Post by momto4 on Dec 8, 2008 11:50:39 GMT -5
I could use some help here.
My 3rd grader is in accelerated math and has always picked up math easily. However, she's having some trouble this year in math and it seems that every night the homework has concepts that she says have not been covered in class. Sometimes we work to help her understand, other times we let her leave parts incomplete so that she can learn it from her teacher the next day in class.
The teacher called me recently to say that my child had not done her homework 3 days the previous week and wanted to give me a heads-up and make sure this was not the start of a pattern of skipping HW. I was stunned because we at least do a cursory check of her HW every day before signing the assignment notebook. I was even more stunned to find out that when a child has not completed their HW that they go out to the hallway to do the HW on their own while the class goes over the HW and has Q&A.
When I got off the phone I figured out what happened for 2 of those 3 days. 1 was a day that my child was not there for math because she had a medical appt. Her HW was completed and in her folder ready to turn in the next time she attended math. 1 was a day that she was terribly confused and we muddled through most of the page and I let her write "I do not understand this" for one section. The other one I'm not sure, it may have been a day when multiple pages were assigned and she missed doing one of them. Some nights are 1-2 pages but others are 3 or 4 and that seems like a lot.
My son in 8th grade PA math was surprised about children being sent to the hallway to complete the HW as he never saw this happen in ES and even in MS the teachers understand if you couldn't complete a section because you didn't understand, and the teacher knows that you then need to be in the classroom for the discussion so you can learn how to do it. They don't get F's on their math HW as long as they attempted to do it.
IMO the goal should be the students learning the material rather than punishing people who don't understand it and forcing them to miss out on the opportunity to learn it in school. It is frustrating. We spent time every evening last week making sure that every blank in the HW was filled in correctly, only to get a sheet home on Friday with a parent signature required that one of the four math pages had not been done (yes, we missed that this page was required...).
Tuesday another parent called to set up a play date and asked me what I thought of the teacher and told me of problems that others are having and about a child whose parents are spending as much as an hour a night teaching her the math for the HW. I didn't know if my daughter wasn't paying good attention, or what, but it's different if others have the same problem.
There is more, but I think this is enough to get the idea.
So, what are other ES teachers doing if math HW is incomplete? And what can/should I do?
My 3rd grader is in accelerated math and has always picked up math easily. However, she's having some trouble this year in math and it seems that every night the homework has concepts that she says have not been covered in class. Sometimes we work to help her understand, other times we let her leave parts incomplete so that she can learn it from her teacher the next day in class.
The teacher called me recently to say that my child had not done her homework 3 days the previous week and wanted to give me a heads-up and make sure this was not the start of a pattern of skipping HW. I was stunned because we at least do a cursory check of her HW every day before signing the assignment notebook. I was even more stunned to find out that when a child has not completed their HW that they go out to the hallway to do the HW on their own while the class goes over the HW and has Q&A.
When I got off the phone I figured out what happened for 2 of those 3 days. 1 was a day that my child was not there for math because she had a medical appt. Her HW was completed and in her folder ready to turn in the next time she attended math. 1 was a day that she was terribly confused and we muddled through most of the page and I let her write "I do not understand this" for one section. The other one I'm not sure, it may have been a day when multiple pages were assigned and she missed doing one of them. Some nights are 1-2 pages but others are 3 or 4 and that seems like a lot.
My son in 8th grade PA math was surprised about children being sent to the hallway to complete the HW as he never saw this happen in ES and even in MS the teachers understand if you couldn't complete a section because you didn't understand, and the teacher knows that you then need to be in the classroom for the discussion so you can learn how to do it. They don't get F's on their math HW as long as they attempted to do it.
IMO the goal should be the students learning the material rather than punishing people who don't understand it and forcing them to miss out on the opportunity to learn it in school. It is frustrating. We spent time every evening last week making sure that every blank in the HW was filled in correctly, only to get a sheet home on Friday with a parent signature required that one of the four math pages had not been done (yes, we missed that this page was required...).
Tuesday another parent called to set up a play date and asked me what I thought of the teacher and told me of problems that others are having and about a child whose parents are spending as much as an hour a night teaching her the math for the HW. I didn't know if my daughter wasn't paying good attention, or what, but it's different if others have the same problem.
There is more, but I think this is enough to get the idea.
So, what are other ES teachers doing if math HW is incomplete? And what can/should I do?