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

@Robert Gentel,

Very interesting idea fraught with many problems, Robert, but, nevertheless, I think it has a great deal of merit.

Good luck with your plan.

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@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

Hmmm...

I saw this topic early this morning when I was at the computer for a short time, and read only the first several posts, and had a lot I wanted to say because this is something I've been dealing with and thinking about and I enjoy having parenting discussions about this sort of thing.

Then I came back, full of the things I wanted to say, and find that it's all kind of taken a turn.

A lot of accusations being thrown around. Boomer has been very proactive about dealing with the school and trying to make things work -- she has been very, very far from just lying down and saying "oh OK, two hours of homework, groovy."

On the larger issue of "making" kids do something, if I can come back to that:

First, I think JPB's posts here have been very good.

Second, I really identify with the stuff being talked about re: the father saying "just make 'em" and the mother saying "it's more complicated than that." We've gone through several permutations of this and in the early rounds (which were the most intense) I was able to pull M.Ed rank and haul out old textbooks and point at stuff.

One of those things was the idea of intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic motivation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_and_extrinsic_motivation

Not everything works with intrinsic motivation of course. But the point I made then, and which we have had to keep coming back to, goes something like... He says, his dad was quite strict with him, and look, it worked -- he's very successful in a really difficult field. I then say some variation of yes, but what were your teen years like? (He was HORRIBLE. Rebelled in 10,000 different ways, to the point where it's pretty lucky he survived.)

That's the problem with "strict"/ iron fist parenting -- it works until it doesn't.

He has a friend who is a very similar personality in general, and this friend's wife is pretty similar to me. There are a lot of parallels in how we parent. The friend took his son with him on a trip -- just the boys -- and in his words "wouldn't let him get away with anything." The friend has been crowing that since their return, the school said that his son is a "changed boy."*

That, for a while, made E.G. want to take the more authoritarian tack again. It really didn't work, and just created a lot of tension in general.

This puts me in mind of some autobiografical comments of Don Imus, the radio personality.
He said that his father was a nasty drunk,
who used to knock him around under the influence of scotch.
He was an alcoholic whose drink of choice was scotch.
Accordingly, he said that he detested and despised his father,
passionately resolving that he 'd never end up like him, particularly that he 'd never drink alcohol
and he 'd ESPECIALLY not drink scotch.
He said that he then grew into adulthood and became an alcoholic on SCOTCH.

The learning that I take away from this is that victims of abuse
can (without their knowledge) have their subconscious minds
conditioned by the perpetrators, as role models.
This can give rise to cyclical perpetuation of the problem
down thru the generations, such that thay r not only beating up
their sons: thay r beating the hell out of their grandchildren.

sozobe wrote:

So it's something I've been thinking about lately.

We don't have the homework problem, thank goodness. (Most nights the only "homework" is reading, which she does every night before bed whether there is homework or not.) But the whole issue of us wanting her to do something that she doesn't want to do still comes up a lot.

The biggest one is ballet. I hate this one because I absolutely don't want to force her to do something that she doesn't want to do. And before ballet, she often is pitching a fit about how much she doesn't want to do it. But the thing is that AFTER ballet she's smiling and happy and pirouetting and showing me the cool new thing she learned and basically on cloud nine about how much she loves ballet. This drives me absolutely batty.

May I suggest a simple cost/benefit analysis ?
In the end, everything considered:
is her childhood HAPPIER or more miserable because of dancing??
This is America: we can dance, IF we wanna,
but no one HAS to.

I suggest that u put the proposition in front of your child:
ASK her whether she WANTS to continue dancing or not.

Its HER childhood; she shoud decide what will bring her optimal happiness.

David

1 Reply

@boomerang,

I suspect this will not be much help in the situation you're coping with at home & with Mo's school, boomerang, but ...

I agree, along with littlek & others, that the amount of homework prescribed is too much for a 9 year old.
Not because I am worried about "work load", but because I genuinely believe that, between the time a young child leaves home then returns from school, is ample time to dedicate to formal education at that age.

