E is in private school. One of the main reasons - his math teacher will actually grade his homework. Shocking.
I can't believe homework has no value. Kids learn from practice. The more they practice, the better they become. _
We have a 12 year old in public school.
He gets 100s on EVERY math homework assignment. This was in 6th, and now 7th grade.
In 6th grade, he had Language Arts homework that didn't affect his actual class score. So, he decides for himself, "Why should I complete the homework?" and turns in 3 assignments that are mostly blank.*
*I caught up to his shenanigans, and he had plenty of time over spring break to complete the work - not to change his grades, but to show him he still was responsible for his work. Oh, and at no point did the teacher shoot us an email to let us know what was going on. I had to see it online, and dig the worksheets out of his back pack.
I have a feeling the 12 year old will be in private school, soon.
I'm not sure I would paint public v. private schools with such a broad brush here.
I don't have kids and don't know jack about teaching so I don't feel qualified to contribute much here, but juliahenry do you think it would help to buy your son some sort of cool notebook to encourage him to write down his homework instructions? I have a crappy memory, so even if I paid attention in class I always needed to write down my assignments, and it was helpful to refer back to my little book while I was doing my homework to make sure I didn't leave anything out.
Also, I wish more schools encouraged multiple ways of doing math problems. It seems like so many people are taught that there's only one right way to solve something, and then when teaching trends change parents feel lost.
Okay...so I have like 8 minutes before I have to walk the dogs...so...
Homework, as it has traditionally existed, is essentially useless. Practicing the same skills, over and over and over again is useless, once a student has mastered a skill, they have mastered it, no amount of practice will make them better at it. If a child hasn't mastered it they likely need re-instruction, not an opportunity to continue NOT being able to do it.
Interestingly, a lot of the research suggests that at a young age the most useful and meaningful homework is reading. Also interestingly I have heard mothers here openly admit to filling out their child's reading logs when they hadn't read. So, yeah.
As a teacher I didn't mark homework because I didn't know who did it - I am not giving an assessment of student understanding for work that might have been completed by a parent - and trust me, I can tell the difference. If I don't know the kid did the work they aren't getting a grade for it, they get a grade for what they do in front of me, for what I can see, hear or read.
That being said, I did assign homework. Last year my kids had homework about once a week (grade 5), maybe twice. It would generally be some math skill practice. Only once a week because really, as I said above, going home and doing multiplication tables isn't going to make a kid who can do them get better at them, and the kid who can't needs to relearn what multiplication is. The being said, when they did math homework (or any homework), we did correct it as a class. But it wasn't graded, other than for a completion grade.
I did occasionally assign a 'project' for homework, when the kids worked on the project at home and then were graded only for their oral presentation of the project, not the project itself.
I am out of time...but there are some interesting reads below. Joenali is technically correct, homework doesn't inform her practice, it isn't a good indicator of student understanding. What she sees in class is a much better form of assessment for learning, which she can use to adjust her teaching practice.
Grading it as a class for completion? Great. Throwing it away in front of them, to me, seems like a waste of their time, and their parents' time. It sends the message that the work they've done isn't really important. Shit, throw a sticker on the thing and hand it back to them. Elementary builds the foundation for the practices and study habits they take into middle school, and then into high school. If they're taught their time on work in elementary isn't important, and that carries into middle school, then high school, what happens when they get to college and ALL of their work (essays, studying, note taking) is done independently? What about in the workplace?
The math is part of a new way of teaching math where they aren't just interested in whether or not the kids get the right answer, but also how the came up with the answer they got. They want kids to be able to explain what they did while solving the problem. There is no specific answer they are looking for, other than an explanation.
