We made it through the first week of school. I'm pretty sure we're mostly intact. All the fingers and toes are still there...haven't checked brains yet.
C came home with homework again today. Even on Friday, they have homework. I'm finding this not only ridiculous, but intrusive. I also have to wonder, with all the homework he's expected to do, when and what is he actually being taught while at school? I mean, *are* they actually teaching him anything? Or are they just acting as glorified babysitters for 6 hours a day? I know I'm just frustrated, and I realize they do teach him, and they do a lot. It just seems...I guess I feel if they were effectively doing their jobs, then the kids wouldn't need so much homework. And I'm all for parental involvement, I am very actively involved in my children's lives, both academically and otherwise. But I send them to school for a reason, a reason that I am rapidly beginning to think no longer applies. The point of sending them to school was to provide them with a teacher who, I thought anyway, could provide them with a better education than I could. Considering the amount of time I spend helping with homework, I'm beginning to think we'd all be better off if I just homeschooled the boys. It would probably take less time, as well.
I'm also discovering that working from home is not as simple as you might think. It might just be because having been out of work for so long, I've come to think of myself as a stay at home mom and therefore feel it is my responsibility to keep up the house. But I find that when I'm working, I feel like I should be doing housework. But if I stop working to do housework, then I think about how I should be working so I can make money. I think it's just a matter of finding my balance, figuring everything out and planning my day. It is only week one, after all. I can't expect everything to run smoothly right from the start...just like everything else, I've got to find the rhythm.
My friend Carolyn's son got C's old teacher for 1st grade. It was the teacher that Lukas had in 2nd grade. She's been moved to 1st this year. Carolyn is so please with her. The teacher is an amazing teacher. She's wonderful with kids at any grade level, and great with the parents, too. What I find odd is that there is another teacher that got moved to 1st grade this year, and she's not such a wonderful teacher. She's actually had numerous complaints filed against her, complaints that as far as we can tell no one has ever actually taken seriously and done anything about.
This particular teacher was heard on a mother's voicemail calling that mother's child a bastard, an asshole, and being told to shut up and sit down and several other horrible things that should never be said to a child. For that incident, she was suspended with pay for 2 weeks while they "investigated" and then reinstated with nothing in her record about what she had done. And this was with proof on voicemail! I don't know the details of the other incidents, but I don't really think I need to. Based on that one alone, she should have been fired. This was when she taught 2nd grade.
Another parent at the school questioned why this teacher was still there, given the incident I mentioned. This parent was told that they moved this teacher to 1st grade, to see how she does there, and if she doesn't do well, she'll be fired. Ummm.....huh? We have a teacher who was recorded on voicemail calling an older child horrible names and saying other horrible things, and now we're going to experiment with younger, more emotionally fragile children to see what she does? Please explain to me how this makes sense. Why do we want to expose children who are even more easily hurt and influenced, who are even more likely to take what this woman says to heart and believe there's truth in it, to her? That just completely boggles my mind. When I look at things like this, it suddenly makes perfect sense why our children learn nothing and why we are so far behind other countries educationally speaking. How can we expect our children to learn when the people in charge are complete blithering idiots?
I'm glad that J didn't get that particular teacher, otherwise the school and I would be having some serious issues right now.
Both boys seem to like their teachers very much, a fact for which I am very grateful. C is not happy with the homework his teacher assigns, and honestly neither am I. But as I've told him, his teacher assigned it, so he must do it.
Today's math homework for him was about figuring out appropriate numbers for a description. For example, was the number of people living in a particular state in the millions? He had to answer yes or no. I had to laugh when I saw the following:
Q: Does your math book have millions of pages?
A (exactly as he wrote it): YES!!!
Can you tell the boy hates math? Not that I blame him. In fact, I'm right there with him.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Calgon, Take Me Away!
I love my children. I really do. No, I'm not trying to convince you. I'm reminding myself.
School sucks. Homework sucks. Hey...did I tell you that school and homework suck? They do, you know.
C is in 4th grade this year. Each year, homework has increased. The teachers claim it's 10 minutes per day per grade level. So, first grade is 10 minutes, 2nd is 20 and so on. So, 4th grade is 40 minutes. C takes...roughly 2 hours. I frequently find myself wondering if C is just that much of a whiner and procrastinator? Or if the problem is his ADHD? Or if the problem really lies with the teachers. I once, when he was in 1st grade, sat beside him as he did his homework and did it mentally myself. The 10 minutes that it supposedly should take him...is how long it took me, an adult who knows this stuff. I highly suspect that the teachers do the homework, and decide that how long it takes them is how long it should take the kids. They don't take into account that the kids are still learning this stuff and will therefore take longer. And then, with mine, you throw in ADHD and you end up with...2 hours a day spent on homework.
