Monday, June 18, 2012

Homework

No kid really likes homework.  Well, maybe a few.  We have seventeen kids in school and some of those are also in Teleton.  There is always a lot of homework.  Some of the kids have to be babysat in order to get it done.  It is a daily chore that seems never ending. 

Homework can be a useful learning tool.  But some of it is just busy work.  Our fourth graders have a lot of busy work for homework this year.  Some of their homework assignments have included writing their numbers from 0-5000, from 5000-10,000, and from 10,000-15,000.  I cannot see that really serves a useful purpose.

  Last week was a vacation week for our kids.  The fourth graders had to write numbers from 15,000-25,000.  The fourth graders did not have school again today and two of them are up there writing on those numbers as we speak.  In addition to that ridiculous assignment (ridiculous in my opinion), they had to write what was similar to a small cursive e only much closer together.  They  had to write TWENTY pages of this.  What useful purpose can this serve for fourth graders?  Maybe, to make them hate school.  If that is the case, it is successful.

This same teacher regularly assigns 20 math problems.  I have no issue with that, except, each child has to make up his own problems and then work them.  Some of our kids make up the simplest problems possible. 

It is a huge deal in Honduras when a person graduates 6th grade.  But what kind of education is this? 

These types of assignments are frustrating to us.  But we make them sit and write ten thousand numbers because we are trying to instill learning and education and homework is important.  We are almost half way through this school year.  I wonder how far the fourth graders will have to write before they are no longer in fourth grade.

Terri

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Mark and Terri,
What an awesome work you are doing with the children! I am praying for you. Have you considered a private school at Casa? In a way it could be much easier as the assignments could be tailored to the children's needs. You could obtain a scope and sequence from the Honduran schools and follow it with your own teachers. I think it would be much easier than what you are doing, if you can find a few teachers.52

Lynn McMaster said...

I didn't mean 52 teachers. Somehow, the number from the robot test appeared at the end of my comment!

Lynn McMaster