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My Son Won't Do His Homework (2007)

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Re: My Son Won't Do His Homework (2007)

#81

Post by parsec »

This article is horrible.

Of course parents think their kids drawings are cute, and their music is wonderous. But unless he is truly virtuoso, or actually has a photographic memory as suggested, he should probably learn some maths as well, and you as a parent should work as hard as you can to get him excited about things that will get him a job instead of rubbing off your callous despisery of "academics and investment bankers" on him. (Seriously... "homogenized and brainwashed", "almost completely without originality of thought or perspective", "good little cog in a habitual big wheel"... what makes you hate academics so deeply?) The entire world is in recession right now, you really think cartoonery is going to get him hired faster than a strong math and science background?

But let's pretend that parabolas actually are worthless and boring (God forbid I ever learn your opinion of Gaussians, Betas, Erfs, Einastos, Hernquists, Exponentials, etc.). Sounds like the real issue is the educational system, not the content. Don't for an instant try to say that Music and Maths are not intimately related. Look for gifted or accelerated programs, try to get him enrolled in a Millenium / Magnet school, just try to get him excited.

Seriously though, you should hold your tongue when talking about academics. You really think Bohr was homogenized? Was Tesla brainwashed? Was Von Braun a cogwheel? I guarantee people find my "art" just as amusing as your kids little shark doodle.

Re: My Son Won't Do His Homework (2007)

#82

Post by jspiros »

This story reminds me of my experience growing up and going to public school in Ohio (in the United States). When I did classwork, I did it very well. When I took tests, I was always in the top of my class (which led to me being in the highest-level classes offered at my schools). And when it came to class participation, the teachers always had praise for me. I spent most of my time outside of school learning new things from books, the internet, and everyone around me.

But I almost never did my homework.

This was almost the sole source of strife between my mother and I, and between both of us and school administrators. Going from 8th to 9th grade required a special exception, and recommendations from almost every one of my teachers, as my GPA was below the point normally required to progress to the next grade. I am lucky in that the teachers I had were sympathetic enough to stand up for me, and confident in my abilities using other methods of evaluation.

We (my mother and I) considered other schools, other formats of school, but in the end we settled on something modeled after Unschooling. When I was 13-going-on-14, halfway through my 9th grade year (freshman year of high school in the United States), my mother took me out of school using the legal provision for homeschooling. As she was a single working mother, I spent the rest of the years that my peers were in high school learning things on my own and seeking out my own learning opportunities. (A year or so later, I learned C, Objective-C, and the Cocoa frameworks and started a Mac applications business a year or so later with friends I met on the internet.)

Granted, I had the following things going for me: a supportive mother, generally being "well-behaved", living in a small town where it was safe to leave me to my own devices, living in a college town which gave me access to more learning resources, and an in-built self-motivated learning style. I also think it helped that I went through the public school system for many years before I left, as it meant I had friends and a social life that stuck with me even after leaving the school itself. So, I'm sure it's not for everyone, but for some, and maybe OP's son, it's worth considering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling

Re: My Son Won't Do His Homework (2007)

#83

Post by tptacek »

Alex3917 wrote: post #79
tptacek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The approach I'm taking is a semi-educated guess. I could well be wrong.

Although I am somewhat less enamored with him now that I used to be, I think John Taylor Gatto's list of 14 things that elite private schools teach that public schools don't is by far the best list of things to focus on for high school age kids: https://www.tragedyandhope.com/th-films/the-ultimate-history... Unfortunately I'm not sure there is a good written description of these anywhere, but IIRC they are described…

This is so cool.

Re: My Son Won't Do His Homework (2007)

#84

Post by brg »

greenlander wrote: post #39
brg wrote: post #3

After hiring committee one day, we digressed into a discussion of the value of a high GPA from university. One of my colleagues made the point that the value of an individual with a high GPA from a four year degree is that you know the person will get done what needs to get done. To have a high GPA, a student needs to finish term papers on subjects they have no interest in, they need to study for exams in language fo…

I interviewed thousands of new college grads. The guys who I made offers to were almost always guys who did stuff on their own. Right before I retired, the last guy I made a job offer to showed me an app he had written for his iphone that simulated how particles diffuse in a solvent, and his resume showed a link to the code that he wrote. His GPA was only a 3.5. But I totally got him: he was great because he had a pa…

My experience agrees with yours, the college hires who made me the most excited were those who had side projects and summer start ups.

You're breakdown of GPA is interesting and reasonable. It would be interesting to see if it correlates with first reviews and time at level.