J gets done much quicker. Which leads me to believe that a large part of C's problem is whining and procrastinating. J is in 1st grade, but when he does his homework, he's done in about 10 minutes. C never was when he was in 1st grade; he usually took about a half hour. J has always seemed to have a much easier time academically than C, though. I'm not sure why. They are both incredibly smart, and eager to learn. I don't understand why it is that C won't just buckle down and get the work done. D tells me that I need to be firmer and make him get it done, but he's never here when we do homework, so he doesn't understand that I am firm. I am firm, I do make him get it done, the problem is that he doesn't do it in a timely fashion. And I can only do so much without making the situation worse.
I can't really put a time limit on him. First, it's hard to impose a time limit on something like this, because there's really no way to know how long is reasonable, considering he does sometimes struggle. Second, putting a time limit on him applies more pressure. And he doesn't do so well under pressure, which means if I put him on a time limit, he's going to feel more stressed, and therefore have more trouble concentrating, and thus take longer to finish.
I can only hope that as the school year wears on, as we get back into the routine, that things will get better. I can only hope that he will get tired of not having any time to play outside, or even inside for that matter, and decide on his own to apply himself and get the homework done.
On the plus side, it looks like D will have this otr job. It'll suck with him being gone so much, but we might actually have more time for each other. Plus, we'll finally be able to get the money together to get our own place.
I have a couple of friends who have volunteered themselves and/or their children to be my models to help me get my photography business going. And working as a Guide for ChaCha, though somewhat boring, does seem as though it might start paying off.
That's about all there is for now. Time for me to go figure out what the heck I'm going to make for dinner tonight.
School sucks. Homework sucks. Hey...did I tell you that school and homework suck? They do, you know.
C is in 4th grade this year. Each year, homework has increased. The teachers claim it's 10 minutes per day per grade level. So, first grade is 10 minutes, 2nd is 20 and so on. So, 4th grade is 40 minutes. C takes...roughly 2 hours. I frequently find myself wondering if C is just that much of a whiner and procrastinator? Or if the problem is his ADHD? Or if the problem really lies with the teachers. I once, when he was in 1st grade, sat beside him as he did his homework and did it mentally myself. The 10 minutes that it supposedly should take him...is how long it took me, an adult who knows this stuff. I highly suspect that the teachers do the homework, and decide that how long it takes them is how long it should take the kids. They don't take into account that the kids are still learning this stuff and will therefore take longer. And then, with mine, you throw in ADHD and you end up with...2 hours a day spent on homework.
J gets done much quicker. Which leads me to believe that a large part of C's problem is whining and procrastinating. J is in 1st grade, but when he does his homework, he's done in about 10 minutes. C never was when he was in 1st grade; he usually took about a half hour. J has always seemed to have a much easier time academically than C, though. I'm not sure why. They are both incredibly smart, and eager to learn. I don't understand why it is that C won't just buckle down and get the work done. D tells me that I need to be firmer and make him get it done, but he's never here when we do homework, so he doesn't understand that I am firm. I am firm, I do make him get it done, the problem is that he doesn't do it in a timely fashion. And I can only do so much without making the situation worse.
I can't really put a time limit on him. First, it's hard to impose a time limit on something like this, because there's really no way to know how long is reasonable, considering he does sometimes struggle. Second, putting a time limit on him applies more pressure. And he doesn't do so well under pressure, which means if I put him on a time limit, he's going to feel more stressed, and therefore have more trouble concentrating, and thus take longer to finish.
I can only hope that as the school year wears on, as we get back into the routine, that things will get better. I can only hope that he will get tired of not having any time to play outside, or even inside for that matter, and decide on his own to apply himself and get the homework done.
On the plus side, it looks like D will have this otr job. It'll suck with him being gone so much, but we might actually have more time for each other. Plus, we'll finally be able to get the money together to get our own place.
I have a couple of friends who have volunteered themselves and/or their children to be my models to help me get my photography business going. And working as a Guide for ChaCha, though somewhat boring, does seem as though it might start paying off.
That's about all there is for now. Time for me to go figure out what the heck I'm going to make for dinner tonight.
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