%)
%)
%)
%)
%)
%)
%)
%)
%)
%)
Homework
Student Fails To Recognize Strengths
December 22, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
What to do
when children can’t see their own
abilities.Read
more...
School System’s Mantra of Equal Is Not Fair
November 03, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: Elementary
School
Each child
should be treated with equity, not
equality Read
more...
Homework: It’s the Result of Classroom Failure
October 06, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
The name
remains the same as 40 years
agoRead
more...
Help Your Child Understand What Time Really Means
August 04, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: Elementary
School
|
Dear Dr. Fournier: School’s
about to start and I think my wife and I are more
stressed about it than my son is. Every year we
go through the same thing. He comes in from
school, goes to the break room in my office, gets
a snack and a Coke, gets out his iPod Touch and
plays games on it until I close the office and we
go home at 5:00 p.m.
Sometimes he starts his homework while his mother and I fix dinner. Sometimes he waits until after dinner. More times than I care to mention last school year, it took him until almost 10 p.m. to finish his homework! He starts everything with, “I can’t do this,” or, “It’s dumb, Dad.” He’ll sit in the living room at his desk and daydream or chew his fingernails or just sit while I prod and then scream for him to get going on his homework. This year he goes into the sixth grade and I know he will have more work to do. I know this is the point he should not have to have me on his back constantly about homework. I wrote to you about this time last year with this problem and you suggested in your column to use your timer strategy but he said he wasn’t a baby. We feel like we’re running out of time with him, still trying to persuade him to take advantage of his opportunity to get a good education. What else can we do? David M., Kennett, Mo. |
Dear David: Your son has a time management issue, one in which he doesn’t fully understand time and what he can accomplish within a fixed amount of time. This is causing him to procrastinate because he can’t relate to what time really means and thus he doesn’t know how much homework he can do in a fixed amount of time.
We live hurried lives; let’s face it. Almost from the time our children are born, time means “hurry,” which means stress. As parents, we are doubly stressed by time and by our desire for more of it, and by our children’s complete disregard for it.
The Assessment: On a typical school day we begin by telling our kids to, “Hurry up and eat breakfast or you’ll be late for school.”
Then we end the day by reminding them, “Hurry up and get cleaned up, brush your teeth and get your pajamas on because it’s time for bed.”
During the time in between, our children listen to school bells to tell them when to start and finish their work.
No wonder they look at teachers in disbelief when one says, “Don’t rush; take your time because you have 10 minutes to complete this quiz.” They have no clue what 10 minutes on the clock really means or how to use it properly.
How else then can a child interpret the meaning of time? Time to children means short, rushed, crowded and/or hurried. As students, they often tune out to protect themselves from the hectic pace.
Before a child can learn to use time wisely, he must first learn a realistic definition of what time is.
What To Do: As soon as a child can tell time or count by fives, he or she should have an analog watch to use for school and homework assignments.
So David, it’s time to replace your timer with an analog watch - not a digital one. Make sure your son uses an analog watch to do his homework (and no, the digital clock on his iPod Touch will not do). No wristwatch either, not even an analog one, and I’ll explain why in a moment.
The analog watch will help him visually redefine time as space, allowing him to see the area between 2:15 and 2:30, on the face of the watch. This will also help him define time as empty space with no connotation of hurriedness.
Using the analog watch as a picture of time, you can teach him how to learn what he can realistically and effectively accomplish in a certain or fixed amount of time which has now become “space” on the analog watch.
Make sure the analog watch is on the break room table in your office or at home on his desk where he can view it as he is doing his homework so that he can check the time without losing concentration. For this reason, your child should not look at a watch on his wrist or up at a wall clock that breaks his train of thought and interrupts his ability to work within his known limits (the space on the clock face).
At the start of each new homework assignment, have your son tell you where the big hand of the watch will be when he finishes. Then tell him, “This is how much space you have.”
As your son travels through space, he will also learn to assess his own working capacity. At the end of the allotted time, discuss with him what he accomplished within that space. Once he is comfortable with the new process, let his teacher know he will be using his analog watch on his desk at school to complete assignments.
And David, have your son put away the iPod Touch until the homework is done. He’ll see he has plenty of time to play his games now that he knows his working capacity and knows procrastination is not necessary.
It’s important to redefine time to eliminate stress and hurry, but it’s also essential for your son to develop self-recognition of his working capacity. That’s not just a skill for school, but one for life and for the workforce of the future.