That doesn't leave much time or energy left over for the rest of a child's interests, on an average school day. And I believe those out-of school interests & activities are also important, for balance. Very important.

An observation: parents become concerned when children are receiving little or no homework (which they are aware of). I have seen this concern expressed time & time again in the schools I've worked in.
The response? Teachers then pile on the homework to keep parents happy. Of course, it is then up to the parents to ensure that children actually do the homework. A whole new problem for parents.

In my own experience of school, years ago: I always had problems with tasks set by teachers, which held no relevance for me. Homework or classwork, it didn't matter. But had no difficulty what-so-ever with requirements which were really interesting & engaging. And I think I turned out sort of OK at the end of my education process. Smile

This is probably of no use to you at all in resolving Mo's homework resistance. Just my two bob's worth.

I suspect (possibly wrongly) that Mo simply is not happy with teachers' expectations of him (classwork or homework) , especially when those expectations mean little, or hold little interest for him.

Good luck!

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

May I suggest a simple cost/benefit analysis ?
In the end, everything considered:
is her childhood HAPPIER or more miserable because of dancing??
This is America: we can dance, IF we wanna,
but no one HAS to.

I suggest that u put the proposition in front of your child:
ASK her whether she WANTS to continue dancing or not.

Its HER childhood; she shoud decide what will bring her optimal happiness.

Well, it ain't that simple.

If I ask her before ballet, the answer is no, she does not want to continue dancing.

If I ask her after ballet, the answer is yes, of course she wants to continue dancing! She LOVES ballet!

Completely irrespective of her opinion, I think it's a net benefit for her. She's someone who needs a lot of exercise to stay on an even keel, and ballet helps a lot with that. Plus it just helps her general fitness level and coordination, which helps her with other sports (she plays basketball, soccer, and softball). It also is a rigorous discipline which I think is good for her.

Where we are right now is that she will continue through the end of this year and then we'll talk about what she thinks of doing it next year.

We had a major blowout about a month ago, and then made a contract that I would let her skip ballet that day if she went to the next six classes WITHOUT COMPLAINING. (Ipod taken away for two weeks if the contract was violated.)

This reminds me of DrewDad's excellent observation about forming new habits. Because of the contract, she quit with the pre-ballet fits. (She still grumbled a bit for a while but I'd raise my eyebrows at her or wave the iPod around and she'd say "I know, I know...") Then that became the new normal. The contract has now expired but now getting to ballet is much less of an issue than it was pre-contract, since she formed new habits in that time.

One other thought along those lines -- she usually walks to school. If it's cold and she's tired she's often grumbling about it and wanting to drive instead. (In general, she whines way more than I would like.) So one day it was cold and she was tired and we were running a little late so I said fine, I'll drive you. Later it came up in some context -- she said she likes walking and doesn't like driving, and I said well why did you ask me to drive you yesterday? She said "I didn't think you'd actually say yes!"

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@OmSigDAVID,

It's pretty universal. Universal regarding paperwork homework anyway.

He will go to town on a "research" project though. They're usually delivered orally. He really likes those and will spend a lot of time working on them.

He had to do one on beavers not long ago. Several other kids in the class were also assigned beavers as a topic. He really dug and dug until he found some uncommon knowledge about beavers since he didn't want his presentation to sound like every other kid's. He found some cool stuff!

Right now he's working on a science fair project. His is about snakes. He's loving it.

So it probably isn't fair to say that he universally rejects homework.

1 Reply

Quote:

He had to do one on beavers not long ago.

What?... He's 10.. jeebus!

oh wait... my bad.

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@Robert Gentel,

Have you seen Sal Khan's talk at TED? He has some similar ideas about online tutoring. I've tried to get Mo to sit down for some lessons but we're back to him suspecting me of doing bad things for no reason.

From what I've seen with Mo is that he's WAY too competitive to do his homework with like-aged kids. If they were better at it than him he'd turn off to it very quick. Other boys in his group would too. I see this happen when they are playing games through X-box. Mo's pretty good at those games, he studies how to play them, he looks up information and discovers new ways to do things. This results in him getting "defriended" in the middle of a round.

