I swear that horrible old bitch of my son's teacher doesn't know what grade she's teaching.

I've spent the last 2 1/2 hours working with him on 12 questions for a Native American project for his class, and some of the questions even stumped me. He's in 2nd grade and this is only half the damn project, I swear it's better suited for 4th graders. It's fucking aggravating as hell.

I want to tear this woman's head off(then again this isn't new this year, she's an awful old woman who hasn't a clue and reminds me of a witch in a Fairy Tale.). My poor kid is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And I'm right behind him.

This is not how I planned on spending my sunday.

wow. i completely know what you're going through.


my friend's son (who lives upstairs from me....and is like a nephew/son to me....) is in the 4th grade. he always comes to me for homework help. (his mom is a single mom with a baby....and a job.... so, i'm happy to help. they are an extension of my family.....she and i have been friends for 20 years now.)

his teacher this year must think she's teaching college.

he has SO much homework. every single night. 2 book reports a month. at least 5 spelling assignments due at the end of every week (which can include writing definitions, drawing pictures, making 3-d things and making crossword puzzles for 25 words....) and a weekly project due every week. PLUS all the normal homework.

he spends all day at school..... then comes home for at least 4 more hours of homework.

he's losing it! (and there's been times that i feel like i'm going to lose it too.....because i'm the one he comes to for all his homework help.)

and apparently she's a bitch in class.

the poor kid is having a rough, rough year.
i don't remember EVER having this much homework.

i am soo glad that i am still somewhat young and don't have these problems

stuff like that does not sound like fun and all + i will be dreading those days when the time comes.

good luck!

4 hours does sound like a bit much for a 4th grader, but I would have killed for a workload like that in high school or college.

the public elementary school my kids went to had a policy of no homework--other than reading and keeping a reading log--through third grade. kids that young shouldn't have home work and if they do it souldn't be longert than a half hour. they can't take it. in the fourth grade it increased to about an hor, hour and a half.

that sucks for both of you, jen.
poor little guy.

well on the bright side, all those writing assignments hopefully mean I wont have to correct their grammar when I have them as students in college lol

This is why American students lag the rest of the world when it comes to education.

cuz kids get too much homework?

I do think kids get way too much homework, but more because much of it seems to be busy work. Giving a kid 10 or 15 math problems for homework just to make sure they understand the concept is fine; assigning 76 trinomial equations to solve (that don't get harder as they go or change in any way other than the numbers themselves), including showing all steps when most of them can be solved mentally is an utter waste of time (and paper). A high school teacher did this to my class, and I refused to do more than 20 of them. I had better things to do with my time. Haha! You should have seen her face when I told her this in front of the whole class...

No, because mothers bitch about the homework.

sometimes the bitching is warranted.
4 hours of homework for a 4th grader IS excessive.

Defeatist!

It's even more ridiculous for a 2nd grader.

This whole two part project took about that amount of time.

My kid's step-mother has been a fifth grade teacher for over ten years now and she said his teacher is way off base with the projects his class has been given this year. They've been more complex then his age group can handle. Plus the woman is the anti-christ.

The reason why I say this is because I have a friend whose child is in 4th grade and she's always bitching and complaining about the amount of homework her daughter gets. This only succeeded in making her daugther feel like she can't handle the load she's getting and has really affected her confidence. She's a very smart little girl but her mother now knows that perhaps she should've tried motivating and challenging her daughter a little. Oh well, you live and learn.

I have lots of thoughts on this that are probably better kept to myself. But short version is I agree with you.

see. i think that statement is TOO generalized.

having friends who are teachers.....i do agree with your stance. that we baby our children. and that is why our education ends up falling short.


but on the other hand, i have first hand experience with my friend's son and the amount of homework his teacher gives him.....and it's ridiculous.

so, i'm not really sure what i'm trying to say....other than.....the original statement is too general to make.

Jen, you ever look into the U of Chicago Lab school? Great philosophy of self directed education.

I was really referring to my friend's situation which she herself has confessed to me some of her regrets with the way she handled her daughter's school work issue. With that said, I'm sure it's not much different for many other parents and their kids.

My parents always treated our education as our job. They went to work, and we went to work at school. They had to bring work home, and we had our homework, and you might not like it, but you just do it. If it meant biking to the library to figure shit out, that's what you did. They helped with what they could, and when they couldn't they said "go look it up".

It worked for us, and gave us a good work ethic.

I think it's cultural too though, with Indians. They get nervous when they aren't working.

Americans no longer want to work.

90% of the actual education part of school is a waste of time.
most of the education is learning to do shit you don't want and figureing out what aspects you are most drawn to.

but the most important part about school is learning to deal with other people.

if you can handle dealing with high school kids, you can deal with ANYONE.

I totally disagree. I think grades 1st through 5th are very important in a child's educational development. Not only in what they learn but work ethic develops at a young age.

i was thinking more about the later year. i won't claim to understand elementary school, even though my mom teaches 2nd grade.

I agree with you on this one.

Unfortunately I've seen firsthand the fact that nowadays schools are struggling to keep their teachers and so there's an anything goes attitude.

Some of the teachers are there beyond retirement, some are newbies who bring their outside life into class.

Charlie's Kinder teacher also worked as a nighttime hostess during weeknights at a fucking major Nightclub- many, many complaints were lobbed against her to the principal because she was ALWAYS overtired and screaming at these young ones.

This year his teacher is approaching 80 and is a bitch on wheels. The kids never do anything fun in class, nothing creative. And she wonders why her class is full of children who are frustrated and distracted easily. They're 7 & 8 yr olds, they can't be expected to do worksheets for 6 hours a day.

I think at this young age they need some nurturing and bit of structure, but not so much they can't be kids.