<<Previous page
Losing 'I-Would-Never-Do-That' Teachers
June 02, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
|
Dear Dr. Fournier: I read your column concerning homework. I am a teacher with 16 years experience. Believe me, teachers today would never give homework just to create busy work and aggravation for parents. The premise of homework is to give students the opportunity to practice what has been taught in order to help the teacher know what needs to be re-taught and which students may need extra help. Teachers do not have time to correct/check work unnecessarily. Most teachers at the elementary/intermediate grade levels assign, as a guideline, 10 minutes of homework per grade level, i.e., 30 minutes for a third grade student. |
The Assessment: “I-would-never-do-that” teachers like you are part of a dying breed, sad to say. Only elementary school teachers who teach all of their students’ subjects can monitor how much and what kind of homework goes home.
When my son went to first grade, just prior to winter break, we went shopping for a gift for his teacher. “I need seven presents,” he told me because he had a reading, language arts and social studies teacher; a math teacher; a science teacher; a music teacher; an art teacher; a physical education teacher; and a library teacher.
His teachers did not converse to determine what or how much homework they gave each day, which should have been preponderant to assigning homework. I came home some days and all his work was done; other days I would have to put a stop to some assignments that were ridiculous and interfered with our family time.
There may be schools where teachers do consult. However, my experience is that while they may discuss long-term assignments, they fail to discuss daily homework assigned.
As cautious as you are about the homework you give, I wonder if you have ever sent work home that the child cannot do without help from a parent. If so, I would expect such homework not to be graded as the child is still in the process of learning; otherwise grading serves no purpose but to penalize those who have not mastered work yet simply need more teaching.
What To Do: Parents, be vigilant. You know how much homework is being given and the pain it may be causing between you and your child. To avoid this from happening, set up some rules in elementary school:
Once your child has more than one teacher, it will be very difficult to expect the 10- minutes-per-grade-level rule to prevail. Insist from all teachers that they honor your parenting role and family time at home while they do the teaching at school.
<<Previous page
HW Quality = School Quality
March 31, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
|
Dear Dr. Fournier: (Letter 1)
I was asked why I gave homework and answered that
is was to satisfy students and parents who equate
the quantity of homework with the quality of the
education being offered.
As a student, I could sniff out busy work in an instant, and so can most students. I despised it, and I will not subject my students to that form of “edumacation.” So, how many math problems are needed to nail down a concept? How many chapters of a textbook need to be outlined? Lansdale, PA (Letter 2) My 5th-grader is bringing home very little homework. She is getting time at school to do most of it. She’s making good grades but I’m wondering what her teachers are not teaching if she has enough time at the end of her classes to do most all her homework. Some days she brings no homework at all home. Should I be concerned? Boston, Mass. |
The Assessment: There are two juxtaposing voices within the American School System. One is from the service provider’s position as with the teacher submitting the first question. The other is from the consumer’s point of view, the parent, as revealed with the second question above.
The amazing thing about these two letters is that their views are usually in reverse. Teachers are usually the ones that give out busy work or “one size fits all” homework and parents often think their children are inundated with too much homework.
As for the teacher, I admire his perspective. My guess is that not many of his colleagues at his school share his belief that homework is to extend learning and not for “edumacation” (numbing of the brain by monotone worthless doing.)
If all teachers were like him, then students would be getting value from their homework. Sadly, most teachers issue large homework assignments without regard to how much they are giving and the quantity results in “edumacation.”
If students are on overkill, then they must concentrate more on finishing the work than thinking and learning.
Each night, students must calculate how much time it will take to complete all homework assignments in a manner that shows their intelligence and with presentation that honors their dignity (clean, neat work to hand in as opposed to crumpled, torn paper with smudges on it).
Homework should uplift, not destroy a child’s personal and home life yet this is exactly what happens when teachers assign large quantities of busy work.
As for the mother, she is questioning whether it should be quantity over quality, and the answer is absolutely not.
Most children go to school and simply get assignments each day that the parent must use as if he or she is home schooling every night. The cramming and the fatigue of the day together with the fear of a bad homework grade result in fighting and screaming during family time at home.
It is no wonder so many children tell their parents they don’t have homework when they do or that they hide their poor grades from parents.
What To Do: We must recognize that rather than an American School System we have an American Do What You Want School System.
Schools have the right to overload a child with homework and destroy family time. The amount has become synonymous with the image of the school. It is good, mediocre or poor school with the school that hands out the most homework getting the “good” moniker.
The value your child places on himself or herself will be tied in great part to your perception of his or her achievement. If you think the school is mediocre, then your child will think A’s are a mediocre achievement. This could unwittingly belittle children and give them the idea that they have a limited capacity for achievement.