He does have a few online friends that don't mind getting beat if he will teach them his secrets. I hear him "tutoring" other players. He's really at his best when he does this. It's very interesting.

My brother told me about some strategy "games" that the military uses. How far can your soldiers go on a given day, how much food do you have to carry, how much water, how much does that slow you down, how much sleep does everyone need and how do you keep everyone safe when everyone needs to sleep, how do you this and how do you that? Playing the "game" involves a lot of calculation and non-linear thinking.

If you want to capture the attention of someone like Mo your educational softwear would have to resemble that instead of the typically corny, blatantly educational stuff I've seen available.

Offer the learning through a game console. Instead of saying "solve this equation to get to the next level" make them run around and find pieces of a code that they have to put together to make the equation while not realized that they're running around finding pieces of code to make an equation. Make them build a ladder to scale a wall. Make the build a raft to get across the river.

I don't care if they have to build the raft out of zombie hearts -- they'll still have to figure out how many hearts it would take to float a person across the river and how to get everyone across quickly. Let the kids in the platoon talk to each other so they can work together to figure it out. Maybe the platoon leader could be a moderator who offers advice when they get stuck. Cut them off after an hour so they'll be clamoring to get back to it the next day.

I realize that from a strictly educational standpoint that zombie heart rafts are probably a no-no but from what I've seen kids like Mo would be engaged with problem and would go to pretty extreme lengths to discover how to solve it.

I realize I really went off on a ramble here. The TL;DR version would be: offer the tutoring through a game console instead of a computer.

1 Reply

@Butrflynet,

That's kind of a fun idea but to be honest I'm not sure I'd like Mo to have a youtube presence. We have some videos on a private channel that only family can see. I kind of want to keep it that way for now.

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@dadpad,

Quote:

The biggest problem with a "homework" site would be giving (and getting) answers

I think the ESL people on A2K get something out of the discussion even when they're given the answers.

For things like math I think you're probably right.

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@msolga,

Your comment

Quote:

An observation: parents become concerned when children are receiving little or no homework (which they are aware of). I have seen this concern expressed time & time again in the schools I've worked in.
The response? Teachers then pile on the homework to keep parents happy. Of course, it is then up to the parents to ensure that children actually do the homework. A whole new problem for parents.

is verified by the site about the book that DrewDad linked yesterday..

Quote:

Who's to blame for this sorry state of affairs? The finger-pointing goes in every direction: It's the kids' fault, it's the school's fault, it's society's fault. Almost always, it comes back to the parents and the prevailing belief that there's so much homework because competitive moms and dads want their kids to get ahead.

Unfortunately, that's sometimes true. But The Case Against Homework will tell the real story. Homework polls and surveys routinely demonstrate that between 20 and 30 percent of parents believe their children get too much homework. More than one-third of the parents we surveyed feel the same way. Ironically, other parents who took our survey insist that the amount is "just right," only to go on to describe all sorts of negative effects their kids suffer-from nightly crying fits to stomachaches to facial tics.

And your comment

Quote:

I suspect (possibly wrongly) that Mo simply is not happy with teachers' expectations of him (classwork or homework) , especially when those expectations mean little, or hold little interest for him.

I think is absolutely true.

I've laughed about some of Mo's homework, knowing that the pages date from the 1980s or earlier. Some of the "marvelous things" they talk about are things that most 21st century kids have never even heard of. They'd make better history lessons than language arts lessons!

I can only remember maybe one or two assignments that I thought might have been created by the actual teacher that coincided with what they were doing in class.

I had a meeting earlier in the year with Mo's teacher and the school principal. I pulled out some homework assignments and asked if ANY of it had been covered in class. It hadn't.

I don't know if it's the same in Australia but in America it seems that everything has been taken out of the hands of teachers and they just follow some plodding course, handing out irrelevant things. I feel sorry for them having all the creativity stripped from their jobs.

