I have had several unpleasant interactions with parents this year, probably for several reasons. One reason may be that I have not adequately communicated my reasons for taking a different approach to homework. Another may be that I don't fully know what I am doing yet, and so I haven't been completely consistent with my approach.
Today, I was reading the book Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs by Cathy Vatterott. In the book she recommends increasing communication with parents about the suggested role that they could take to homework. She suggests that parents should not be helping students with homework or acting as enforcers, but rather monitoring their child's homework habits and progress. She also says that teachers should provide parents with the means to frequently communicate this information to the teacher. Parents can be asked to report back to the teacher about how long assignments are taking and whether a student was able to complete the assignment on his or her own. Vatterott says that any time a student cannot independently finish a homework assignment, that he or she should not be expected to complete it, but should instead be provided with additional instruction or support.
Suggested Guidelines for Parent Involvement in Homework (p.50)
Parents are encouraged to ...- Ask their child about what the child is studying in school.
- Ask their child to show them any homework assignments.
- Assist their child in organizing homework materials.
- Help their child formulate a plan for completing homework. (This should decrease as the child gets older.)
- Provide an appropriate space for their child to do homework.
- Help their child interpret assignment directions.
- Proofread their child's work, pointing out errors. (Again, this should decrease as the child progresses through school.)
- Read aloud required reading to their child.
- Give practice quizzes to their child to help prepare for tests.
- Help their child brainstorm ideas for papers or projects.
- Praise their child for completing homework.
- Attempt to teach their child concepts or skills the child is unfamiliar with.
- Complete assignments for their child.
- Allow their child to sacrifice sleep to complete homework.
This is a comment that I received through email, but I would like to post it here:
ReplyDeleteI strongly disagree with the guideline from the book that parents should not attempt to teach their child concepts or skills the child is unfamiliar with. Very strongly, both as a parent and as an educator (I'm a college math professor). A parent holds the primary responsibility for educating a child, and they are enlisting your help in that teaching. Not the other way around. Having a list of "Parents may, if they wish" or "Parents should not" feels like it directly contradicts the idea that parents are in charge of the education of their child.
It sounds like a lot of the trouble does stem from miscommunication with the parents, and in particular, adequately selling the approach to the parents. Maybe if things were approached from the aspect of, "You know best how your child learns. We both know what sorts of skills the child will need later in life. Here is how I'm trying to help the child develop those skills. How do you think it is working with your child and how you help your child to learn?" If the parents have an objection to learning goals, maybe listening to their objections and developing a plan to address those would be good. If you believe in the method, surely there is something that attracts you to it over other things you might do, so you can explain the advantages to the parent. I'm glad you are experimenting with new approaches---I am too, and it rarely works out perfectly the first time you do it. But if you help the parents understand that you are trying something new, and why you think it's better than other ways, and ask the parents to give you feedback, that may work better. It certainly works better in a college classroom when trying something new.
But I hope my children's teachers never forget that the primary responsibility for education rests on the parents, and we enlist the aid of public school teachers, not to take over that job and "forbid" us from doing things, but to help us in it.
Thanks,
Jason
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Jason Grout
Jason,
DeleteWhile I agree with you that parents have ultimate control over their children's education, I also think that it is unfair for me to expect parents to be able to teach their children math concepts. As a math professor you are qualified and confident in your ability to help with teaching your children, but a lot of my student's parents tell me that they do not understand the math that their children bring home. If I communicate to parents that I don't expect them to help with instruction, I am not trying to take control away from them, I am just establishing that I need to know if there is a concept or skill that their child is not understanding. It is more helpful to me as the teacher for them to let me know their child could not do the homework than for them to help their child complete it. I think it is a matter of equity that I do not expect parents to contribute to a child's instruction. Many parents either can't, don't want to, or aren't always available to help with homework.
I see your point about trying to do a better job of selling parents on a new approach. I could probably also rephrase the headings to the guidelines above so that it doesn't seem like I am trying to tell parents what to do, just tell them what my assumptions are.
I teach 6th grade math. I do not carry the same opinion as you do with regards to not allowing the parents to help the students with their homework. Students are growing up in a world that is heavily dependent upon connections made socially in real life and through electronic communication. If a student has the wherewithall to acknowledge that they need assistance with an assignment they should be able to take advantage of it. Self-recognition of needed help should be applauded and awarded with additional chances to prove competence again later. Are you grading your homework assignments / are they part of the student's final grade? I see homework as something that the students use as practice to an end, not something that should penalize them if they don't demonstrate complete competence after the first time being taught. If a student is able to complete the work with no help after the first time of instruction, they don't need the practice. If a student isn't able to complete the assignmet after the first time of instruction they need practice with valid feedback without the hovering effect of a penalty in the gradebook as a sort of punishment. Just my two cents...
DeleteI completely agree with what you said. I did not mean to imply that homework should be used as a punishment for students who do not understand the lesson after one exposure. I meant that I am treating my students inequitably if I assume that they will have assistance at home. Many parents either don't feel comfortable helping their child, or, no offense to them, confuse their child by explaining a concept or skill in the way that the parent was taught, rather than the way that the child was taught. The methods that parents were taught are many times different from the way that math is taught today. Many of the old methods emphasize rote memorization of steps rather than a conceptual understanding of why something is being done. Students are sometime confused, or sometimes miss the point of a lesson if they are told how to do something without forming the connections themselves. As a teacher, I might find it more helpful for a parent to send me a note saying that their child could not complete the homework rather than feeling obligated to try to explain it. What I should have said is that I don't assume that parents will teach something, if I have not done so. If I knew that kids and parents felt comfortable telling me when they don't understand something, then I would have a better knowledge of how well a particular student understood the previous lesson.
DeleteSome parents do have the time and intelligence to continue education after school until concepts are usefully automatic. Those same parents may also be able to grasp new ways of thinking about mathematics. Fortuitously, teaching one's children might be of value to inquisitive parents who never learned the true basis of that with which they memorized as young people.
ReplyDelete