<<Previous page
Homework: The Good, Bad & Ugly
March 17, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
|
Dear Dr. Fournier: We’re back from spring break and teachers are loading down my children with homework. This has been a problem all year but their teachers are really dumping it on now. Is there any literature on this? What would you advise? |
The Assessment: Once upon a time, homework was beneficial for children. Instead of being what it should be, it has become a joke in this country. There are parents that think the more homework a school dishes out, the better that school must be. Seeing the marketing benefit to this, many schools, especially private, have touted this fact in their advertising.
After 30 years of seeing what comes into my after school program as homework, I am totally amazed that our children are learning anything. The quality of learning is the poorest I’ve ever seen. Children are memorizing and not understanding what they “learn” nor are they being asked to demonstrate application of knowledge. They are certainly not developing critical thinking skills.
Another incorrect supposition that has permeated schools in this country is that “more is better.” Alas, we have sacrificed quality for quantity.
What To Do: There are three kinds of homework:
Parents are finally getting fed up with the first two kinds of homework and there is a movement slowly developing in the country against all homework as a result.
I suggest you read the book, “The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Children and What Parents Can Do About It,” by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish. There is not one example I have read in the book that I haven’t lived through when counseling families in the last 30 years, yet I caution you. While this is a good book, there is a case for homework, when it is homework that develops recall of unmastered basic skills and develops the mind. Bad homework is simply a symptom of a bad system.
Make appointments with your children’s teachers to discuss the three kinds of homework and ask them what you can do to make sure your children are getting only mind wealth-building homework. Talk with other parents and find that agree with useless hmework, suggesting they meet with teachers on this issue as well.
In recent years, parent-led coalitions have had the most success in changing the system, so build a coalition of parents to lobby the school for change in the status quo from doling out stupid and destructive homework to assigning the mind wealth-building kind. After all, you are the CEO of your child’s education until he or she is old enough to assume that role. The teachers and schools are merely the taxpayer’s hired hands and you’re throwing away yours and other taxpayer’s money if you do not get educated on this issue and work to settle for nothing less than an a mind-wealth education for your child.
<<Previous page
Trying to keep pace
February 17, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: Elementary
School
|
Dear Dr. Fournier: Our three children are in a school that is known as one of the best in the community because of its excellent credentials. When did “best” become math equations in second grade; concepts of force, motion, lever, pulleys and leverage in third grade; and the Krebs cycle in fourth grade? Teachers are teaching more of what our children can’t comprehend at their ages and less of what they should be teaching, grade appropriate content and a love for learning. Instead we have a second grader that the teacher feels should be tested for ADHD, even though he has all A’s (he fidgets), a third grader who gets in the car crying each morning saying, “I hate school,” and a fourth grader who gets mad at me or her father when we try to help her with homework because, “The teacher said that’s cheating.” What recourse besides home schooling do we have? |
The Assessment: In 1957, the United States went through the shock of a lifetime. The Russians developed Sputnik and landed it on the moon first, thereby passing the country that was supposed to be the World Super Power and best at everything. The Space Race (also called the arms race by some) was ignited. The United States had to regain it crown of glory, power and military supremacy. Not only was culture, technology, political ideology and military supremacy at stake, the finger of the Cold War was pointed at education as the axis of evil for such a disgrace. All of a sudden, teachers were given the ultimatum that math and science had to be taught and learned beyond the expectations of any other country, thus the “push-down” syndrome of math and science at an earlier age was born.
With the “push-down” syndrome can Standardized Testing. To this day, our education leaders are still desperately clinging to the outdated idea that teaching to the test will work. Strange that the more microscopic the scrutiny has become, less is achieved, more students are rejecting education, and diplomas are handed out to socially promoted illiterates, all while the world’s momentum to super achieve academically increases every day.
The morale of the story is that when you have a problem and you choose the wrong solution, the problem gets worse. There is a right solution but the problem is just like the one on Wall Street and Detroit. You still have the same people who ran the business or institution into the ground as the people you are still relying on to right the ship.
What To Do: As long as you are a parent of a dependent child, you are in charge of your child’s education. Teachers are transitory people who instruct a portion of the big picture. Get over your fear of the person you hired to teach your child and assert your authority. Make regular appointments and talk with your children’s teachers, not just when parent-teacher conference time comes around. Don’t be afraid to ask teachers to help you solve the problems you have at home with your children that have been created because of school. For extra courage, write down what you want to discuss with your children’s teachers but make sure you talk to them in a civil and diplomatic way. If you do not get satisfaction and solutions, go up the chain of command just like you would do at your job if you had a problem. If this is a public school, write your state representatives and set up face-to-face meetings with them if possible to ask for help in changing the system. If this is a private school, and you do not get satisfaction from teacher or headmaster/board, then look for another school you can work with. Your children’s education and mental health is too important not to take immediate action.
<<Previous page
