Just becasue I don't sign it Charlotte has to do lines.
I explained that I always see the planner, but if I don't sign its beacuse I don't have a pen or I am busy doing dishes or dinner or cleaning up or yelling at kid to do her homework or have her bath or go to bed or.........
he worte back and explained his reasons.
so I went thru her planner and signed every page till the end of the school year
am I a petty bitch or what?
Actually, I kinda thought it was clever and thinking outside the box. But I can definantly see how that is going to be a very defiant smart-ass move on my part
Blog On!
16 comments:
What I wrote -
I still strongly disagree with your policy of line writing for the lack of the signature.
His reason -
it's something I have to do to encourage kids show their planners to parents. I have found if I don't have a rule or system, it doesn't get looked and if it's not signed I have no proof that a parent looked at it. So sorry for any inconvenience.
I responded -
Inconveniant? no - irritated.
i don't feel that she should be getting punished for somehting she has no control over. However, if you want to Bust her on something, do it for the lack of writing her homework down. I've signed blank days or gotten on her case about stuff written that doens't even have anything to do with her. So even if i do look at it, it doesn't matter. There is nothing there to check. Don't get me wrong, i can appreciate where you are coming from. It jsut doens't make any sense to me for her to 'get in trouble' over it when its not her thing.
As for her math homework - I am glad you let me know, as I was asking her last night when we finally got home in the evening (i still had to work after I picked her up) what her assignment was for the day. She never writes anything down and she seemed confused. Although that could have been the combination of allergies and medication. That still does not excuse her laziness to do her job. I still had to do mine even though I should have been in bed yesterday too.
i will make sure she gets it done. Thanks Aaron.
..............K.
devil's advocate - the purpose of the agenda is to teach responibility, which means remembering to write down your homework and keeping track of when things are due. it is our hope (and by our, i mean teachers) that parent's will then check their child's agenda and ensure their kids will in fact complete their homework. this is our way of communicating with parents and it is promoted by our admin. Now - we do understand that there are some kids who do their homework no matter what and therefore may not need the agenda - however it's still a good way of keeping track of one's responsibilities and helps them prepare for highschool when they have 8 teachers and 8 classes. :)
Just my thoughts -
i don't disagree with the planner. I like the idea of a planner
i disagree with his punishment and his focus
if I was a parent that never checked the planner and never signed the poor kid is singled out and made to take part in something that is out of their control to change.
like I said, bust her for something that she can do something about. Like actaully writing in her plannner. Check her for that. Not whether or ot I've srned it. Cuz the signature down't make a difference if there is no homework written on the page. Or the wrong homework or somehting that has nothing to do with her.
I get what its trying to teach. Problem being - the lesson is being lost with the get all of the signature.
I wish there had been a punishment!!! Lenore intentionally left things off her planner..... erased things..... would tell me she forgot it.....
It was always me being on her case and I wish it had been the teacher on her case. It's important for them... she still doesn't use the planner! It only takes 1 min to look at the planner and throw your initials on it.... every parent should have that amount of time for their kids.... and if the parent wants the child to take homework seriously.... then the parent needs to do their part in contributing too.
1 min if a pen is handy.
if its not then I go looking and then I'm cleaning up yet another space in my house or yelling about where is my pen and the planner can get missed for signing.
call me dis-organized, but don't ever say i don't have 1 minute for my kid
I didn't mean to imply that... but taking the time to make planner a priority will benefit child in the long run... help her to be more organized. Make it HER job... if she wants you to sign, then she has homework, planner and pen all layed out for you, otherwise you won't sign and she writes lines. It's her responsibility! :)
great in theory
doen't work that way in this house.
the only day i get to be a home-from-school-mom is tuesday. Every other day we are home at 6. Charley getting up in my face with a planner and pen when we get home is going to do nothing but piss me off as its a waste or time when its nothing but a blank page!
If the teacher had not personally e-mailed me yesterday i wouldn't have known what Charlotte's homework was.
having me sign it doens't make a Fuck of a difference if its not being used properly. And how the Fuck am I gonna know when nothing is written down! she have written "Bring White Elephants to school" and I wouldn't know the difference.
so as far as I'm concerned - having my signature or not doesn't matter and she should not be getting lines for it.
What she should be getting lines for is not writing her stuff in it and using it for what it was created for. Thats what the teacher should be checking for.
I would say the teacher is using this tool ineffectively! My kid's teacher signs and checks the homework is written down then I sign and check when it is done. It is time consuming and work no doubt. Please do not forget ladies we all have partners in the picture, someone is in the background cooking or whatever while we try and deal with the homework. PLUS we have homes that can afford a space to do homework in and keep a pen and everything handy. K lives in 900 square feet! They do C';s homework at the kitchen table! What about supper, bath time etc... It is her and C. Very different then the rest of us. I merely dabbled in single momdom. I was on my own for a year and it is totally different!
i don't think FOF was attacking K or her parenting skills - i think she was just putting forth her opinion like i did. i mean hey - if we cant "tell-it-like-it-is" with each other - then who?
when i taught Gr.1/2 - i too signed the agenda. i didnt do that at the gr. 6/7 level b/c by then, they should know what they have for homework and when to write it down. as i said - it's all prep for high school when teachers dont chase and parents have to chase more :)
you're missing the point -
she is getting punished for something she has NO control over.
if its organization that he is trying to achieve, then mark her on WHAT SHE is writing in her planner. not what she is trying to get others to write.
even if I sign the DAmn Bloody thing it doesn't prove whether or not I've read what is written there.
