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

bizby40 wrote:
"Ericka Kammerer" <eek@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:O8udnehUYYkJI-beRVn-iA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

- 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.


	I thought it came up in this thread, but perhaps
I am confusing long education threads ;-)  The point
is that if you send a kindergartener home with
homework when he can't even read the instructions
or do the work without heavy parental support,
you're *NOT* following the cardinal rules of
homework (should be just a review of classroom
work at this stage, not getting the parent to
teach new material to the child!).  As a bonus
side effect, you're teaching dependence on the
parent to get homework done, which can quickly
get you into a vicious cycle.

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. 

	Sure, there are some less competent teachers.
And, in some cases, the curricula aren't understood
because they're ridiculous (or the school board
changes them every six months so no one knows
what the heck's going on anyway regardless of
their individual skills and abilities).

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. 

	How is this surprising?  There are some very
strange and counter-intuitive things in some math
texts these days.  I've had a lot of advanced math,
and *I* encounter things in grade school math
textbooks where I can't make heads or tails of
what they're looking for.  Many of those things
are just flat out nonsensical, in my opinion.
(And no, I don't buy that it's just because I'm
not an educator--many educators think these texts
are a load of crap too, but often teachers are
stuck with them anyway.)

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.


	Well, this hasn't exactly been a thread
encouraging of positive stories.  I like many things
about my children's school.  If I didn't, I would
put them somewhere else.  But I find the excessive
homework thing (and the beliefs that encourage it)
absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable and harmful
to students.

Best wishes,
Ericka
.

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