Not sure what other regions are like, but i believe this is more necessary the less children receive adequate attention in the school setting. Ie overfilled schools warrant more individual time outside of school.
Without "help with homework", the child may have gotten no individual instruction/teaching, so how are they expected to learn?
Even beyond that though there's the possibility of needing more and/or unique care. Parents are the end-of-the-road for ensuring that they raise a capable, educated human. Some children just struggle in standard school settings.
I was in classes that averaged 30 chilren per class. I haven't gotten any individual instruction/teaching, and did just fine until high school math kicked in (bear in mind, this was Polish high-school math, and in a class that focuses on math), when I got lost and needed help of a tutor. But the other 98-99% of my school time, I was completely fine on my own. Also, I don't think I was any kind of exception.
Not sure what your point is? Ignore the child because Badpun was fine?
It honestly sounds like you're arguing against "Interact with your child, help them if you think they need it", which seems.. odd. You could perhaps be arguing that parents are wrong usually, and should go against their intuition on helping the child - but that's also a mixed bag.
I'm arguing that school's difficult level is set up for children to manage on their own just fine. Also, managing on their own means learning grit, figuring out what to do when you're stuck, learning how to find information etc. If a parent is hand-holding their child through their school experience, they may be taking away a chance to develop these skills in their kid.
Agreed, but who else can make that judgement? Certainly you can't accurately make blanket decisions for all children, right? Who is the last in line, the final judgement, then?
No one is saying parents should hand-hold and hurt their children by way of robbing them of essential experiences. What i am saying, though, is that parents are the last-mile. The only ones who are ultimately responsible.
It sounds like you're ignoring a very wide gulf between doing nothing and doing the homework for children. Kinda sounds like you advocate sink or swim style learning. Which works great for those who swim, perhaps. Less so for those who sink.
I am not advocating for any style of learning, I was merely responding to someone who said that it's constant help by parents is "more or less necessary in schools with large classes". I provided a counterpoint to that, citing myself as an example, and also giving the fact that most of the other children were like me (children helped by their parents were an exception), and we turned out perfectly fine.
My kids are in elementary school now and all homework except reading is optional. However, I have them do their homework then I review it when I'm done with work. Any concepts they don't understand I go over with them. It's usually 5-10 minutes per night per kid.
If I didn't do this my oldest would have easily flunked math last year. But just a few minutes per night of making sure she understood the concepts was the difference between that and her acing it.
I started this because we had a teacher that was really bad at noticing if one of our kids was understanding things or not. For example, we got worksheets back from school where everything was done incorrectly and there was just a giant star on it. Fuck that.
Homework shouldn't exist anyway. Maybe, for higher level high school classes it makes sense. There's no reason to be giving homework to elementary and middle school kids. They get them for 8 hours a day, they don't need to be spending more time on school stuff after school.
> Homework shouldn't exist anyway. Maybe, for higher level high school classes it makes sense. There's no reason to be giving homework to elementary and middle school kids. They get them for 8 hours a day, they don't need to be spending more time on school stuff after school.
Yes, also because it creates inequalities very early between children with parents who can afford spending time helping them (or paying someone to do so) and those who can’t.
I didn't think of that one but that is a consideration as well. Children don't have the attention span to be working on school work for 8+ hours a a day anyway. Additionally, they should be developing through play/socializing just as much, if not more, as in-classroom and paperwork time.
I help my kids with homework, 5 minutes here and there. Seems like that shouldn't be too hard for most people, unless they literally never see their kids.
around me, only kids whose parents are illiterate and/or busy make a living who don't get helped by their parents to do their homework and study. so, yes. cultural thing.
It's cheating to help a 7 year old understand how to do basic math? Because the alternative is them staring at a paper and writing random numbers down.
It sure would be nice and just if the schools had the means to provide the personalized tutoring most children need to understand. Reality is that the parents do that - and yes, it is an advantage to children with parents able to invest time and skills in their education.
The thing is, what if your parents aren't educated. Because of lots of reasons, my parents didn't even attend high school, they wouldn't have been able to tutor me after I was 10. I really think tutoring should be done in school else it would be very difficult to rise above your previous generations. Also, children should play after school, not do more work IMHO.
