide to see where the child is holding and its main purpose is review. He said that he wants the children to develop a love for learning rather than resentment and frustration. I nearly fainted. If he was a missionary, I would've got down on my knees right then and there and converted to whatever he was pushing. Now folks, THAT"S A REAL TEACHER! He gets it, he recognizes that training kids with the skills to succeed must be done through positive means. If a child loves something, he will seek it out and further his knowledge and education but if he resents it, he will shut his mind. It isn't the volume of information that must be absorbed that matters, rather it is the basics, the skills, and the desire that make success attainable.
So cut the homework insanity because frankly I don't want to have to repeat elementary school.
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