Its a waste of emotions on everybody's part as far as I am concerned.
Its a ridiculous argument. It would be like if she got into trouble for not getting the neighbor to sign it each day.
it only takes a minute for the teacher to make sure she's written something and the right thing down.
and NONE of her teachers has EVER checked for that.
only the parent signature. So what has that taught her?
I don't think FOF was attacking and I was telling it like it is. I honestly believe the teacher is screwing up. Not ALL teachers just this one.
I think the planners were great when the kids were younger and the teachers had to sign them too. But once you take out the teachers signature and only have the parents signature they really don't serve their purpose any more.
Kids will go one of two ways with this (I have one of each) The student who will continue to use their planner and get their work done, because they are going to do their work whether a parent signs or not. Or the student who realizes that if only the parent is signing and not the teacher, they can write whatever they want in the agenda and we as parents will sign it not knowing if it is really the homework or not. Once the accountablity between teacher and parent is gone, the parent signature is useless.
Should the child be punished for not getting a signature? I dont believe so,sometimes it is out of their control. My daughter gets an actual letter grade related to whether she gets it signed or not. She get almost straight A's and is very disiplined about getting her done. I however work 7 days a weeks plus every other weekend and have an almost 2 hour commute each day. I often leave the house before the kids go to school, Becka will ask me for my signature and I am usaully upstairs getting ready. She will lay out the planner and pen on the table to make it easier for me. But more than I few times I have forgotten and ten minutes down the road I get a call from Becka, in tears, asking if I can come back and sign it or she will get a bad mark. I, of course, cant. In a perfect world I wouldn't forget, but sometimes I do. And her good report card has a lower mark in personal planning because of me. And yet she has great personal planning, she always does her homework without me asking, and always remember to put the agenda out for me. It's me whos screwing up, not her.
On the flip side, my son once the the teachers stopped checking it and signing saw it as an opportunity to not write everything down cause how would I know the difference, and he wasn't doing his homework, I didn't know until his report card showed all the F's. So really my signature did nothing to help with responsibilty. It doesn't really prepare them for high school at all. Once he got to high school they immediatly reconized that some kids need help to learn responsibily and put him in a homework program and set up a system where I talked to the school counsellor regularly and he has to report to her.
A parents signature without the teachers doesn't teach any form of responibility. Accountability to both teacher and parent does.
i didn't think it was an attack either. I was just frustrated that the argument was lost to something else that wasn't even what I was pissed about. The point of my irritation was not validated at all.
YES Liz!!!
Thats EXACTLY how it goes. Thank you. You and Steph explained it soo very well. and You got the point!
Yes, I agree it's totally stupid if the teacher doesn't check it too! The point is for the teacher to check, make sure the homework is written properly then sign.... and for the parent to make sure the homework that's written is completed and sign. Tell the teacher you will sign after he has signed each day. If you don't see he has checked it, then you won't sign it and that C doesn't have to write lines.
Thats one of the beauties of all this - "they don't check planners every day"
although I observed somthing very intersting when I picked up Queenie early WEdnesday afternoon. Her afternoon teacher was releasing her to me and asking her what she had for homework and what she had written her her planner......jsut as she was about to scold C for not writing anything down at lunch, "didn't Mr. D get you all to write in your planner before you went for lunch?" a confused "NO" resounded thru the classroom. She shot me a sheepish look. There was some more conversation and then Charlotte packed up her math sheet to bring home. As I, the mother that is not too afraid to point out the obvious, stood and observed quietly at the door.
i took note of a couple things -
firstly - that the afternoon teacher has seen the e-mail that I had written to her counter-part morning partner and is now cracking down on planners.
two - that morning guy really is using this tool of line writing for stupid reasons inapropriatly, when he himself isn't using the planner correctly.
I still have to remind Charlotte to put her dirty clothes in her hamper.
Sometimes I still have to remind her to brush her teeth before leaving for school. and She's been brushing her teeth for over 10 years!!! She;s only had a planner for 4!
These kids are not in high-school yet
they are not even in middle school.
they are 10/11. they are kids. and they are even still going to be kids next year!
Too much responsiblity is piled on our kids in this day and age. Not that knowing what your homework is or isn't is such a huge thing. However, compile that with everything else that is expected of them..........
its nuts!
Reminders are part of adults teaching kids stuff.
we are only kids for a very brief time in our long lives. Let it be
To be perfectly honest I don't remember ever having homework until highschool. And even in highschool I don't remember having much homework besides projects... or read this chapter of the book and we will discuss tomorrow.
Lenore actually had more homework in elementary school than she does now in highschool!!!
Post a Comment