Today's word is Challenge.
Just as a follow up to my last post, I did have the surgery to remove the skin cancer today, and so far, I feel pretty good. I suspect there will be some pain tomorrow, but the doctor assures me that this will probably be the end of the skin cancer. Now I just have to be hyper-vigilant in making sure I don't get any more. There's a challenge, no?
So on to today's challenge....T2 is a bright second grader whose teacher talks about her glowingly at our conferences. "She's always working hard and trying to learn as much as she can." She loves school and is completely challenged by every single opportunity, however mundane it may seem. She finds a challenge in every boring homework worksheet and creates curriculum for fantasy classes that she teaches to her stuffed animals, always simultaneously reinforcing her own learning.
Today, she came home crestfallen with a timed math paper on which she received a 2 out of 15. Apparently, she "got stuck" on a problem, she says, and did not finish the test. T1, of course, was announcing this all over the house, soliciting glances of ire from T2's eyes. If she could have "Superman-heat-vision-ed" him, she would have. The problem she got stuck on was this word problem:
"Mrs. Tan has 23 stickers. She will give 5 children an equal numbers of stickers. How many stickers will each child get? 5? 4? 3? or 6?"
T2 took the problem to mean that there was an even number of stickers overall, not just an even number to each child. On her paper, she grouped the stickers into 5s and couldn't for the life of her figure out what to do with the other 3 stickers. She never moved on. In her note, the teacher said, "remember--don't spend all of your time on one problem--move on!"
Here is the challenge. Clearly T2 is a perfectionist. In this age of high achieving children in a "Race to Nowhere," T2 is starting from a very young age to see herself as exceptional. She is perpetually the highest scorer in the class. When frustrations like this trip her up, she is working with what psychologist Carol Dweck calls in her book "Mindset," a "fixed mindset" that if she can't figure out what frustrates her, she is no longer smart. How can I let my highly self-critical daughter know that mistakes are part of the learning process? And that messing up this timed math test is exactly what she needed to do in this moment to learn how to be a test taker? And how can I assure her that tests are not a measure of her intelligence or ability to solve the problems?
What DG and I did do was reflect back her feelings of disappointment in her paper. Not a judgment of her work, but rather a comforting, "Yeah, that probably felt extremely frustrating when you couldn't get that answer" kind of way. Then DG asked her the rest of the questions on the test, to show her that she did know the material. He explained "remainder," so that she would have a logical explanation for why there were extra in the problem. Her self deprecation was assuaged for the time being.
But what about the next time? I praised her effort, not her intelligence, like Dweck says, and crossed my fingers that this will be what she takes with her to the next test.
Showing posts with label school days homework. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school days homework. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Homework is Hell, or is it? How to Accommodate
Today's word is Accommodate. It's one of those commonly misspelled words that once you learn it (AC*COM*MO*DATE), you never misspell it again.
I recently helped T1 have a better attitude about his homework. For 7 months, he has been doing the same homework assignment every week. Write the spelling words on Monday (5 times each), use each word in a sentence on Wednesday, and do the math and language arts sheets in between. Turn in the homework on Friday. Week after week after week after week. Seven months--no wonder he finally rebelled.
Said rebellion occurred on a week when 25 spelling words came home. Twenty-five words times 5 times each is 125 words. Are you kiddin' me?!? The school district has a policy that students should do 10 minutes of homework per grade level per night, so for second grade, that's 20 minutes. I don't know about you, but I don't think even I could write fast enough to complete 125 words (legibly) in 20 minutes. T1 was crestfallen. Head hanging, lip quivering, he said, "That's going to take me so long, I won't have time to play."
Okay, no ridiculous, busy-work assignment is going to get in the way of my sensitive boy's need to PLAY. He's 8 years old. Eight-year-old boys NEED to play.
My solemn proclamations that he did NOT have to do this assignment were half-heartedly met with a strong desire to not have to do it, grappling with the need to fulfill his teachers' requirements (T1 has two part-time teachers who share the class. I know. Don't even get me started on this one). He was torn. I find it so interesting that here's a boy who doesn't want to do the homework that he feels is useless, but one who also is either afraid of the consequences of not getting it done or compelled to be deemed worthy by doing what he's told.
I told him I'd okay a change with the teacher. I wrote an email stating (not requesting) that we were changing the homework. I referenced the district policy (figured they couldn't really argue with that) and let them know that from now on, T1 would be writing his spelling words only once and the ones he knew on the first day (seriously--words like "do" and "eat) he wouldn't have to write again. Right? If you know how to spell something, you know it; writing it five times will not help you know better something that you already know. I would give him a spelling test every day, and those words that he didn't know, we would study. And by study I mean study effectively looking at phonics and mnemonics to actually LEARN the nuances of the spelling.
