I’ve had words with teachers over this. Particularly in my daughters case.
If you are going to give ME a homework project, then you have to live with MY schedule. Like many working parents, my schedule is fairly booked. I can’t come up with a clear Saturday on no notice to do a homework project. And you have to work with MY budget (not an issue for us, but YES twenty dollars is a hell of a lot of money for some of the girls I have in Scouts. And my daughter goes to school with several sets of multiples - so double that for some families).
That doesn’t mean I’m a bad Mom. That means that for a month like October, I’m usually booked every single weekend and most week nights. I’m happy to schedule your project in January, when we have lots of family time and I can just move snowboarding or miss a day. Feburary and March are bad though - Girl Scout cookie season and budget crunch at work.
Well, the difference here (aside from age) is that you request parental assistance, you don’t “assign” it; parents are providing guidance, the student is doing the work, and you are not asking for any other arrangement; and the student’s grade isn’t tied to how well the parent performs.
Also, you clearly have a plan B in place in the event that the parents can’t or won’t step up, for whatever reason. Ultimately the student succeeds on their own merits.
Well, the kids are required to practice for adults a certain number of hours a week. We don’t say it has to be mom and dad-- it can be neighbors, pastors, other teachers, aunts, uncles, homeless people under a bridge. I don’t care- they just have to perform for somebody and it has to be signed off by that adult. So, in some way, it is required for them to do this outside work, but we are open to who they do it with.
Teachers need to assign homework to the students, not the parents. The students should be doing most or all of the homework, possibly with parental supervision. But homework should not involve any major expense on the part of the parents in either time or money. Parents are presumably adults who have graduated from grade school, and who don’t need to do grade school homework. If the project is too complicated for the students to complete without more than minimal help, then it’s not appropriate for that grade level. It’s OK to require that parents turn on an oven and put the clay in and take it out again. It’s NOT OK to require the use of power tools for a third grade project. Power tool use is appropriate when it’s a shop class…and the power tools used are in the school shop, with the shop teacher supervising.
Requiring a specific brand of clay is SUCH a red flag to me. Does the teacher have any sort of financial interest in this brand of clay? And if this is clay like Sculpey or Fimo, that is pretty pricy.
I’d have a very short discussion with the teacher, immediately. And I’d probably have a longer discussion with the principal or other administrator about what is and what is not acceptable as homework.
No, the objection is to the teacher assigning homework to adults. I LOVE arts and crafts projects like this, and in fact, I’ve made things like this for my own enjoyment. However, the only person who has the right to assign me a task to make such a project is my employer. Nobody else. This teacher thinks that she has the right to assign tasks to other adults, and she most certainly does NOT.
That parenthetical is the crux of it. Extra-curriculars are extra curricular. I expect as a parent to pay for things like suits or dresses for Debate. I’d expect to pay for a fairly snazzy swim suit for the Swim Team, or whatever those Spandex things are called for Wrestling. I know that if I sign my daughter up for Irish Dance, I’d better have $5000+ to spend on wigs and dresses and shoes. So…I don’t sign her up. It’s not required for her education. Would it enrich it? Yes, but not doing so won’t get her in trouble with her teachers. I sign her up for Yoga instead, 'cause it costs nothing.
But again, this economic question is a sidetrack (I won’t say hijack, because it IS a valid criticism of big homework assignments that require special tools). I agree that the real problem here is expecting adults to do homework for classes they’re not enrolled in. How does that teach a child that they’re responsible for doing their own work?
Add me to the people who would like to know the wording of the instructions. And I thought that parents “doing most of the work themselves” was exactly what teachers are trying to stamp out.
That’s just not true. If you take your kid to a personal trainer, they may assign family workouts. If you take your kid to the doctor, they may assign you to monitor what she eats. If you take your kid to a shrink, they may assign cognitive behavioral therapy worksheets for you to fill out together. This isn’t some crazy violation of your “rights,” it’s just how some things get done.
sven, what do you know, from personal experience, about raising a child? Or about running a household, or financially supporting people besides yourself? If your explanation includes the word “Cameroon” then it’s not relevant to this discussion.