So, you're suggesting we limit everyone's potential so a few uneducated/poor families don't feel left behind? That's ridiculous.
Should schools offer extra tutoring and support for kids and families that need it? Sure. Should people limit what they learn at home or out-of-school? No.
They're children, not some neural network you can train. They're all going to learn at different rates, and individualized education in a school setting is simply not possible. You're lucky if there's a breakdown by remedial, regular, and advanced classes. Even within those, kids are going to struggle and need some help outside of class time.
Is this “help” meant only to be available to kids with rich parents, as it is now? Or is the school at fault for not being willing, or able, to teach all kids to an acceptable degree?
I'm surprised to see that you think there is a clear dichotomy between what can only happen at school and at home when it comes to learning.
You'd be even more surprised to learn that learning can happen anywhere, anytime and from anyone in any kind of form.
Helping kids at home with school work as a parent is not only accessible to rich families. You should help your kids when they really need it regardless of your socioeconomic background.
Now if you're talking about personalized/paid tutors outside of school, then yes - it's much more accessible to richer families but there is fundamentally nothing wrong that. What you decide to do with your kids outside of school is your choice.
What is your obsession with correlating good parenting with generational wealth? You can be poor, have relatively uneducated parents and still be taught by them.
My father died when I was five. My mother never finished high school and worked in a medical factory. She still found an hour to try an teach me and help me learn (even when I was beyond her upper skill limit).
I didn't have tutors or parents helping me with homework when I was in school. Also, bad grades were not tolerated in my household, so I had to keep up.
You had a household where bad grades were not tolerated, but no support in achieving better grades? Sounds like a crappy household/parenting. That doesn't mean everyone else should have a crappy household or parenting philosophy because you managed to get through it.
I do not call this is cheating. but this is a crazy advantage of children. some kids never learned learning is important, parents can let deep in their mind. teachers have some chance, but there are too many kids in classroom.
If parents “help” kids with homework, the teacher will get a misleading view of what the kid has learned and is capable of. Other kids, lacking this “help”, will get worse grades.
If you want to argue that the teacher understands that parents are helping their kids with the homework, then:
1. Why aren’t teachers sending study aids, pedagogical material, etc. to the parents, on order to aid in the further education of the kids? Why are teachers universally acting as though kids are supposed to do the homework on their own?
2. This would still only help kids with rich parent who can afford the time to be a part-time teacher to their kids.
In summary: If teachers assume that kids do all their homework themselves, unassisted, then “helping” is (culturally normalized) cheating. If teachers instead assume that kids get help from their parents, it would be burdening kids with poor and/or busy parents with a severe disadvantage.
You're dying on a very strange hill. Yes, children that have active and engaged parents have an advantage over those who do not. "Cheating" implies that the parents are doing the homework for the child without the child's involvement. Of course, that's not what is happening, and I'm sure you know that.
I'm sure you also know that not all school districts, teachers, and children are equal. Some are funded better than others, some are better trained than others, and some learn in different ways than others. If my child is struggling for one reason or another, I am going to be engaged in several ways. First, I may speak to the school and/or the teacher to understand the details. Second, I may speak to my child about their assignments and offer to explain unclear concepts to them. I won't take a pencil and start solving the problems for them.
> children that have active and engaged parents have an advantage over those who do not.
You’re not answering my questions, or responding to my summary. Either teachers are aware of this – in which case teachers should logically help the parents, not arbitrarily assigning homework to kids – or teachers are unaware, in which case parents helping kids is skewing teachers’ perceptions of the kids’ abilities – i.e. cheating. I made the charitable assumption that teachers are acting reasonably based on what they know.
> I won't take a pencil and start solving the problems for them.
But this is what the stereotypical, commonly depicted, behavior is. It may not be universal, but I am sure it is not uncommon.
Without "help with homework", the child may have gotten no individual instruction/teaching, so how are they expected to learn?
Even beyond that though there's the possibility of needing more and/or unique care. Parents are the end-of-the-road for ensuring that they raise a capable, educated human. Some children just struggle in standard school settings.