School Policy...*(&^&%!!!!!

[Julie08]

I agree, my son was in a gifted class his teacher told me that he didnt finish his math. Then she proceeded to tell me that the other kids got up at 5 AM to do their math and that they were all finished (she was completely beaming about how great they were), I told her flat out hes 8 and he is NOT getting up at 5 am to do math.

 

[sparkles2307]

I get excited about meetings where I can hear about how my kids are doing! I love talking to the teachers, adressing any concerns together, and hearing the praise they have for my kids. We rarely go to the ice cream socials, I prefer the important meetings. I like filling out papers that pertain to my kids, they are my universe and everything about them excites me (minus the recent attitude that my 5.5 yr old has developed) I dont see how a parent can NOT be active. Granted, I dont recite the alphabet with them or turn our address into a song for them to memorize, but we still do a lot of toher things. My kids know how to interact with not only other kids, but adults in an appropriate manner AND they know more about farming and gardening and chickens than any other kids at daycare! I think that having a kid at 5.5 and 4.5 that can keep up in a convo with adults makes up for my lack of bedtime story reading and all that. My kids are thrilled to go to school and learn new things, and there arent punishments for "strikes" other than the usual trip to the principal's office for those worst offenders. Misbehavior is turned into a learning experience for the whole class. If one of them hits, the teacher sits down with EVERYONE and they review why we dont hit and everyone gets a good remider. I think punishment that singles out the offender and embarasses them in front of everyone else just leads to more bad behavior, but making it a learning time has been amazing for my own kids.

 

[Camelot Farms]

Children need structure, children need guidance, children need to have rules. If we as parents buck at these simple rules the schools have in place, what are we really teaching our kids? Are we going to follow them to their first jobs and take over at the first sign of stress are children are exhibiting or are we going to help them learn to cope?

I am not bucking this as a parent, I am bucking this Strike Sheet as a member of society. I would be annoyed by this even if it didnt effect my own child.

I believe that society needs to have a better understanding of poverty and its effects on children and their learning process/education. A child whose parent/s are more worried about where to find the next meal, or their next fix arent going to be worried if their child gets a Strike. That is the least of their concerns that day. But...the child worries and the child is ostracized and the child is punished as though poverty isnt enough of a punishment in itself.

Another example of this lack of understanding is in 1st grade DD's class had an Easter Egg hunt. A note went home telling us that we needed to send in 8 filled plastic easter eggs by such and such date or our children would not be allowed to participate. That about set my hair on fire! Not because WE couldnt afford to send the eggs, but because I knew full well that 2 of the families in DD's class couldnt and probably wouldnt. I am not here to berate them for not being able to or being willing to do this for their children. I am here to say that its not a good practice to allow children to be penalized for an adults choice.

I am sure that the teachers would have brought extra eggs to cover those children who did not bring them. We all know that teachers spend a good part of their salaries on school supplies and extras. But the children didnt know that. In fact DD came home a day or two before the hunt and commented...'**** wont be able to be in the hunt because he still hasnt brought his eggs'. Hallelujah. What kind of lesson is that teaching anyone?

So, this isnt just about my child, its about all of our children, our grandchildren, our nieghbors children, a total stranger's child....

 

[PattiXmas]

Quote:
there is a big difference between 10 years old and 16 - 17 yrs old and what the responsibilities should be.

there is no reason why a 10 year old should be sitting at the table from 430 when the school bus drops him off till 8pm when it is time for his bath, pj's ect... all because he cant remember that "i" before "e" except after "c" and that in Canada we have a "u" in the word colour no matter what spell check says.

put a alternator in that child's hands and it will be rebuilt before 5pm. Schools dont accept that everyone learns differently not everyone learns from a book so I made the decision as a parent to stop trying to force it on him.

Great that he can rebuild and alternator in a half hour's time, but without the education he should be getting, will he learn how to write up an invoice? Will he know how to add up the charges? Will he be aware of how much he earned, how much Uncle Sam earned and how much went to the overhead? My kids struggled with school, but we did not make any special allowances as long as the homework was done, and they tried to the best of their abilities. I know my son will never be a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon, but at least he will be able to understand that stress is an everyday thing, and he must learn to deal with it. My kids used to get mad at me when I would have them write their spelling words 5 times each and the ones they missed 10 times, but they now understand. If all parents stopped pushing their kids, and stopped working with the school systems, where would we be at?

