Let me preface this entire post by saying that some of my very best friends are teachers and I widely respect teacher’s as a whole…but here is what is driving me nuts.
Ok, amongst my various titles as a mother:
Mom
Chef
Maid
Housekeeper
Taxi Cab Driver
Referee
Nurse
Coach
Tutor
I am now expected to basically continue to be a teacher. I have five children. What is the deal with teacher’s sending home assignments for mom and dad to do? Is it not enough that I cook for, clean up after, do laundry for, play with, and spend time with my children? I now have to be more than just an “after school tutor”?
Last year, my youngest daughter Jessica was assigned a Social Studies assignment in second grade that entailed her father and I, running all over the place taking pictures of street signs and traffic signs. It was then to be assembled into a book and I quite honestly cannot remember what we were supposed to do after that. Why? Because we didn’t do it. Why should we send in 50 school supplies off of a list at the start of the year and then proceed to have to print out photos, which hello – ink is not cheap, and neither is film processing for those that still use film cameras! Why must homework assignments involve parents to this extreme?
I have no problem sitting down with my daughters and son and helping them with worksheets, or to understand a math assignment or science report. What I have a problem with, is when I have to do these things that cost me additional money, cost me time away from four other children (yes we could have turned it into a family thing but nobody else thought it was fun either), and constantly takes my time away from things that matter to all of us.
Here is the latest assignment.
Same daughter Jessica who is now in third grade, comes home about a week ago with this package that is called “Science Buddies”. I’m rolling my eyes in expectation of something I’m going to be annoyed at, because as she handed it to me, in a sing songy voice she says “You have homework”. Like hell I do!
Sure enough, once a month we will be Science buddies. Oh yippee! Someone please hold me back because I might start doing back flips I’m just so flippin’ excited. Apparently this is due tomorrow and we ignored it until tonight. So now tonight we get to cut a circle out of a coffee filter and using a black NON permanent marker we get to make a line on it. Then we get to dunk it into a cup of water. Oh the joy. And then we get to make predictions about what is going to happen and fill out this five question lab report. I predict that I’m going to be greatly annoyed before, during and after this project! Think the prediction is right? And just think, I don’t even need an experiment OR lab report to let you all know that!
ETA: Oh! and my coffee maker has a built in filter. So guess what we got to go buy? Yep coffee filters, just so we could use ONE of them. What the heck am I going to do with the other 199? Please don’t say make sun catchers and butterflies. I was a preschool teacher, I’ve made enough of those and my children would not be in the least bit amused. LOL
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I feel your pain! My son is in the 6th grade, and he brought home paperwork for me to fill out the after the first day of school which took me TWO HOURS to fill out. What was it you ask? I had to fill out information sheets for each of his teachers (apparently there is not a copier on the premises) and sign papers that stated that I understood the rules of the class. Hello, I’m not the one IN the class. I wish I could tell you it gets better, but it doesn’t.
Oh, no Wendy. Boy do I know. I have five children, it was just that she is the youngest. We also have a fourth grader, a fifth grader and two seventh graders. So I know exactly about signing sheets that I understand the rules of the class. I’m not in the class, why am I signing it? What the heck? I totally think the schools have gone bananas in some of their practices.
Know how much fun it is to sign FIVE CHILDREN’s assignment notebooks each night?
I took the easy way out with my son, I sign a week in advance. LOL I know -terrible.
Is this really what I have to look forward too?? LOL – I don’t even drink coffee!!!
I work in a special education classroom with high school students who have emotion and behavior disorders. I can’t even imagine any of their parents taking the time to do any of these assignments with their children. If they did take the time to work with their kids just a little, their children might not have ended up in our classroom.
I’m not saying you should feel obligated to do these assignments, and I really don’t think it’s a fair expectation placed on parents. BUT the fact that you spend any time with your kids and show an interest in their education will go miles and miles toward the type of people they turn out to be.
Bravo!
LOL, I think I would do the same thing. I think you are a saint for raising five, I can hardly keep up with my one (well three, if you count my husband and our beagle puppy).
LOL To all the comments.
Yes, this seems to be the norm nowadays.
Wendy – yes well if you count the insane amount of pets we have then I guess I have 9 children and does DH count? LOL Cause then its 10.
Terry – I really do not mind doing homework with them, helping them research papers, etc. That is normal work. But I DO mind having to spend extra money on projects that just don’t seem important. For instance, at what point is Jessica (who dreams of being a famous cheerleader) going to need to know why the black marker streaks her coffee filter in pretty rainbow colors. LOL I get the concept, I just think they could have done it together as a class. *sigh*
Oh yes my darling Erin – you so have this to look forward to. It just gets better and better.
[...] if you read my previous post about the stupid Science homework that *I* have, then you’re going to see where this is [...]
OMG – I feel your pain. My children are and 19, 16 and 7 it never fails — each year I look at most of their assignments and wonder “What is this teacher Thinking”!! I had to lol at you doing the backflips…LOL