I never minded doing homework (until college, when I realized I was *paying* for courses and work that meant nothing more to me than requirements fulfilled, but that's different). My sister, however, could often be found crying under the dining room table because she couldn't do her math. Good times, those.
Teddy seems to be like me in this regard, and I'm thankful, especially now that I've read Ayelet Waldman's new post on Salon, Homework Hell. The thing that makes me lucky isn't necessarily that Teddy doesn't mind homework, but that his teachers have always kept it in perspective. He ends up doing homework for about an hour each evening, and thirty minutes of that is just reading--whatever he feels like reading. I rarely have to get involved, and was in fact informed that I *shouldn't* have to get involved. He's not really learning anything academic at this point, but he's learning study habits and skills that seem appropriate to a kid his age.
I think one thing that sets Teddy apart from Waldman's kids is that I don't make Ted start homework until after dinner. He has time to come home from school, eat a snack and unwind. We take walks or run or ride bikes. He plays. Sometimes he watches TV.
So, yeah, I'm lucky. The kid likes school and doesn't mind homework. What more can the parent of a third-grader really ask for?
4 comments:
lucky, yes! I used to fill in every math worksheet with zeros as the answers, or get up at 5 and sit at the breakfast table with my dad as I finished my homework. I got caught reading the Borrowers in math class...how I ever got through elementary school is a miracle. Actually, college was when I enjoyed hw--I loved looking up all the references in the footnotes to T.S. Eliot poems.
msbprosp: Ms Be prospering!!
Bablebabe, when are you going to do a post on all the collected word verifications?
Numbah One Son is like that. The only diff is that we start homework after school because if we had to wait until after dinner (it's a Mediterranean thing to have dinner around 7:30ish) we'd be there all night.
Other than "Daddy, I don't understand this question..." I never get involved. I check for neatness and correctness (without giving specific answers or directions) and that's it. On top of the regular reading, we usually hang out and unwind by reading something. In my case it's Gibbon's Fall of the Roman Empire, and NOS is almost done with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
A only has 45 minutes of homework once a week. CA schools strike again. woo hoo.
That was a good article -- but now I am dreading Si starting kindergarten even more.
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