Anyone wanna take me on in the homework arena yet?

I know that many schools haven’t even started yet. However, our little cherubs went back last week. I had grand plans for those days. Work, sleep, work, sleep, sleep some more, work…

As usual, that’s not how it all panned out. Instead, I got a nasty sinus infection and it has me beat to a pulp. But I digress…obviously.

As many of you know, I’ve spoken out quite often about my dislike for homework. I am not however crazy, as some folks appear to think I am. I haven’t crossed the prospect of homework off the list of items that I want to wipe out completely, I simply ask for moderation mostly.

My overall goal is the responsibility of the involved players (the student, the teacher, the parent) is met without anyone being too dependent on the other. Did that make any sense at all?

But today, today I have an example of the kind of homework that I don’t mind watching my child do and should be used as an example of using homework for re-enforcement not teaching. Now, I’ve been lucky for the most part and I know that. Walker catches on easily and I’m certain that makes it less painful for all of us.

But I digress…back to my point….

While I still do not plan to babysit my children while they do homework (and I honestly don’t think the teachers expect parents to), I have for you, the perfect example (or two, oops) of when, what and how the whole purpose of homework can be beneficial.

We (that’s my and Ditto Boy and well, Boy Genius too part of the time) are in second grade. We (that’s me and Boy Genius) were and still are a bit nervous about how the whole year will progress but what an awesome start we’ve had!!!!!!!!!

I could ramble on forever but here are a few facts..I call them facts because I believe them to be true, thus they are indeed facts…

Homework has it’s place in a child’s life.
Teachers should (and most do) teach during the day thus busy work is not needed.
More than 10 minutes of homework per grade level is logical.

With that, I’m getting to my examples:

Example 1:

The homework for last night involved 15 spelling words. Fifteen words that he was familiar with when he arrived home. He couldn’t spell everyone of them, but it was more than obvious that he had heard the words numerous times through-out the day.

Thus, someone (his teacher I’m going to assume) did her job, she introduced my son to the words and obviously they had some discussion about how to spell them. I can’t be for sure, but I do know that my son did not come home blindly with a list of spelling words that he was clueless about.

Example two:

My second grader also came home with a list of vocabulary words. As soon as the words were mentioned, he spouted off definition. We went through them once, reinforced what he already knew and went on our merry way.

We moved on to Social Studies words and definitions which rendered the same ending. We had to help a bit with this one a little more but the words were

calendars, route, neighborhood, neighbors, community, city, suburb, town, transportation

and obviously some of them build on one another and can be confusing.

Nine words, that’s it. Yes, I know, it’s just week 2 but that is not my point here. My point here is this, I have offended many teachers in my time over my disregard for homework. However, as I’ve tried to explain time and time again, it isn’t homework I am opposed to my child doing, I just expect that he has been taught the information at school and homework is merely a method of reinforcement. Homework is for him to do, not me. I am not here to babysit him and over look his every move. It’s his homework and as long as it is reasonable, I have no intention of considering this “our homework” as I hear so many parents do.

In my sweet humble little opinion, how could you ask for more? Teacher teaches, child learns, child uses a few minutes to reinforce what was learned, child plays, eats dinner, baths, goes to bed and the learning process kick starts one more time.

P.S. It is Day 2 here and as we talk about the social study words and vocabulary words, it is obvious these are well discussed during the day as Walker gives me examples that I know he would not otherwise even know about.

PSS He didn’t misspell any of his spelling words nor did he miss the definition of any of his social study or vocabulary words.

Teacher taught, kid learned, parent reinforced and we have the rest of the day to just chill and be kids…all of us, ha!

I didn’t even mention the math, so simple, no need for me to oversee it, just reminded him of the directions and the kid was on his way. Awesome stuff wouldn’t you say?