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I freaking LOVE Brenna's teacher
13 Sep 2012 05:37 pmShe's in 4th grade and came home with a homework "contract".
The thing that immediately caught my eye and made my heart flutter:
OMG, I can't tell you how awesome this is. I'm so sick of teachers and other people in authority insisting it's the parent's job to make sure all this stuff is done. I think I've told every 3rd and 4th grade teacher my kids have had (2nd grade, too, I think) that I will not be held responsible for missing work. It's the kids' jobs to do it and turn it in.
Most of them, luckily, have agreed with me. The number of parents online I've talked to that disagree was staggering.
How the hell will they learn to be responsible if you never expect them to be accountable for anything they do or don't do.
Not to say I ignore the kids and homework. Every day I ask them if they have homework almost as soon as they walk in the door. I help if they are having trouble. I remind them to put it back in their bags. I do NOT hover over them while their working. I don't proof read essays, I don't correct things. If I see a worksheet is completely wrong I'll make them do it over and help them to understand what they're doing. If, even after that, they still don't get it I attach a note to the teacher explaining the problem. If I'm sending my kids to school it's not my "job" to teach them the assignments (this has come up in the past). I also make them redo messy writing (which they HATE).
Mostly I'm hands off, though. This is going to be an issue for Brenna. At the end of last year she stopped doing any homework or handing any of it in. She also wasn't giving me any papers from the teacher. I kept reminding her, asking her if she had homework and the answer was always "no" or some variant. If it had been Catholic school from the 80s she would have never passed. After awhile I just washed my hands of it. She needed to learn the consequences of her actions (which apparently were none because she passed with great grades).
I'm so happy she has a teacher that will hold her accountable.
Oh, and Meagan is actually doing her homework. Her behavior is already going back to the way it was last year (proving that school is a cause of her anxiety) but she is determined to do all her homework. I was in my room when she got home and I came out five minutes later and she was working on Math. Luckily I came out when I did because she was so confused. I could see why. They are learning to add, subtract, multiply and divide with negative numbers. They're doing number lines and picturing the equations as balloons that move up or down with gas bags and sand bags.
I was so freaking confused. I could look at the equation and know the answer in seconds because it's just multiplication tables and knowing the rules of positives and negatives. She was working them out on the number line and it would take her a full minute to get 4x-5. Geesh. We did not learn this stuff with all these convoluted visualizations. We memorized our tables and remembered the rules and that was the end of that. We learned it in 6th grade, I think.
The thing that immediately caught my eye and made my heart flutter:
It is the responsibility of your child (not yours, but your help and encouragement is appreciated) to do their homework each night and turn it in the following morning. I am very serious about this and accept very few excuses for not having shown responsibility.
OMG, I can't tell you how awesome this is. I'm so sick of teachers and other people in authority insisting it's the parent's job to make sure all this stuff is done. I think I've told every 3rd and 4th grade teacher my kids have had (2nd grade, too, I think) that I will not be held responsible for missing work. It's the kids' jobs to do it and turn it in.
Most of them, luckily, have agreed with me. The number of parents online I've talked to that disagree was staggering.
How the hell will they learn to be responsible if you never expect them to be accountable for anything they do or don't do.
Not to say I ignore the kids and homework. Every day I ask them if they have homework almost as soon as they walk in the door. I help if they are having trouble. I remind them to put it back in their bags. I do NOT hover over them while their working. I don't proof read essays, I don't correct things. If I see a worksheet is completely wrong I'll make them do it over and help them to understand what they're doing. If, even after that, they still don't get it I attach a note to the teacher explaining the problem. If I'm sending my kids to school it's not my "job" to teach them the assignments (this has come up in the past). I also make them redo messy writing (which they HATE).
Mostly I'm hands off, though. This is going to be an issue for Brenna. At the end of last year she stopped doing any homework or handing any of it in. She also wasn't giving me any papers from the teacher. I kept reminding her, asking her if she had homework and the answer was always "no" or some variant. If it had been Catholic school from the 80s she would have never passed. After awhile I just washed my hands of it. She needed to learn the consequences of her actions (which apparently were none because she passed with great grades).
I'm so happy she has a teacher that will hold her accountable.
Oh, and Meagan is actually doing her homework. Her behavior is already going back to the way it was last year (proving that school is a cause of her anxiety) but she is determined to do all her homework. I was in my room when she got home and I came out five minutes later and she was working on Math. Luckily I came out when I did because she was so confused. I could see why. They are learning to add, subtract, multiply and divide with negative numbers. They're doing number lines and picturing the equations as balloons that move up or down with gas bags and sand bags.
I was so freaking confused. I could look at the equation and know the answer in seconds because it's just multiplication tables and knowing the rules of positives and negatives. She was working them out on the number line and it would take her a full minute to get 4x-5. Geesh. We did not learn this stuff with all these convoluted visualizations. We memorized our tables and remembered the rules and that was the end of that. We learned it in 6th grade, I think.
