Mom Is Teaching

So, what am I talking about?  I’m just going to put it down as a fact, teachers should NEVER send new concepts home as homework.

That’s as forthright as I can be.  Straight forward, to the point.  I have many reasons why this is a bad idea other than simply sending homework home in the first place is pointless.  I know that it didn’t take much to convince me of that but some folks are a little harder to convince.

So, with my weapons in my back pocket, I’m going to throw this one out there at you.  This one revolves around reason # 343156243.  What is that, you ask?  This is the homework that goes home that the child has to read and/or figure out for themselves.  And, in my opinion the place they should turn is to their parents.  But, if the homework is so difficult that the child can’t do it, many times the parents won’t be able to do it either.  And, that’s assuming the parents would help if they could and have time to sit down with 5 children and teach them all their lessons for the day.

Imagine this for a minute, you have four children, we will stick with four since it is more likely, you’ve worked your own 8 hour shift with an hour drive time each way.  You’ve cooked dinner, washed dishes, picked all the kids up from their various activities or sitters and now, now you get to teach the oldest child a little algebra, the middle one needs to draw a map of the United States and label it, the next to the youngest is trying to get some help reading his new book that has words in it that he has yet to learn and he needs you to help sound them out and the baby, the baby just needs a bath, some attention and put to bed.  Now, you quit school in the eight grade, so the algebra is out, you do not have any resources at home to find a picture of the U.S. and your child didn’t bring his/her book home and the one learning to read…well you don’t know anything about “sounding out words”, you barely remember learning to read yourself.

Oh and hey, one more thing, everyone needs a bath, including yourself, someone needs a clean ball uniform for the next day and your spouse?  Oh, yea, your spouse, what about him/her?

That’s not a very pretty picture is it.  Unfortunately it happens every day.  Except most of the time, a family in this situation really hasn’t concerned themselves with whether the kid learns the algebra or not as well as the U.S. maps.  Finally, with all this other stuff, surely the kid could learn to read at school, right?  Wait, that’s an excellent idea, wouldn’t you say?  Learning these skills at school?

So, as I look out there, the homeschooling parents are nodding their heads thinking, what a nightmare and the ones of you are in this situation are thinking, “what’s she been doing peeping in our window’s at night”.  Honestly, new concepts simply shouldn’t be taught by anyone but the teacher, homeschool or public, the child should know where to turn, a public school teacher, a parent teacher or an online teacher.