Exactly this I went through this whole thing with my son when he was younger. Even still he struggles with the bullshit aspect. (He had Aspergers) things are very cut and dry for him and he doesn't understand why he has to show how he knows it if he's getting it all right, don't they know he knows? It's frustrating (me with son not me with school) Same thing every year. His math teacher says he has an A but she has to give an F if he isn't going to show his work. This year he is in 9th grade. He will look at the problem, write the correct answer in ten seconds, and get an F if he doesn't show how he got to it. Argh!!! He is finally getting it through his head that this is how it is, but man. He is also a very high iq child, just too inflexible to just freakin do what the teachers are asking, like it or not! It's become my philosophy
They have (most of them) hard enough jobs as it is, just do the damn work, Ffs
I will admit, I did not read all of this because I have no kids. However, I will say that while your child may claim to be "bored" by his homework - guess what, a ton of shit in life is boring, but required. I really don't think my boss would like it if I said that I didn't want to do parts of my job that are boring and not challenging enough for my gifted self.
True that. I'm bored right now waiting for my girls to get out of preschool. I'm sure as shit not going to decide not to do it because I'm bored. Let them was their little asses home.
On the other hand, kids need to love learning and boring them isn't the way, although teaching to 20+ kids all at their individual levels, someone is going to be bored. Just the way it is.
90% of the time, I don't care what method my kids use to find the answer, as long as they can explain the method they use. However, there are times that I need to make sure they know a specific method because later, as the problems get more complex, they will need that particular method.
But yes, the important parts are the WHY and HOW....not just that x = 2. A computer can do that part for you.
There is also a middle ground with homework. Assigning homework just to assign homework is stupid. But homework can have a purpose and be useful. I generally only assign a small number of problems (last night they had 5). Its a way for them to do a quick check at home by themselves to make sure they get it. Then we can fix the misconceptions the next day in class. I hand pick those problems to purposefully include common errors.
I will say that I find many elementary school teachers do not handle singapore (or every day math) math well. But most elem teachers go into that field because they love to teach things other than math. So I get it. Its not their thing. (Not ALL elem teachers. Some are really in to math) .
Singapore/Everyday math are not bad ....but they are often implemented poorly unfortunately.
I was thinking about this thread and came back to add another thought only to see it is now 7 pages long. I haven't read past page 4 so forgive e if this point is made.
I'm one of those parents who has been crabbing and complaining because I have no idea how to do 1st grade math. DD thinks I don't know how to add because I have no clue what to do with those little sticks she uses. I told Her I just know it because back in the day, that was the only choice we had. I was frustrated all of last year because the homework seemed like it was making the whole thing overly difficult.
skip to this past weekend. DH and I rented a trencher and dug4 ft trenches all around our house to put in more down spout. Drains from the gutters. We worked our asses off on Saturday and ran out of the drain tubing. We called it a day and decided to get up early Sunday morning to finish. Well, we wake up Sunday and it looks like it's about to rain. Holy shit,we need to get the drains in NOW before the rain makes all our trenches collapse around the house. DH takes to trencher back to the rental place while I do the Home Depot run. I knew I needed 78 ft of tubing for next to the basement and 67 ft of tubing for along the driveway. The tubing comes in 100ft rolls or 10 ft straight lengths. I had no idea how much I needed all together and I was so exhausted from the day before, I stood there staring at the tubing. I was in a huge rush and worried about the trenches collapsing so I just couldn't think straight to add in my head. So my reasoning was that 78 is almost 80. I can add 80 plus 67 without trying to visualize the columns or carry anything over. That's 147, but then back out the 2 from when I rounded the 78 up to an even 80. That makes 145. OK, I need one roll plus 5 straight lengths. Done.
I started this post agreeing with the parents about how complicated the new strategies are. But as I read Rugby's example of 4 different ways to ad the same numbers, I had an aha moment. I realized what she was describing was the exact thing I stood in Home Depot and did when I was too tired and too rushed to think. My mind broke the problem into easier pieces by rounding one number up so that I wouldn't have to try to carry in my head. I'm usually quite good at math, but at that moment,my mind just couldn't think.
I now understand why some kids need different strategies because their minds "see" things differently. If we want kids to "know" math, memorizing or adding in columns is fine. But if we want kids to actually be able to "use" math when they are standing in Home Depot, then they are sometimes going to need other strategies to figure the problem out.
