Dumb homework assignments

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

I just had to share, especially considering the curiously appropriate wrong answer my kid got on this one. I’m 37, I have an English degree and a law degree, and it took me some puzzling to figure out what they were after.

According to my 7yo, this assignment was given without any discussion of interesting or detailed word choice in writing, either as an instruction for the homework or generally in class. Ironically, if the drafters of the worksheet had used a more detailed word than “best” in the instructions, it would have been much clearer!

This is the same teacher who last semester sent home a homework assignment that had to be done midweek: “Use this recipe to make gingerbread men!” I’m sure all the double-income households appreciated it even more than I did. And the recipe sucked - it had something like 25% the normal butter-and-sugar to flour ratio of standard recipes, and didn’t have an oven temperature or baking time.

Generally I think this teacher is pretty good, but she doesn’t have a great eye for detail, and it sometimes results in some consternation at home!

Got any good dumb assignments from your kids’ (or your) school?

#2

I hate those handouts. They always seem to have written by stupid people. Why do teachers rely on those? It seems like laziness.

#3

Wow, the jokes on worksheets have actually gotten worse since I was a kid. (“Faill bus,” however, made me laugh so hard.)

#4

Lesson learnt: The best word is always the longest.

(“Faill bus” had me laughing so hard as well…)

#5

Hoo boy! Where can I [del]get[/del] purchase a ticket for the fail bus?

#6

Wow, it really looks like a reading comprehension test, to be filled out after reading a story. Your kid got this cold?

#7

It’s not a reading comprehension test; the words in each case are (essentially) synonyms.

#8

FAILL BUS. Love it.

In defense of teachers; some use them because they are lazy, but I think (based on watching my mom, aunt and several cousins teach) often a teacher will buy a theme package of material or inherit one from a previous teacher and not notice the really crappy components because most of the theme is decently put together.

It takes years for the good teachers to put together (usually) monthly themes or learning modules that manage to teach the lesson and be good/interesting at the same time. My mom literally has an entire room in her basement full of theme boxes after 30 years of teaching K-2, and she still occasionally finds completely moronic worksheets purchased from teacher supply stores that she never noticed before. It’s just a heck of a lot of material to prepare, in addition to classroom decorating, parent-teacher conferences, extra-curricular supervising, report card writing (my mom’s school board seems to change formats every 3 years), etc. Also, she can’t draw worth crap - no way she’s making her own!

A good teacher will get these back, realize how bad an exercise it was, laugh at the responses and never use it again. A great teacher will find a way to turn it into a teaching moment for the class, or edit the original question into something that makes sense for future years.

#9

And the point was to pick the “stronger” word in each pair, which would have been a decent assignment if the instructions in any way made that clear.

#10

Try as I might, I can’t figure out a way to get “Smells like carrots” out of those answers.

#11

The Message at the bottom should read “Chill Out”

#12

Thank you Capt. Obvious.

#13

I refuse to accept that. Chloe got it right. The correct answer is FAILL BUS!

#14

A+!!!

#15

yeah I would second that. I have tried to put together these sorts of worksheets - and what takes the kids 10 minutes to finish takes 2-3 hours to design etc.

#16

If my own 6 year old Chloe had brought that home, I would have told her to choose the more exciting word. What is so hard about figuring that out?

#17

I think Chloe was nearly right, Clearly the answer is a balls uff.

#18

Seems to me the correct letters would spell DUCK SNOT.

#19

My kid gets these all the time, also usually without helpful instruction. I figured it was due to South Carolina’s unwavering dedication to quality public education, but I can see now that we aren’t the only fortunate ones.

#20

I’m going to skip the admittedly hilarious FAILL BUS and address this. I hate these assignments. I hate them with the heat of a thousand burning suns. If you want to assign my kid homework, fine. Assign my KID homework. Do not assign ME homework. I went to grade school once already and am not interested in doing so again. Additionally, I get plenty of “family together time” with my kids and do not need stupid assignments from the school that are clearly designed to get parents and kids to do some project together. In my opinion, if the assignment requires any more input or assistance from the parent than buying supplies or helping with questions about stuff the kid doesn’t understand, it’s well into “Parent Assignment” territory, and I don’t appreciate it.