You can lead a kid to homework but you can't make them think.

I'm sorry. We're a sad community, us heart-sick.



Yes to all of this.

It seems sort of nutty, doesn't it, to see a therapist because your kid won't do his homework? I don't think anyone who hasn't lived it has any idea of the destructive power it has. And it's long term destruction.

I agree that punishment isn't a good idea.

But I kind of see rewards as the flip side to punishment and not necessarily a good idea either. At least not for us.

Mo has a way of turning them into blackmail.

That's sweet of you to offer but I don't think that's our solution at this point. Thank you.

I agree that's the trick all right.

I know this stuff intellectually but when you're thrown in a cage with a willful 10 year old intellect isn't a good weapon!

I guess I missed dlowen's thread. I'll have to look that one up.

Hope it works out for ya, but I sympathize with yer kid. I hated homework and refused to do it, in large part because it was insipid and a waste of my time. I didn't need to do a math problem 45 times to get it right. I would then proceed to ace the tests and end up with C's in my classes. My parents went nuts for a while and then just sort of gave up.

Throughout my entire schooling career, I was warned that this 'wouldn't fly at the next level,' or that it would eventually have negative repercussions in my life. That was totally wrong. I'm very happy and successful and I rarely if ever did any homework.

In college - outside of reading books - I probably did a total of about 40 hours of homework for the entire 4 years. If I saw, on the first day of class, that a class would require a lot of homework - I would drop the class rather than waste my valuable evenings. This isn't to say that I don't learn - I have, since the age of 15, spent 3-4 hours a day studying topics of my own interest, in depth, every day that I can - but that I don't care for the formal nature of school and I don't give a **** what someone else's opinion of my mastery of a subject is. I'm very anti-grades.

I am totally opposed to homework, because it's completely backward. What should be happening is the reverse: the kid watches a lecture at home and does the exercises in class, with the teacher there to help them.

Cycloptichorn

No, you're right, it isn't. But time, resolve, love, good judgment, patience, firmness, ..., all are, and they are weapons that there is no defense against.

But I know that you know this already, Boomer.

Allowed, you've a task harder than carving a new David, with what seems some days to be a much less pliant material.

Ganbatte! Hang in there!

It might have taught you to stay focused on your job instead of dallying at A2K.

Doubt it, but once again, why would I need to? I excel at both simultaneously.

Cycloptichorn

I'm changing my mind here.

I didn't actively like homework, but I didn't rail against it. That was later, as I've gotten more and more anti paperwork and defensive of my time as an adult. I don't think I had too much homework, relative to me; in retrospect, it seemed about right. It helped me figure out what I might have missed that day, sometimes slow on the ball back then re vision and my brain and process it all. I was swift enough, looking back, but some of that involved a lot of scrambleing. The homework taught me how to review - which is one way I learn. Reviewing again, even better. Which I'd usually never did until I got stuck some time later.

I'm a process learner, repetition has helped me. Not endless repetition, but reference to previous concepts, trying the new thing out, playing with it.
Fear can get in the way of all this. (I called that Physics. Physics = Fear).

I had an adult crisis learning grading and drainage/site engineering. Turned out our teacher messed up some of his questions, I think two over a semester, but it set me into panic - I remember crying about it all when I was 42 at the time. Luckily I cried in my back yard, not in class. Once I got it, grading and drainage was one of my favorite things to work out for a site.

On the other hand, all these comments about the tribulations of homework are pretty convincing.

I think it's clear to me that people learn in different ways and that school systems haven't coped with that yet.

I'm on your side and I hope it works out for me to. I think homework is assigned only because it's expected to be assigned. There's no reason for it.

Mr. B doesn't feel that way.

We've compromised.

The compromise isn't working for any of us.

Yay Canadian couple! Well done.

I've read a lot about the book "The Case Against Homework" and I've read a lot of excerpts. I think I'm going to break down and get a copy. Thanks.

I wanted to say thanks to all of you for giving me a safe place to blow a gasket and for all of your good advice.

Today went much better after such a long spell of the awful.

When he came home from school today I suggested that we take a walk since it was a sunny day -- we haven't had many of those lately -- so we walked to the little store, sat outside, ate ice cream, and talked.

Then we came home and got the homework done in about an hour. I admit that I gave him some of the answers though. I'll also admit that I don't feel bad about having given him the answers.

So today was a little less than 2 hours of homework and no real fights to speak of.

Yay!

Thank you!

That is super....make it you and him on a team against the school, but part of the deal is that he has to do his best to give them what they want. This could be a bonding experience.

Glad things went better today!

Me and Mo.... fighting the man....

I kinda like the sound of that in a way I know I shouldn't.

Have I gone over to the dark side?

Is the problem with individual subject assignments
(e.g. spelling or math) or does he reject homework, UNIVERSALLY ?





David

You know I knew a kid who had a similar problem and who I thought could be helped a lot by having a young tutor.

As a separate question I wonder how much having kids do homework together would help. I am working on some online learning stuff and wonder if having kids be able to do their homework together over the internet (in mediums such as a teacher-moderated forum) would work.

I want to try to scale learning online and have been experimenting with some e-learning software, it can have lessons that you do online as well as other social interaction such as class-specific forums.

I have no idea how easily it can integrate into learning, but I'm trying to find ways to extend the benefits of online learning to kids. Adults seem to be able to get what they need out of it but I don't know what balance of guidance kids would need and how easy it would be to scale. But your tutor idea made me think about it again because I think that the internet can scale tutoring (e.g. I could tutor many more kids at the same time online than in-person and the costs can also be pushed down).

I'm not proposing this as a solution to your problem but do you think such tools help at his age? Could a kid like him learn online with online tutors and with peer socialization?

In this same avenue, I wonder if there are any subjects that Mo feels particularly confident and competent in (such as reptiles and military history) that he could tutor other kids in? Perhaps the experience of teaching someone else will help him be a better student in other subjects.

Maybe you and he could create a youtube video presentation (or a web page) on reptiles and it could be added to a library available at such a site that Robert has in mind. Mo could help write the script and select images for it, as well as do the voice overs and editing. He'd quickly learn how good communication, spelling, writing and math skills can be important knowledge and very helpful for getting other things done.

Even if it didn't get used in a library, just the effort might be a good bonding and learning experience to help the family heal together after the big homework brawl.

I've thought along the same lines Robert but my thoughts were around applying it to language skills.
I imagine a class of indonesian/chinese language students in Australia working with English langauage students in Phuket.
A goal at the end might be a trip to indonesia for the Australian kids followed by a trip to Australia by the indonesian kids.
video conferencing might serve to develope spoken skills
Bali holidays are pretty cheap froom here.
Exposure to different cultures would happen automatically.
Our primary school students do a city country exchange already
It still only works if the kid is actually engaged and motivated to DO,
but I guess the more options you have the more kids will engage in one of the options.

The biggest problem with a "homework" site would be giving (and getting) answers. Potted knowledge. Getting straight up answers dont help a kid to think and or reason. It doesnt help someone learn how to learn. Sometimes its ok just to get an answer when it helps to see the reasoning behind the solution. Peer pressure to engage in meaningful dialoge might emerge as I think it does here on A2K.