As a teacher, this is aggravating. Even if I was grading for participation, I always looked at what the students wrote, and made comments. Even with math, you can see the answer, and look at the work to see where they went wrong, right?
As a parent, it's infuriating. If my kid were assigned homework and I knew they spent even ninety seconds on it when that shit wasn't going to get a second glance, heads would roll.
It's second grade. How on earth is homework going to inform my instruction other than who is doing it and who is not? We don't give grades for homework, not even participation grades. I'm also not going to waste my time going over homework, when can use that time to look at in class work, make small groups and create teaching points from work that actually informs my instruction.
Honest question here, if homework isn't graded at all, really what is the point o the homework in the first place?
It's second grade. How on earth is homework going to inform my instruction other than who is doing it and who is not? We don't give grades for homework, not even participation grades. I'm also not going to waste my time going over homework, when can use that time to look at in class work, make small groups and create teaching points from work that actually informs my instruction.
Honest question here, if homework isn't graded at all, really what is the point o the homework in the first place?
It's second grade. How on earth is homework going to inform my instruction other than who is doing it and who is not? We don't give grades for homework, not even participation grades. I'm also not going to waste my time going over homework, when can use that time to look at in class work, make small groups and create teaching points from work that actually informs my instruction.
Honest question here, if homework isn't graded at all, really what is the point o the homework in the first place?
I never gave nightly homework when I taught middle and high school. It was a PITA to grade and it doesn't teach them a lot. But I believe weekly homework and extended projects are immensely important, as it teaches kids time management and how to balance responsibilities. If they have soccer practice on Tuesday and play rehearsal on Wednesday, then they better finish that weekly assignment on Monday or Thursday. Once they realize this (often for the first time), their grades go up, and they actually care about keeping them up. It's a big part of my teaching philosophy.
Ds1, my genius, brilliant, gifted, fabulous son, was fucking off in 9th grade literature class, and we got called in to a parent/teacher conference. I will NEVER forget this. He was not handing in his work. The teacher, god love him, was ever so delicately tiptoeing around why it was little Danny wasn't handing in his work and how do you FEEL about the work etc because he was afraid I would be one of those My Son Is So Gifted He Should Not Be Expected To Do The Work The Other Children Have To parents. I stopped him, and asked if I could ask some questions of my kid, and he says ok. So I look at Little Danny and say "Why are you not getting your work done, son?" and he says "I'm too busy". And I said "With what?" and he said "With football and the school play". I said "Do you not like the work?" and he said "No" and said it was boring and he didn't see the point. ........
Fucking asshole kid. He had the work in thereafter. Got an A in that class. The teacher still thinks I walk on water. lol
I don't have a horse in this race - nor do I do anything but lurk on this board - but this response is full of excellence. Add this to the pile of "Why Sue Sue is a great parent."
E is in private school. One of the main reasons - his math teacher will actually grade his homework. Shocking.
I can't believe homework has no value. Kids learn from practice. The more they practice, the better they become. _
We have a 12 year old in public school.
He gets 100s on EVERY math homework assignment. This was in 6th, and now 7th grade.
In 6th grade, he had Language Arts homework that didn't affect his actual class score. So, he decides for himself, "Why should I complete the homework?" and turns in 3 assignments that are mostly blank.*
*I caught up to his shenanigans, and he had plenty of time over spring break to complete the work - not to change his grades, but to show him he still was responsible for his work. Oh, and at no point did the teacher shoot us an email to let us know what was going on. I had to see it online, and dig the worksheets out of his back pack.
I have a feeling the 12 year old will be in private school, soon.
I'm not sure I would paint public v. private schools with such a broad brush here.
I'm just talking about my kids, my public school district & E's private school.
- And - from reading this thread - it sounds like it's a VERY common occurrence for grade school teachers to not even grade all the homework assignments.
ETA: In case it wasn't clear, the 12 year old gets 100s on EVERY math assignment because the work isn't graded. It's just given a 100%. *-)