Re: My Son Won't Do His Homework (2007)

#85

Post by jcampbell1 »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #51
jcampbell1 wrote: post #29

“My teacher didn’t like the project, because I put it on the wrong size paper.” Either you are bullshitting, or you better learn what size paper to do your homework on. Winning is easier than being right, and winning is much more fun. I don't have a teenage kid, but there I think there are two thing that are important. 1) Acquiring new knowledge should be self-rewarding. 2) Winning is fun. This parent seems to have a…

> Winning is easier than being right, and winning is much more fun. Hence why we have a society full of puppets with new cars in the garage. What an awful way to think, I'm disgusted by your reasoning. For whatever meaning of "winning" you have, life only matters if you do what you believe in, otherwise it's not worth living.

I am sorry. I wrote that from the wrong perspective. I was raised in a tiny town in the southern US, where being "right" has something to do with "praising jesus". Thanks to my parents, I was encouraged to "win" and now I live in NYC, and have a great job, a wife I love and respect, and an awesome daughter.

My point is not about right vs. winning, it is more about giving your children the tools to do well in any environment.

Re: My Son Won't Do His Homework (2007)

#86

Post by moron4hire »

epochwolf wrote: post #72
moron4hire wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

art is not a real job?

For a lot of artists, unfortunately it's not. They need to have a job to support their art habit/hobby.

Perhaps that is because they focused too much on so-called "real" work and never developed their art enough to make a living. Perhaps they need so much money because they went to a university to learn what is free at any library.

Re: My Son Won't Do His Homework (2007)

#87

Post by olympus »

ethnt wrote: post #59
olympus wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tptacek, I'm sure you have a compelling viewpoint both as someone who has to manage an entire company and as someone who is older and wiser than I am (I'm not sure if you have kids of your own). Would you care to expand on why you don't think spanking is an acceptable form of discipline? To clarify, I only recommend open palm spanking. Not switches/lashes/paddles/belts. It doesn't bruise, only stings for a few second…

We don’t allow adults to strike one another in anger or as punishment for a mistake or wrongdoing. We don’t allow children to hit each other — indeed, we actively discourage it. Then why is it okay for an adult to hit a child?

Yours is perhaps the best argument I've ever heard against corporal punishment. I've never accepted the "spanking causes trauma" argument since any form of discipline will do that if administered inappropriately. I do have a vendetta against double standards though, and I appreciate you changing my perspective.

Re: My Son Won't Do His Homework (2007)

#88

Post by epochwolf »

moron4hire wrote: post #86
epochwolf wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a lot of artists, unfortunately it's not. They need to have a job to support their art habit/hobby.

Perhaps that is because they focused too much on so-called "real" work and never developed their art enough to make a living. Perhaps they need so much money because they went to a university to learn what is free at any library.

Or no one is willing to pay enough for their skills.

Re: My Son Won't Do His Homework (2007)

#89

Post by sirclueless »

tptacek wrote: post #64
ef4 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the world actually followed school-like rules, your analogy would be useful. But it doesn't. The recipe for "winning" the game of school is: - follow directions very carefully - be good at memorizing things - never challenge authority The market value of being able to carefully follow directions is nearly zero, and falling fast. That was a useful skill back when there were lots of good-paying factory jobs. Now it…

First, that's not actually the only recipe for "winning" the game of school; it's just the one that occurs most vividly to people who dislike school. I disliked school too, and did poorly at it, approaching it as a system only solvable by the approach you outlined. Now that I'm a couple decades removed from attending school, it's obvious --- painfully obvious, like so much that I often see opportunities that my son w…

Indeed, school is very, very playable. Here's one anecdote from my personal experience:

One of high school English teachers was notoriously hard on guys. It was generally understood that she considered them goof-offs and slackers, and didn't give good grades to guys even for really hard work. I was at a disadvantage in that class even before I walked in the door.

So rather than fight an uphill battle due to my gender, I spent an extra hour on the first report (a paper on Romeo and Juliet) and carefully drew hearts and a large rose in colored pencil on the cover page. I then proceeded to behave a smidge more effeminately than my natural self whenever speaking to her, and breezed through that year while my male classmates struggled, with my teacher convinced I was a persecuted homosexual.

I'm not convinced it was helpful in the long term, because the work I avoided in that class didn't do me any favors. I've never done particularly well in English classes since, despite my love of reading and an over-sized vocabulary. But it certainly did give me an appreciation for the malleability of rules and systems when they are administered by imperfect humans.

Re: My Son Won't Do His Homework (2007)

#90

Post by lpvn »

My theory is that some people have a threshold of 'pointlessness aversion' inadequate to the western school system. The son of the author is like that: he finds his homework useless so he won't do it. Perhaps we should admit that our society is too harsh with certain groups of people who happen to lack some abilities, I know it's been this way throughout the whole human history but since we reached an advanced level of material development we should at least reconsider this social dynamic.
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