A school is compulsory. Any particular school is voluntary.
Anyway, I think I’ve said my piece. As a teacher, I object to the idea that a parent has no special obligation to play an active role in their student’s school life. School works for children best when parents and teacher communicate and work together towards common educational goals, not when it becomes some sort of adversarial relationship with each one avoiding the other. As a parent, you have a duty to strive for the former over the latter when possible.
Oh fer Pete’s sake. If your child is unwell, of course it’s part of the parent’s job to make sure these issues are addressed. It’s the parent’s JOB to ensure the health and well-being of their child.
How the sludge is that equivalent to a teacher saying, “Parent, go to Kraft-Mart and buy Brand X clay and build a mud hut out of it” without a thought as to whether the parent can afford it, has time to do it, is crafty enough to do it, or wonders exactly what their child will get out of them making this thing?
Cool, lemme play: as a teacher, I object to the idea that parents should be required to do all a student’s homework for them and come by my house to wash my car. I don’t understand why you think that’s okay.
And in all those cases, you are doing so to help your child. Building a craft project largely my yourself isn’t helping them IMHO.
We do get useful homework here. Math, reading and writing. I can’t say that there has been one set that we haven’t helped with or checked over. But it is her work, not ours and we are helping her to learn things, not doing it for her.
I believe that parents should be involved in their children’s education and supporting it. Building an adobe house does not fall into that definition for me.
Yep, school is compulsory for my child. Making sure my child attends school is my responsibility - but other than making sure my kid shows up, I have little compulsory responsibilities. Certainly none that involve doing craft projects that my child will then turn into his teacher.
Now, because I’m a pretty good parent (I think), I hassle my kids about their homework. We track their grades and provide rewards and removal of privileges in what we feel is an appropriate manner. We attend conferences. We correspond with our kids teachers in email when there is a question on other end. We support disciplinary efforts. We HELP with their homework as they require help.
Honestly, even without any “additional parent as the primary participant” homework, I probably spend five or six hours a week on school stuff with my kids. That’s just the driving, volunteering, communicating with teachers, tracking performance, and ordinary “Mom, I don’t understand this math problem.” Add a major project on top of that and you are cutting into time I use to keep my kid’s clothes clean, cook them nutritious meals, make sure new life isn’t forming in the fridge or sink, shower myself, and indulge myself in some time on the Straight Dope or with a book.
If I take my kid to a personal trainer, that’s because I’ve made a decision that my child will benefit from that training. The trainer does not have any right to assign workouts to any other person than my child, though, unless we go to the trainer AS A FAMILY. Monitoring what my child eats is just part of parenting, though a doctor might be able to tell me how to do it more effectively. And if I take my child to a shrink, well, usually there are family issues as well as personal issues when a kid has to go to a shrink.
My daughter, as it happens, is 31, which I believe is older than you are. And I did take her to a shrink, who recommended a course of action which involved me (I had to take her to a reading tutor, as the school was not interested in treating her dyslexia).
The thing is, homework is supposed to be assigned to a STUDENT, for the STUDENT’S benefit. And the STUDENT does not derive any benefit whatsoever if the parent does most of the assignment. The teacher is wasting the parent’s time and money in a way that doesn’t benefit anyone, other than the makers of that fancy clay.
The point still remains that we don’t know exactly what the teacher said. If the OP’s representation is true- that she is requiring parents to do the majority of the work for a child’s assignment, then this certainly needs to be brought up with the administration. But, maybe the OP read into the instructions something that wasn’t there. Who knows. A few of us have asked for the text of the assignment, just to see.
If the teacher warned parents ahead of time, “Look, this is a challenging assignment and your child will probably need more help than usual,” no problem. But assigning homework to an adult is pretty presumptuous and would irritate the hell out of me.