2 Replies

@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I've laughed about some of Mo's homework, knowing that the pages date from the 1980s or earlier. Some of the "marvelous things" they talk about are things that most 21st century kids have never even heard of. They'd make better history lessons than language arts lessons!

I can only remember maybe one or two assignments that I thought might have been created by the actual teacher that coincided with what they were doing in class.

Oh, God, yes.

The worst is when there isn't a correct answer to a question. Or the correct answer is listed twice.

When the freaking publishing company can't be bothered to put the right answer on the homework, what lessons are our kids really learning?

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@boomerang,

Interesting. Well I am launching online education software for adult ESL but would probably skip trying to reach kids (the software would need to be modified extensively and I can't reach kids directly, I would need to sign up teachers, parents etc so it's not as simple a process as teaching adults).

But the game approach is interesting to me. Another of my ideas was to do a life simulation game with the goal of teaching things like saving money (it's alarming to me that personal finance is really not ever taught to people and they learn it by making financial mistakes instead).

Incidentally if he's into games I found the Civilization series to be very educational. I can't tell you how many times I realize that I learned something or crystalized a concept better through that game. For example, the concept of war weariness I knew but understood it and the relationship between war weariness and the type of civic a country has (e.g. democracy with free press generates more and is more susceptible to it) was something that it made me understand on another level. Plus it's has a range of tid bits like quotes that made me think on all sorts of things like design (the quote about how perfection in design is not when you can't think of anything else to add, but when you can't think of anything else to take away was something that got me interested in efficient minimalist design).

Get him to play Civ if he's into that kind of thing! Easily the most educational real video game I've played.

But I think I'm gonna try my online life simulator coach thingie one day. There are ways to leverage competition well for that (e.g. badges and linear progress is a compete-against-yourself pattern in video games). I had an idea where parents can be involved by confirming homework done etc which earns the avatar experience points or something else in the game's token economy. They'd basically guide an avatar though life in an online RPG, and their early decisions would influence their avatar's life etc in my idea. I think I can make it fun but have no idea when I'll ever have time to start it.

Edit: watching that video now, was familiar with Khan and Ted but not that specific video.

1 Reply

@dadpad,

dadpad wrote:

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.

Funny coincidence, that is what I'm actually starting with (but with ESL). A2k actually started with that intention, it was originally named FluencyNow.com (a domain I let expire and that is now not related to me) and was supposed to be online ESL.

Now I'm starting it again with the buddy who started FluencyNow with me (who now has a brick-and-mortar ESL school in Brazil and wants to expand online) and hope that around the end of the year we will be testing it out.

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@Robert Gentel,

I'm going to check out Civilization. Thanks! He loves for me to play games with him but I don't like his current selections so much. It would be good to have a game to play together.

When he was little he really loved "Animal Crossing". I liked it to - move to town, get a job, make some money, beautify your community, participate in town affairs, build a life. I thought it taught a good lesson in a fun way.

The trouble with it was that it required a lot of reading and writing, things he wasn't very good at. As he got better at reading and writing, the game proved too repetitious and boring.

I always thought that if they could bridge that gap that the game would be near perfect.

Your life coach thing sounds great! I'd caution you on asking parents to sign off on it though -- getting parents involved takes the "game" aspect out of it and probably changes the kid's motivation. Maybe find a way to track their progress so that the parent can go online separately, without the kid's knowledge, and confirm what was done.

If anyone could make it fun you'd be that guy. Good luck with that project!

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@boomerang,

quoting boomer -

I've laughed about some of Mo's homework, knowing that the pages date from the 1980s or earlier. Some of the "marvelous things" they talk about are things that most 21st century kids have never even heard of. They'd make better history lessons than language arts lessons!

I can only remember maybe one or two assignments that I thought might have been created by the actual teacher that coincided with what they were doing in class.

I had a meeting earlier in the year with Mo's teacher and the school principal. I pulled out some homework assignments and asked if ANY of it had been covered in class. It hadn't.

