Teachers, Teachers, come on! What are you trying to do to me? Enough with all this silly homework already!. Do the kids really need hours of homework each night? Many kids don't get home til 5 or 6pm and go to bed around 8p. They have to eat, bathe, do chores, and don't forget maybe play for a few minutes outdoors, god forbid they have an extracurricular activity. Squeeze in 2 hours or more of homework each night and jeez!
I am all about some education and studying but lately our homework load is ridiculous. The most ridiculous part is homework only counts as less than 10% of the final grade in most upper classes and the kids know it. So how do I stress the importance of doing all this homework if this is the case? When they are that exhausted from all day at school and then hours of homework are they really learning or are they just trying to get it done? If homework is that important I say make it 45% of the grade at least 30%!
The worst part about it is my kids are no geniuses, (sorry kids) and they need my help. I am often stressing to my kids that "mother knows best" or that "I already completed school" so when I sit down to help them and don't know the answers myself I look really dumb. Come on! You're killing my credibility here. Here are some examples. My son is in ninth grade, these are passages from Romeo and Juliet that he had to translate.
Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.
For naught so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good but, strain'd from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on the abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified
Here's my first problem with that. Why is that necessary? Sure if you are going into a field where literature is important. But, for the layman what is the point? No one talks like that and I'm sure they never will again. So why waste valuable hours of education on this? I have polled many teenagers they 100% hate it and even after they spend weeks working on it still don't get the importance of it. Why can't Shakespeare evolve? If the story is so important why not have one person update it and then the kids study that? Uggh. And before any literary lovers come at me let me stress that I LOVE reading, read to my kids lots, and read myself often, but come on!
Now seriously wouldn't the children's time be better served learning real life stuff? Like how to balance an account? Home ownership? How to cook on a budget? Or do home repairs? How to interview well? Or how to speak properly to adults instead of the "ummhmmm" most of us get from our teens? What about networking lessons and technology? I mean seriously even Math seems like a waste since there are machines that do math for us and don't forget they are a requirement in High School. Why do I have to pay $100 or more dollars for a calculator if my son has to do it without one? Don't we just need to know the basics here?
Now onto vocabulary, I love words but my fourth grader? Not so much. And this vocab list doesn't help.
fusillade
piquancy
avarice
Does he really need those words right now? He knows them but can't make his bed properly, or stay organized or put pants in the drawer marked pants opposed to the underwear drawer. I am all for education but I really think it is outta control.
Our school board is proposing changing our school hours for a couple reasons. One is to make bussing schedules run more smoothly. Another is to add more time to the school day. The elementary kids would have to stay til 4pm!
Middle til 3:15
High School til 3:15
I would agree to this if there was no homework but lets not forget these are kids and kids need time to just be kids. This school thing is outta control. I'm gonna put a post together about all my complaints with our local school system soon but this one couldn't wait.
Am I being unreasonable here? Anyone else having this issue?