Both teachers emailed a highly accommodating response. No problem, they said. You can modify homework in what ever way you think is appropriate to facilitate learning. As long as he knows the concepts, how he gets there is okay by them. Now T1 is challenged by the daily testing. It feels like a game to see how many he can get right without studying them at all (answer is not very many) and how many he can learn as the week goes by (answer is all of them). He's been getting 100% on his spelling tests ever since. I even heard him say to another boy who was lamenting having to write the spelling words 5 times each, "Just do it my way. It's tons more fun, and I learn the words too! Have your mom send an email!"
What this really brings up for me is the whole concept of homework in elementary school at all, but that's a post for another day. Lord knows, as an educator who studies how the brain learns and effective pedagogical practices daily, I have a LOT to say on this topic. Stay tuned for that, but for now, the message is that homework does not need to be the hassle that I hear parents complain about on the park bench or at the dance studio or karate studio. It's a conversation that people are having constantly.
While I'm not saying that teachers don't know what they're doing, and that you can make whatever homework assignment you want for your kids, you don't have to look at it as such a rigid, black and white task. I do believe that teachers have many legitimate reasons why they assign the homework they do, but in my experience, teachers are flexible, and what do they want really most of all? They want their students to succeed--to walk out of their classes having learned something. They're not homework pushers getting off on watching your kid suffer. Talk to them. Work out a solution that works for your family's quality of life and for your child's maximum learning.
I recently helped T1 have a better attitude about his homework. For 7 months, he has been doing the same homework assignment every week. Write the spelling words on Monday (5 times each), use each word in a sentence on Wednesday, and do the math and language arts sheets in between. Turn in the homework on Friday. Week after week after week after week. Seven months--no wonder he finally rebelled.
Said rebellion occurred on a week when 25 spelling words came home. Twenty-five words times 5 times each is 125 words. Are you kiddin' me?!? The school district has a policy that students should do 10 minutes of homework per grade level per night, so for second grade, that's 20 minutes. I don't know about you, but I don't think even I could write fast enough to complete 125 words (legibly) in 20 minutes. T1 was crestfallen. Head hanging, lip quivering, he said, "That's going to take me so long, I won't have time to play."
Okay, no ridiculous, busy-work assignment is going to get in the way of my sensitive boy's need to PLAY. He's 8 years old. Eight-year-old boys NEED to play.
My solemn proclamations that he did NOT have to do this assignment were half-heartedly met with a strong desire to not have to do it, grappling with the need to fulfill his teachers' requirements (T1 has two part-time teachers who share the class. I know. Don't even get me started on this one). He was torn. I find it so interesting that here's a boy who doesn't want to do the homework that he feels is useless, but one who also is either afraid of the consequences of not getting it done or compelled to be deemed worthy by doing what he's told.
I told him I'd okay a change with the teacher. I wrote an email stating (not requesting) that we were changing the homework. I referenced the district policy (figured they couldn't really argue with that) and let them know that from now on, T1 would be writing his spelling words only once and the ones he knew on the first day (seriously--words like "do" and "eat) he wouldn't have to write again. Right? If you know how to spell something, you know it; writing it five times will not help you know better something that you already know. I would give him a spelling test every day, and those words that he didn't know, we would study. And by study I mean study effectively looking at phonics and mnemonics to actually LEARN the nuances of the spelling.
Both teachers emailed a highly accommodating response. No problem, they said. You can modify homework in what ever way you think is appropriate to facilitate learning. As long as he knows the concepts, how he gets there is okay by them. Now T1 is challenged by the daily testing. It feels like a game to see how many he can get right without studying them at all (answer is not very many) and how many he can learn as the week goes by (answer is all of them). He's been getting 100% on his spelling tests ever since. I even heard him say to another boy who was lamenting having to write the spelling words 5 times each, "Just do it my way. It's tons more fun, and I learn the words too! Have your mom send an email!"
What this really brings up for me is the whole concept of homework in elementary school at all, but that's a post for another day. Lord knows, as an educator who studies how the brain learns and effective pedagogical practices daily, I have a LOT to say on this topic. Stay tuned for that, but for now, the message is that homework does not need to be the hassle that I hear parents complain about on the park bench or at the dance studio or karate studio. It's a conversation that people are having constantly.
While I'm not saying that teachers don't know what they're doing, and that you can make whatever homework assignment you want for your kids, you don't have to look at it as such a rigid, black and white task. I do believe that teachers have many legitimate reasons why they assign the homework they do, but in my experience, teachers are flexible, and what do they want really most of all? They want their students to succeed--to walk out of their classes having learned something. They're not homework pushers getting off on watching your kid suffer. Talk to them. Work out a solution that works for your family's quality of life and for your child's maximum learning.
