I don't consider myself a dumb person, but after helping my kids with their homework last night I was exhausted. I have Bachelor and Master degrees, but second grade math homework had me stumped. My son and I had no problem coming up with sentences for his vocabulary words. "The dinosaur is enormous." "My dad is strong." We breezed right through. He didn't have a problem with the addition on the math page, but then we came to four numbers and we had to write them in expanded form. What the heck is expanded form?! What purpose does it serve? I had to call in DQ to explain expanded form and I call her drama queen for a reason. After a ten minute demonstration we finally finished his homework. So, I've come to the conclusion that the education system is conspiring to kill parents. Think about it, the fundraisers, the parent/teacher conferences, field trips, holiday breaks, money for everything, and now homework. What happened the basic math problems of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fractions? Why fix what is not broke? I guess I should go back and get my degree in education or maybe just take some courses in the field.
Once I finished helping LB, I went on to DQ. DQ waited until 4:00 Thursday afternoon to inform me that she had a project due the next day. The project-- identify and display twenty seeds for her science class. Twenty seeds! Initially, I thought I'd just let her sweat it out as a lesson against being a procrastinator. I reminded her that when she has a big project to complete she should start the day she gets the assignment, not the day before it's due. She then blamed ME for not helping her. Being the person I am, I couldn't bear the thought of my child failing and I figured it would be a reflection of my parenting skills. So at 7:45 I make a Dollar General run for markers, tape and hopefully seeds. I asked for seeds and was told they didn't have any and the guy at the register said, "Everybody has been here asking for seeds." Well, at least Brandi isn't the only procrastinator in her classs. We finished the project with 15 of the 20 seeds, well most of them were seeds. We had to be very creative in our display, we took an old poster board decorated with construction paper and wrapping paper and taped each seed to it. It ended up looking presentable and DQ was happy.
I was in bed at 9:00 totally worn out and exhausted. LP will start Kindergarten in August and I'm sure the educators will have victory when I explode due to exhaustion of trying to keep up with them in educating my children.
2 comments:
Now I'm hot. I just lost my original message to you. My DQ blew up at me last month for suggesting she forgot something in her math homework. She informed me with absolutely little sympathy for my feelings that I didn't know what I was talking about because her teacher told her she didn't have to do the stupid math homework the way the instructions said to do them. So now my stance on homework is I look in her backpack. Find out if she has homework. What kind of homework it is. If it is anything other than math I help her and she is on her own when it comes to math.
I do not feel bad about this because DQ is very talented in the math area. I have a secret dream of seeing her go to the Math and Science high school in the city. Although I totally hate the idea of her going into a dorm room world so soon. So I probably won't ever push that idea unless she comes to me with it.
Sport will argue with me until he's blue in the face that I've got something all wrong, when I know I'm right, and I can only prove it by emailing the teacher and double checking. Kid homework makes me lose faith in myself.
Post a Comment