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My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#221

Post by mcphilip »

callmeed wrote: post #198
mcphilip wrote: post #40

I was homeschooled K-12. My days consisted largely of 1-2 hours of bible study with my 3 brothers followed by a few hours on my own working through a set number of pages in math, science, literature, etc textbooks. I'd usually get done by 2 and then play Nintendo until friends got home from school. I was never tested in homeschool. There were no grades or report cards. The only accountability was mom checking that th…

This might be a weird question and totally based on anecdotes but: are you a good speller? I have a lot of friends who were homeschooled and/or homeschool their kids. I've also hired some and gone to school with some. One thing I noticed about several of them is they're bad at spelling. I've always wondered why.

I'm a decent speller. I was homeschooled starting in the mid eighties, so coursework was done mostly away from the computer (i.e. no autocorrect crutch). Also, my mom valued spelling and grammar and would be quick to point out mistakes.

In general, I mostly saw problems with homeschooled peers being weak at math.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#222

Post by loup-vaillant »

> Esmee […] got a C on her math homework from the night before because she hadn’t made an answer column. Her correct answers were there, at the end of each neatly written-out equation, yet they weren’t segregated into a separate column on the right side of each page.

I almost snapped my pen in half.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#223

Post by jbellis »

ctdonath wrote: post #208

The Montessori method: take each child at his own pace thru sensory-grounded material, giving enough familiarity with material until it is internalized and the child abstracts it himself - THEN move on to the next step, at individual pace. Therein lies understanding. Not doing this leads to contempt for the material and rote memorization (which the article starts out noting is the plain conclusion) devoid of understa…

That's the theory, anyway. http://homeschooling.penelopetrunk.com/2013/09/18/montessori...

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#224

Post by rayiner »

The entirety of K-12 is a basically a crock. Very little of this stuff is important. Who cares how crystal structures are defined? Memorizing that trivia won't improve your thinking skills, and you won't remember it after the exam anyway. Even if you go on to major in chemistry, you'll have to relearn all of that anyway because colleges don't trust the K-12 system to teach any of it correctly.

My wife recently told me she wants to send our daughter to an expensive private school for 4th-12th grade. My wife and I both attended public school until graduate school, so I wasn't warm to the idea. But I couldn't argue with her reasoning: many private schools are exempt from NCLB (because they don't take federal money under the Act), and as such can dispense with a lot of that ridiculousness. They teach the important skills (reading, writing, logical reasoning, math), but otherwise go easy on kids, inflate their grades, and have old connections to top colleges so they don't have to define themselves based on the "rigor" of their programs the way public magnet schools do.

I went to a highly-competitive public magnet school for high school, and it was a huge waste of time. I sorely regret all those hours I spent learning about earth science or ancient china. My wife went to a very progressive public school in Oregon and loved it. They had mostly electives, and one of her classes in high school was a whole class on James Joyce. They didn't assign a ton of homework, but instead let kids explore their interests them go home at the end of the day.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#225

Post by [deleted] »

Tichy wrote: post #143
dsego wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The multiplication table really bothers me. It's considered to be the least a child can learn in elementary school. And kids that haven't learned to do math mentally just memorise it like a poem. I really don't think this is the correct approach.

I feel a bit bad for not memorizing it, to be honest. Not sure if there is any other way for learning to multiply? How do you "understand" that 6x 8 = 48? With bigger numbers, then you can apply a system. And as I mentioned I also "cheated" a bit with the basic table. For example I would have remembered that 5 x 8 = 40 and then calculated 6 x 8 = 5 x 8 + 6 in my head, because the multiplications for 5 are easy (half…

[deleted]

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#226

Post by mkr-hn »

TuringTest wrote: post #216
mkr-hn wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the capitals so important? Maybe I want to travel to Kyoto or Makati instead of Tokyo or Manila. I can see the value in knowing the countries and a little about them, but capitals aren't the entirety of a country, and knowing about them won't tell you much about the country as a whole. I can learn about the capitals if I ever plan to go there.

Capitals are the most important part of a country (by definition). What little information could you learn about a country before knowing its capital?

Is Washington DC more important than NYC or any city in Silicon Valley? I'm not convinced that capitals are the most important city.

You can talk about the culture, economy, and history of a country without ever talking about the capital. Capitals are usually (not always) where the government sits, but that's only a small part of what you can learn about a country.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#227

Post by danielweber »

Zigurd wrote: post #199

His daughter is in a high-pressure selective school that appears to market this workload as a feature. It might be the right thing for kids who breeze through their school material and then get bored for lack of any challenge. It probably isn't the right thing for everyone. His daughter seems like the victim of needing to get into some college prep program where choices are limited, waiting lists are common, and many…

I think schools follow this algorithm:

1. Great students (read: students who get into selective colleges) do a lot of homework.

2. Therefore, give everyone lots of homework, and all students will be great students.

I've seen that pattern replicate itself down to kindergarten.

Not everyone is going to be a biochemist. Stop punishing the kids who won't be.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#228

Post by einhverfr »

aestra wrote: post #184
madaxe wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the benefit of attending the British, German, and American school systems. Schooling in America has little to do with education, and much to do with indoctrination. Pretty much the only thing I learned was the pledge of allegiance - over which I repeatedly got suspended, as I refused to recite it along with the rest of the class, every morning. Everything else they "taught" was years behind what I'd been learni…

You cannot be suspended for not saying the Pledge. You cannot be compelled to say the Pledge. Your rights were violated. The Supreme Court of the United State has ruled that it is well within your right to not say it. See West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_State_Board_of_Ed... Writing for the majority, Justice Jackson stated: "If there is any fixed star in ou…

Interesting that so many free speech cases were pioneered by the Jehovas Witnesses.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#229

Post by hobs »

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #166
lgieron wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to function in the world without some rudimentary knowledge of it. As for practical scenario, imagine your boss wants to send you to a conference in Paris, and you answer back with "Where?".

To which he answer "the capital of France" and everyone keep going. If I tell you that you need to go to Sucre for a meeting, do you know where that is? Probably not. You will google it, spend 5 seconds on the internet and boom, you know where it is. Putting countless hours to learn all of them is useless. This is time that could be spent learning things that are important in the modern world. The computers aren't go…

While everyone thinks "What an idiot." While you are 100% right that you dont NEED to know that Paris is the capital of France, displaying that ignorance for all to see is just bad form.

While your analogy makes sense (bolivian capital no one knows about), knowing that Paris is the capital of France is incidental knowledge when you spend any time looking at western history for the last several hundred years.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#230

Post by konstantintin »

tptacek wrote: post #124
GotAnyMegadeth wrote: post #120

The Author and his daughter haven't learnt the tricks of the trade. I was set 3+hrs of HW a day, but I certainly didn't do that much. First, they need to assess which teachers "Don't mind" if you don't do the homework. This could mean they stand you up in front of the whole class and shout at you, but if they don't give you an after school detention, don't do it. Getting in the teachers good books previously helps wi…

How caustic a lesson to teach your kid, that they should organize to cheat on homework, so they can artificially inflate their grade. I suppose it does set them up for a productive life of investment banking.

nobody needs to do 3+ hrs of homework a night. when the load is so needlessly excessive, I think it's fine to cut some corners.
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