Monday, November 29, 2010
The Key to Good Study Skills for Kids? Less Homework
There is a tremendous amount of controversy surrounding public education and who's responsible for today's failings kids. Is it teachers? (the documentary Waiting for Superman faults teacher's unions). Is it lack of funds? (in California, K-12 education has been cut beyond needing a tourniquet and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight). Is it parents? (working parents are too busy to get involved in their children's education). Then there is the other side of the controversy. Kids who are over-scheduled and stressed out are facing tremendous consequences of burn out as they strive to be the best, have the highest SAT scores, take the most AP courses, and get into the top colleges. The documentary Race To Nowhere addresses this citing homework policies that have kids working for 6 hours a day or more as contributing to the problem. The film also says that teaching to the test, and teaching kids how to take a test, is not giving them the critical thinking skills that they will need to succeed in college or life.
As a college teacher, I see this manifested in two ways. Many of my students are unfocused, unprepared, and unmotivated. Definitely a product of a failing education system. On the other hand, I see students who are trying to balance more than one job and a family while trying to gain an education to advance beyond their current life and the lives their parents had. They are tired and careless. They can't focus.
I think about this a lot with regard to my own kids who, in second grade, while still relatively new to the public education system, are already showing a tendency toward patterns that could stick with them for the life of their education.
T1 wants to get his homework over with. Just today, he asked me, "Why do we have to do the same thing week after week?" They do about 2 worksheets a day as well as writing spelling words 5 times each twice a week. "It's boring," he says. I understand the idea of repetition as a way to reinforce concepts and to practice skills, but this is the same work he's doing in class. It's mega-repetition to the point of boredom.
T2 has the opposite opinion about the homework. She almost always turns it into a game for herself. Today, she pretended to be a teacher and gave a lesson on the homework to her doll. She enjoys doing it and creates similar work for herself when she doesn't have homework. I believe she has the intrinsic motivation that makes a life long learner.
Homework is part of education. Lifelong learners are constantly seeking answers to questions long after their formal education is done. They practice homework simply because they are never done learning. Homework and studying are how lifelong learners get to be lifelong learners.
Then again, there is research from Duke University by Harris Cooper that shows that there is no skills reinforcement with homework in elementary school. Children basically know what they need to know from the work they're doing in class. So why do they do homework? They have to, right? How else will they have the skills to study in middle school or high school? They've got to do something, right?
Our district last year developed a homework policy that is in line with the current research on the subject. The rule of 10 minutes per day per grade level is currently what my children are expected to do. We're doing that, but like I said above, it seems like even this 20 minutes needs an overhaul to make it relevant to the child's life and stimulating to their critical thinking sensibility.
I think the answer is elusive. I try to create more interesting tasks within the required homework, but that's often met with, "Mooommm, we don't have to do that!" Is the 20 minutes a day workable for my kids? Absolutely. Even though I don't know exactly what the magic panacea is to the dull homework, I do know what motivates my kids and I am more than willing to modify the homework to give the kids the unstructured play that will definitely fill their brains.
What's your homework policy? How do you inspire a love of learning in your children?
As a college teacher, I see this manifested in two ways. Many of my students are unfocused, unprepared, and unmotivated. Definitely a product of a failing education system. On the other hand, I see students who are trying to balance more than one job and a family while trying to gain an education to advance beyond their current life and the lives their parents had. They are tired and careless. They can't focus.
I think about this a lot with regard to my own kids who, in second grade, while still relatively new to the public education system, are already showing a tendency toward patterns that could stick with them for the life of their education.
T1 wants to get his homework over with. Just today, he asked me, "Why do we have to do the same thing week after week?" They do about 2 worksheets a day as well as writing spelling words 5 times each twice a week. "It's boring," he says. I understand the idea of repetition as a way to reinforce concepts and to practice skills, but this is the same work he's doing in class. It's mega-repetition to the point of boredom.
T2 has the opposite opinion about the homework. She almost always turns it into a game for herself. Today, she pretended to be a teacher and gave a lesson on the homework to her doll. She enjoys doing it and creates similar work for herself when she doesn't have homework. I believe she has the intrinsic motivation that makes a life long learner.
Homework is part of education. Lifelong learners are constantly seeking answers to questions long after their formal education is done. They practice homework simply because they are never done learning. Homework and studying are how lifelong learners get to be lifelong learners.
Then again, there is research from Duke University by Harris Cooper that shows that there is no skills reinforcement with homework in elementary school. Children basically know what they need to know from the work they're doing in class. So why do they do homework? They have to, right? How else will they have the skills to study in middle school or high school? They've got to do something, right?
Our district last year developed a homework policy that is in line with the current research on the subject. The rule of 10 minutes per day per grade level is currently what my children are expected to do. We're doing that, but like I said above, it seems like even this 20 minutes needs an overhaul to make it relevant to the child's life and stimulating to their critical thinking sensibility.