 

[claud]

Quote:
I think they were referring to a child with a learning disability. If that child has to sit down for 3-4 hours every night after struggling all day while the other children are able to complete it in an hour or less the learning disabled child learns to hate learning/school/homework.
My daughter went through this and it was terrible - she should have been spending time improving basic reading/writing but she was spending entire nights memorizing vocab that she'd never use and studying ancient culture etc.

Thankfully, after getting an IEP things improved enormously.

 

[Camelot Farms]

Quote:
I understand your points, but I think that there is another side to this. I think that this type of policy does single someone out. Its singles out the children who dont have the same opportunities as others. My kid just tosses her assignment pad on the table and she knows that it will be signed. Now, if she doesnt get the book out of the bag and put it out for me to sign, I wont be reminding her. That is her responsibility. If she gets the strike, then she gets the strike. That part makes sense to me, I am all for teaching responsibility.

I have spent many years working with families who come to those meetings only when food is provided, and I am always greatful when they do because that is one night that I know those kids are getting a good meal.

Schools cant teach parents how to be 'good' parents. Using punitive attempts such as the strike book doesnt work. It just punishes the child.

 

[sparkles2307]

I guess my brother was blessed in that his learning disabilities were addressed when he was very young, and the therapy helped immensely. He still cant watch a movie with subtitles, we have to read them to him and he is 24, but he was always math-smart. We both did our homework IN CLASS (yes we went to those weird schools where the theachers gave us time at the end of class to do homework) and never had any at home. I am wondering how we will do homework with my kids, but I havent heard of any of the teachers at thier school that give out lots of homework so I think we wont have it too bad for a few years.

 

[Camelot Farms]

I'm off to the Library and the Market....dont get this thread locked while I'm gone. I'm enjoying this opportunity and friendly debate...

 

[Dar]

Quote:
there is a big difference between 10 years old and 16 - 17 yrs old and what the responsibilities should be.

there is no reason why a 10 year old should be sitting at the table from 430 when the school bus drops him off till 8pm when it is time for his bath, pj's ect... all because he cant remember that "i" before "e" except after "c" and that in Canada we have a "u" in the word colour no matter what spell check says.

put a alternator in that child's hands and it will be rebuilt before 5pm. Schools dont accept that everyone learns differently not everyone learns from a book so I made the decision as a parent to stop trying to force it on him.

Great that he can rebuild and alternator in a half hour's time, but without the education he should be getting, will he learn how to write up an invoice? Will he know how to add up the charges? Will he be aware of how much he earned, how much Uncle Sam earned and how much went to the overhead? My kids struggled with school, but we did not make any special allowances as long as the homework was done, and they tried to the best of their abilities. I know my son will never be a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon, but at least he will be able to understand that stress is an everyday thing, and he must learn to deal with it. My kids used to get mad at me when I would have them write their spelling words 5 times each and the ones they missed 10 times, but they now understand. If all parents stopped pushing their kids, and stopped working with the school systems, where would we be at?

we would have kids that are not stressed to the point of ulcers and mental break downs at the age of 10. There is a time and a place for stress and IMO it is not right to stress kids out to the point that its affecting their overall health.

The school (ours anyway) is building a generation of kids reliant on technology so it wont matter if he cant add the charges for the invoice cause the computer will do it for him anyway so why bother teaching them to do manual math? They are teaching that all their work has to be done on a word processor so why bothering teaching them the are of penmanship and writing cause the computer will spell check for them any way and you can pick your font so it wont matter what your handwriting looks like. i was TOLD not requested... TOLD that I must provide a computer for my son to complete his assignments on. ooo and internet access for him to do research because the reference section of the library has been removed to allow for extra computers. Now talk about dividing kids based on the financial status of the household.

 

[PattiXmas]

Quote:
Your example is of a reward, the fun of being able to do something other then school work so I don't really see where this would be the same as signing the homework log or the "strikes".

Granted, no child should be hungry, no child should worry about how to make sure they have food to eat or eggs for an Easter Egg Hunt. Again though, this isn't about that - this is about making sure the homework is done, making sure that everyone follows the rules.

I don't see why poverty would affect the child from doing their homework or having their parents take a few minutes out of their day to sign the paperwork and verify the homework has been done. The parents have had all day while the children were in school to try and figure out what to feed their children, so they should be able to sign a simple piece of paper.

If everyone stops trying to do their best, following rules and sat back and watched and reaped the rewards of hard workers just to avoid stress, how are we going to be able to feed and support our children, our grandchildren, our neighbors children, a total stranger's child?