Re: first day of kindergarten and homework!


frank megaweege wrote:
Caledonia wrote:
frank megaweege wrote:

The resulting griping represented laziness, selfishness and anti-social
attitudes that I see as a real threat public education.

Wow -- I always thought the real threat to public education was a lack
of funding, or conversely, wide disparities in funding based on school
districts....


Those are the obvious, less insidious threats.

As you've probably guessed, we don't see eye to eye with taking a large
percentage of a five-year olds free time to do yet more defined and
constrained work...I can see how you'd think it was laziness, but I'm
not clear on why selfishness and anti-social ...

I'm all for research based best practices and I realize there are many
inefficiencies in the way most kids are educated. But some of the
scenarios being talked about (eg. a third grader with 1.5 hours of
homework every night that you mentioned) sound outlandish, to the point
that I have a hard time believing they're prevelant in real life.

I know a local private school expects about 1.5 hours by 3rd grade --
we're not at that school; our school district is pretty mellow w/r/t
early elementary homework (although the double recess of K and 1st is
dropped in 2nd grade. Boo). The district (er, school) does 'well' by
test/matriculation measures but I'm not sure whether that's the school,
itself, or driven/confounded by the other variables of the residents
here (e.g., ESL status, median income, post-graduate education, time
spent volunteering in the school, etc.)

Right now I like that my child has homework. I feel it reinforces what
was learned in the classroom and begins to instill some structure and
discipline.

Eh, my child had minor homework in 1st grade (reading a book or two a
night, starting off with tiny books and moving on to more intense
books, along with a weekly assignment of writing 10 spelling words 2x).
I think the structure and discipline that she exhibits has very little
to do with her 1st g homework -- I think it's something imparted at
home in a myraid of ways.

Why wouldn't one of the 'myriad of ways' be the homework assignments?

Sure -- it certainly could be. Right now, she doesn't spend 30 minutes
a day out of her free time doing *chores* (its something closer to
10-15 min, max), and she only recently turned seven. I think that my
former brush with child-directed learning in a Montessori setting has
made me also more 'child-directed' in what I encourage my kids to do
during their free time, and even now, I'd prefer she spend time reading
and just creating the random things she does, or playing, or
daydreaming. Supporting a homework policy for a K student (that's what
we're talking about) seems, to me, to cut into that free time to just
play and daydream for no real gain.

It's also a way for me, as a parent, to be informed and
involved in what my child does at school.

I can see how this would be helpful; the generic work that DD1 did was
returned home every week, plus we have a squadron of parent volunteers
at the elementary level (I gave 1-1.5 hours/week, every week; given
that there were 2 people/day doing this, every weekday, I realize that
it's the equivalent of .5 additional FTEs per class). I saw the work
that came home, and rec'd monthly curriculum updates. Perhaps if the
work didn't come home, or if I weren't there every week I'd want a way
to be informed....

I see it as my responsiblity
to make sure that the assignments are approached in such a way that are
not counterproductive to these goals.

I have a slightly different tack re. my responsibility (as I'm sure you
could have guessed)...


I'm not sure what you mean. What is your tack?

It's a little like Tennyson's Ulysses: "to follow knowledge like a
sinking star, beyond the utmost bounds of human thought." To instill a
love of learning, in and of itself (e.g., if DDs end up asking in 7
years, "is this going to be on the test?" I've utterly failed). To
instill a sense of responsibility to oneself, the community, and the
family by regularly contributing time and energies. To maintain the
DDs' self-confidence so they feels comfortable questioning things that
don't make sense, and be a leader when need be, versus to blindly be a
good follower.

Okay, that's the big picture -- but in the small picture, I'd feel
comfortable explaining what the trade-offs were if my DD were to
complete homework versus not complete it (in fact, we've already had
this conversation, as the spelling words weren't especially tricky, so
she balked at writing them 2x). DD1's school life is already structured
enough (imo), and I've seen enough evidence of both DDs discipline
w/r/t other endeavors that I'm not worried on that front. I have a high
regard for higher education, while also viewing it as a means to an end
and somewhat akin to a marathon -- as such, I think 30 minutes of K
'structured' work per day after school is a sprint with no viable
benefit. I think, for me, my 'Big Academic Goal' is for my children to
attain the education they need in order to do what they want as easily
as possible, and to illuminate -- to the best of our collective
knowledge -- how to achieve to that goal.

Caledonia

.

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