Tom is really annoyed with the whole idea of first graders having homework every night. In kindergarten she had homework once a week, and occasionally not at all. This year she has it every night but Friday. Tom says it's the teacher's job to teach that stuff at school, not ours. I don't exactly agree with that. I think some homework is ok, to help reinforce, not teach, what they are supposed to be learning in school. With large classrooms and so many things to do, I think it would be hard to get enough practice with everything just through school time. Particularly if a student has trouble in an area.
I've really been amazed at the stuff they do at such a young age though-in kindergarten learning to tell time and do graphs and such! But this kind of takes the cake-she's doing algebra! It says it right on the homework paper. I suppose this would count as pre-algebra, since they're not using an X (as in X-2=5). Instead there's just a blank space for them to fill in. I just don't see how this is helpful. Why do they need to know that in first grade? We had trouble getting that homework done-I didn't know how to explain to her how to do 78 take away 10. The way she does it is to draw 78 circles and then to make Xs over 10 of them and count what's left. Do you know how long that takes? Forever! I mean, she still occasionally forgets numbers when counting to 100, so how is this something she needs to know? Am I the only one who thinks this is rediculous??
It really annoys me because it seems as though the entire educational program is geared towards testing, not actual learning. I have the parent/teacher conference on Tuesday, we'll see what she has to say about it. Unfortunately I don't think anything can or will be done about it.
2 comments:
Unfortunately they teach to the PSSA's...but I guess schools don't have much choice, they need to getting passing grades. And, to top it off, the state makes most ALL the kids take the tests, including those who have IEP's (individualized education plans), which tends to bring the scores down. They don't even give them different tests.
Having volunteered at my kids' elementary school for thirteen years, I watched all this evolve and listened to the teachers complain more and more each year.
Homework is pretty much meant to reinforce what the kids have learned in the classroom. I will say that the toughest year for us when both kids got to 4th grade. The amount of homework that year was totally overwhelming!
School is totally different from when you and Tom went to school because of the "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" act. It does make it hard on kids, parents and teachers because teaching is all about the tests scores now, not the enjoyment it used to be.
I really feel for you young parents as you have to go back to school yourselves just to learn their homework, so to speak.
I know how hard it was to get my GED 3 years ago, I can't even imagine what it is like to do algebra at a young age in Leanna, YUK! Math was my weakness and it took me 2 years to get it and I forgot it already, LOL.
Good Luck!
Post a Comment