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It’s time for me to apologize to all the parents of all the students I ever had when I was a teacher.
Again.
Because I hate homework.
And, at this point, I almost hate my kids’ teachers for having the nerve to send it home.
I used to judge those poor parents so badly.
How can they not know what their kids have for homework?
How can they not help them?
What is wrong with these people?
What an asshole.
Because, of course, I have become one of those parents.
Number 1 and Number 2 don’t require too much help at this point.
They are out of the homework hell zone.
Thank God.
Number 4 is only in first grade, so her homework is minimal.
And she never needs help, so hers doesn’t really bother me either.
Well, except for the 100th day of school project.
I have counted out 100 Cheerios 3 times so far.
And Number 4 has eaten them before they have made it onto the poster.
We started with pennies.
But she hid them, and she refuses to waste them on a poster.
So I need to find something inedible.
And something that doesn’t involve the use of glue, which, in combination with Number 4 is, um, not good.
Anyway, Number 3 and his homework are killing me.
I understand how to do the homework
But a lot of times he doesn’t.
And,
well,
I’m not very nice to him sometimes when he asks for help.
By the time he gets home from school, my patience is already right about here:
I’ve said before that I used to teach in a pretty wealthy school district.
Lots of parents there pay teachers to tutor their kids after school.
And they pay an assload of money.
In fact, I have a friend who gets $90/hour to tutor kids in that district.
Ninety dollars.
For one hour.
That was actually a couple years ago.
It might even be more now.
And you know what you do when you tutor those kids?
Their homework.
There’s not a whole lot of tutoring going on.
I know. Because I used to be one of those tutors.
Yep.
It was unfathomable to me that people would shell out hundreds of dollars, sometimes per week, to have someone do their kid’s homework with them.
But now I understand.
Completely.
If I had an extra $90 lying around, I would give it to just about anyone at this point if they would be willing to do Number 3’s homework with him.
So anyway, yesterday after school, Number 3 came bursting through the door…
“Mom! Guess what I got today?!?!”
He put down his backpack, opened it up, and pulled out…
a homework pass.
I think I heard angels singing as he held it in his hands.
It was glowing.
And beautiful.
“I’m going to use it today!” said Number 3.
“Sounds good to me!” I said.
He went to staple it to his homework.
But then I thought about it.
“NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
I grabbed his homework.
“Let me see that! Do you know how to do this???” I almost yelled.
I was a crazed lunatic.
“Yeah, that one’s easy,” he said.
“We are not using this tonight,” I declared.
“But Mom!” he pleaded.
“Nope. Absolutely not. Let me have that pass. I need to put it in a safe spot. Now go get a pencil.”
Number 3 was not happy.
But that’s too bad.
I’m not wasting that pass on some lame subtraction facts.
I mean, that shit is worth 90 bucks in some towns.
Nope, we’re saving that pass for something really worthy of its value.
A hair pulling, paper crumpling assignment.
Until then, I’ve got to go.
I’ve got some copies to make 😉
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Too funny! You’re a good mom — I never got any help with my homework 🙂 Try buttons or beads for #3’s poster. I teach Sunday school & that’s what we used to count down the days til Christmas — we strung them on a string & at the end, they had a necklace.
I totally get it. My Kindergartner hates the 30 seconds of homework she has every night. It’s so easy but she just fights me every time. We have the 100th day project to do this weekend. Thankfully she wants to use pennies. We also have Valentine’s day cards to do, which the teacher has made more complicated than it needs to be. It involves matching the names of the students to the shape she assigned to each student, then gluing it to the envelope. Can’t we just write the name on the envelope? Aghhhh!
I am loathing the 100 day project and to top it off…the teacher reminded us that the kids need to have their Valentines written out for the Valentine’s party next week. Talk about a weekend of torture!
One of mine used a homework pass last night. I believe she uses them as soon as she gets them.
At least she isn’t going to let one go to waste!
I teach 3rd grade and give hw passes as frequently as I can. I was a teacher who assigned monthly book reports or other “at home” projects until I had my own kids in school and saw how ridiculous projects and the like can be. Now Come June, we completely skip the hw as long as they can give me an honest effort in school. I hate looking at it almost as much as they hate doing it.
As for the 100th day project, the buttons/beads is really cute. Quick and easy is stickers (like those reward stars on black paper), but my favorite only works out if she has a total of twenty kids in the class or can get there by including the teachers. Trace out 20 hands and label them her classmates’ names. Then you will have 100 fingers and it’s relative to her class. Just a thought.
I hate homework too! Some of the projects are so hard they know the parents have to be doing the majority!