Battle of wills...
On monday, my sons "spelling" homework was to make a collage of spelling words. I made him write the words 3x each and sent a note in saying that we had run out of glue at home.
Today his teacher sent home a stick of glue...
Should I come up with another dumb excuse or just tell the teacher the truth... I am ethically opposed to cutting up perfectly good magazines and newspaper?
Labels:
Stupid homework assignments
10 comments:
Is that really the truth though, Rory? For me, I'd have no problems cutting up newspaper, I'd have problems with the inanity of the assignment, not cutting paper up. It's not a spelling assignment, it's an art assignment (and it's not that instructive even as an art assignment). What does the teacher hope the students will learn by simply finding the words?
good for your son's teacher for NOT assigning meaningless homework- like write the word 3 x's, because after all, it is 2008 and education has come a long way since write the word 3 x's
kids get A's on spelling tests all the time because they have written the word 3x's but still spell the word incorrectly in their writing, when it counts....
i read an old blog of yours when you were annoyed that your first grader was taught to use pictures to read... using picture clues is a strategy taught to beginning readers. before kids can be taught to decode words, they need to believe that they are readers, and reading with picture clues helps convince them of that
I swear to god I can't tell if anon is being sarcastic or not.
why?
I teach in a high school, and I use visuals to teach vocabulary. It's a great strategy and helps students picture words and connect the words in differing contexts. It's actually a very sound practice.
I homeschool and I use collages and visuals sometimes to and they really are effective. But as homework? Those methods are most effective when I'm with my daughter reinforcing what she's learning by doing that collage.
If homework is a time when kids should be learning some independent study skills (and shouldn't it be?), how on earth is taking a few minutes to cut up magazines going to help that?
I'm with Parentalcation on this one. Some activities work best within a certain context. What's great learning in a classroom environment or with an engaged teacher turns into meaningless busywork when it's given as homework.
Years ago I had a student with a "written language disability". During his IEP meeting the team decided he should be able to type his spelling words. Didn't take him long to learn to copy/paste!!
I can't tell if anon is being sarcastic or not.
I can't either. That person has to be kidding, right? Please tell me anon wasn't serious.
BTW, what's not meaningless about becoming a good speller is actually taking the time to teach/learn the rules of spelling and learning words that apply to each rule learned. That's what I consider sound practice. Haphazardly learning a list of words and then moving onto the next just isn't the same thing.
Yeah, those spelling rules are so easy.
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