I think the answer is elusive. I try to create more interesting tasks within the required homework, but that's often met with, "Mooommm, we don't have to do that!" Is the 20 minutes a day workable for my kids? Absolutely. Even though I don't know exactly what the magic panacea is to the dull homework, I do know what motivates my kids and I am more than willing to modify the homework to give the kids the unstructured play that will definitely fill their brains.
What's your homework policy? How do you inspire a love of learning in your children?
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Homework: The Great Divider of Families
My son hates homework. He's like a puppy distracted by a shiny thing whenever he sits down to do it. No sooner has he finished one math problem that he's out of the chair, sharpening his pencil, looking at the notebook paper curling at the edges--anything to take him away from the homework. He pretty much always finishes the assigned work, but it's grueling to keep him focused long enough to do what other kids can do in 10 minutes. It can take 45 minutes to write five sentences.
And again, like I've mentioned in this blog, I blame myself for this dilemma because I am simply not there. I'm not there when he does his homework at the after-school program where the kids are crammed around tables with everyone talking, moving around, and being distracted in their own ways. I'm not there when the teacher gives out the homework and says, "You can do the packet but not this one page," which my son insists she says on a regular basis. When I try to help him, it's usually at the end of the day; he's tired, and so am I, and I am worried about getting dinner cooked. We both end up fried.
I am an educator. I have students who don't have a lick of study skills. I swore when my kids started school that I was going to know exactly what to do to make sure their love of learning was nurtured and molded in the best pedagogical way. I had fantasies of sitting around the dining room table, the kids helping each other with their work and me sitting there grading my students' papers. This is not what is happening, and I feel like I'm losing control, and that his love of learning is slipping away every. single. day. It disheartens me.
I have a friend who is a huge believer in the current movement that argues against the value of homework for elementary school kids at all. I read an article on Slate.com that reviewed 3 books on the subject. I am beginning to see the point. The struggle to help kids as they mire through pages of inane worksheets that practice the same math sums and subtractions in a myriad of ways is mind numbing. It makes that time that we spend together laborious, contentious, and sad. One article I read said, "If the homework is such that the child procrastinates, resists, surface-skims, and does sloppy work so he can get done, be advised that those are precisely the study habits being learned."
Indeed.
My children's elementary school rolled out a new homework policy that limits homework to only 10 minutes per grade level per night. No take home projects for long weekends. They say this is to preserve quality of life for families. I know what I have to do to have a better quality of life with my family. I have to be present to give them meaningful experiences that include teachable moments throughout their day. I have to inspire them to think critically and to explore learning because it's something they want to do to discover the world around them and to find their place in it. I have to let go my fear that what is happening now, in first grade, is any indication of how he will be for his entire academic career.
I have to believe in the hope that someday, I'll watch him pouring over some book or he'll come to me with a hypothesis he wants to research. I have to have that hope.
And again, like I've mentioned in this blog, I blame myself for this dilemma because I am simply not there. I'm not there when he does his homework at the after-school program where the kids are crammed around tables with everyone talking, moving around, and being distracted in their own ways. I'm not there when the teacher gives out the homework and says, "You can do the packet but not this one page," which my son insists she says on a regular basis. When I try to help him, it's usually at the end of the day; he's tired, and so am I, and I am worried about getting dinner cooked. We both end up fried.
I am an educator. I have students who don't have a lick of study skills. I swore when my kids started school that I was going to know exactly what to do to make sure their love of learning was nurtured and molded in the best pedagogical way. I had fantasies of sitting around the dining room table, the kids helping each other with their work and me sitting there grading my students' papers. This is not what is happening, and I feel like I'm losing control, and that his love of learning is slipping away every. single. day. It disheartens me.
I have a friend who is a huge believer in the current movement that argues against the value of homework for elementary school kids at all. I read an article on Slate.com that reviewed 3 books on the subject. I am beginning to see the point. The struggle to help kids as they mire through pages of inane worksheets that practice the same math sums and subtractions in a myriad of ways is mind numbing. It makes that time that we spend together laborious, contentious, and sad. One article I read said, "If the homework is such that the child procrastinates, resists, surface-skims, and does sloppy work so he can get done, be advised that those are precisely the study habits being learned."
Indeed.
My children's elementary school rolled out a new homework policy that limits homework to only 10 minutes per grade level per night. No take home projects for long weekends. They say this is to preserve quality of life for families. I know what I have to do to have a better quality of life with my family. I have to be present to give them meaningful experiences that include teachable moments throughout their day. I have to inspire them to think critically and to explore learning because it's something they want to do to discover the world around them and to find their place in it. I have to let go my fear that what is happening now, in first grade, is any indication of how he will be for his entire academic career.
I have to believe in the hope that someday, I'll watch him pouring over some book or he'll come to me with a hypothesis he wants to research. I have to have that hope.
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