I don't know if it's the same in Australia but in America it seems that everything has been taken out of the hands of teachers and they just follow some plodding course, handing out irrelevant things. I feel sorry for them having all the creativity stripped from their jobs.
end/quote

Yikes, I didn't realized that. Most of my homework in elementary school and high school had to do with what was discussed that day in class - the only exceptions being writing a book report.

I wonder when that change in homework happened.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

(Not the case here, but I don't know how unusual we are.)

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

It's pretty universal. Universal regarding paperwork homework anyway.

He will go to town on a "research" project though. They're usually delivered orally.
He really likes those and will spend a lot of time working on them.

He had to do one on beavers not long ago. Several other kids in the class were also assigned beavers as a topic. He really dug and dug until he found some uncommon knowledge about beavers since he didn't want his presentation to sound like every other kid's. He found some cool stuff!

Right now he's working on a science fair project. His is about snakes. He's loving it.

So it probably isn't fair to say that he universally rejects homework.

This reminds me of New Orleans in 2005 (just b4 Katrina).
We were there for the American Mensa Annual Gathering.
We attended the New Orleans Aquarium.
Standing along the walls of the halls of the Aquarium standing behind some tables,
were girls (maybe about 5O of them), around 11 years old lecturing on fish,
e.g., the evolutionary history of sharks,
with exhibited pre-historic shark's teeth, from Megalodon.
Thay were all very well informed on their subject matter.
(I petted a shark, thay had that day.)
I distributed some $5O bills to the lecturers; that went over well.
(That does not always go over well.)

As a supporter and an advocate of hedonism,
during the last 4O years, I 've had a hobby of dumping joy boms
where thay r not expected. (Surprize adds emotional thrill; zest.)
For instance, in museums or in convention hotels where I stay, when no one
is looking or I am alone in a public room, I sometimes leave $2O bills around
on top of an article of furniture, for the happiness of whoever finds it first.
I have also given it to them in their hands. Sometimes, in summer,
I 've bought an ice cream cone from a teenaged vendor, paying with a $5O bill
and walking away, abandoning the change. Not everyone likes it.
Many LOVE it. Some people r very unmaterialistic and underwhelmed.

I had a thought in mind, that when we meet at the next American Mensa
Annual Gathering in Portland, that I 'd come prepared with a book
of firearm descriptions, with good color fotografy in whose pages,
I 'd leave a new $1OO.oo bill (as a bookmark) for your child, in hope
of causing unexpected joy in him, but your response to Robert yesterday
leaves me in some doubt. U said:

boomerang wrote:

. . . Thank you for your kind offer. I'm afraid that right now everything I ask him to do
is greeted with suspicion and he really isn't motivated by money. . . . [All emfasis has been added by David.]

The success of a gift
is measured by how much happiness it causes in the recipient.
I remain in a state of uncertainty of whether Mo will enjoy the $$.
When I was his age, I 'd have liked the cash (if there were enuf OF it),
but (alas) not everyone shares my values.

I entreat your opinion of the matter:
woud that gift be well received by Mo,
or is this something that woud fail to evoke his interest ?

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

I'm not saying that Mo doesn't like money. He loves money. It just isn't a motivator for him.

He'd rather do something that he wants to do than to get paid to do something he doesn't want to do.

1 Reply

I bought that book "The Case Against Homework" yesterday and it's really very good. I highly recommend it! I think I'll be asking the school a whole lot of questions.

I had an interesting conversation with the bookseller who said "Oh god, I wish you were my mom."

I thought it interesting that the book was shelved along with the myriad of workbooks and test-prep books and study guides.

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I'm not saying that Mo doesn't like money. He loves money.

He has GOOD TASTE.

boomerang wrote:

It just isn't a motivator for him.

He'd rather do something that he wants to do than to get paid to do something he doesn't want to do.

UNDERSTOOD. He sounds like a fine fellow, admirable in all respects. Thank u.

I hope that u will shake hands with him for me.

David

0 Replies

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

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