March's Rant

You know what really ticks me off? The word "should" when over-applied to students. For instance, "Josh should be able to sit still and focus for an hour." In a perfect world, Josh should. But what if Josh can't? What if his brain is wired differently and sitting still for an hour makes his mind shut down? We could say he should be able to do this and make it his fault. Or we could accept the fact that he can't and take steps to help him. Perhaps two minutes of active movement at the beginning of class and maybe even at the middle would help him focus the other 56 minutes. Perhaps letting him doodle or fiddle with silly putty would help him learn. Chewing gum (as much as I hate it) helps some students. Perhaps teachers should look at an unsuccessful student and see what is needed to help him succeed.

Another example I hear regularly is that students should do what they are supposed to without expecting praise. Well, yes, they should. But they don't. Most of these kids are running so in the red with negative teacher/parent/peer comments that they need a huge amount of praise to have any hopes of getting in the black, praise-wise. What harm does it do to tell a kid you love how still he's sitting? Watch everyone around him try for that same comment. Telling a kid you appreciate how neatly she is writing will improve the chances of her continuing to write neatly. We all love to be noticed and praised, and intense kids need much more praise than other kids do. Praise is cheap, quick, and efficient.

One of my third grade tutoring students is having a horrendous time in school right now. EOG madness is reaching its peak and teachers are going into high gear. He's getting into lots of trouble. I asked him one day, if HE were designing a school, how would it be different? After we got past candy for lunch and Pepsi in the water fountains, he had some great ideas. He just needed to move around more, he said. And he'd like to have work that he could understand. He very seldom gets praised or called upon, because he is a trouble-maker. He's a smart kid with supportive parents and he should be a success. Perhaps we should look at why he isn't succeeding and make some changes. Perhaps our schools should be more open to students who learn differently. If we did, I think we'd find we needed to spend less time on discipline and remediation and we'd see some kids bloom and learn. I'd like to see that day come soon.

February's rant

Hey, I know it's early in the month, but I'm iced in and doing a lot of reading. You know what really annoys me? People, especially editors, who rely on spellcheck and don't check to make sure they have the correct word, whether it's a homophone or just a close match. This one is audience participation. Send me your examples of bad editing. I'll start us off with an example from February 1, 2010, a wral.com article on John Edwards: But he eventually became disillusioned when it was obvious the affair wasn't ending and that Edwards was less than discrete about it. We all know that John Edwards wasn't particularly discreet about his illicit affair; unfortunately that doesn't make him individually distinct. Now let me spell-check this and make sure I've spelled everything correctly!

January's Rant

I rebelled against homework at an early age. As an undiagnosed ADD dyslexic, all it did was made me feel stupid. So I just said no. The classes weren't that hard and I'd do the reading. But I wasn't about to do any math or French. No one wanted me a second time, so I surfed along from grade to grade with low but passing grades. My senior year, Col. Walker, who taught us economics and Problems of American Democracy (an anti-communism course with a text written by J. Edgar Hoover), called my bluff the day before my not-yet-begun research paper was due. I pulled my first all-nighter and turned in a poorly written paper that allowed me to graduate.

I hated homework then, but that pales to how much I hate it as a parent. (A disclaimer here: as a teacher, I assigned homework. I believed in it. I was wrong.) I promise you, homework was not invented by the parent of a special needs child. Every day the school would send me home an exhausted, grouchy fifth grader and expect her to do geometry (she can't multiply), write essays (she first needs to learn to write a single good sentence) or some other equally undoable assignment. Family time was nonexistent. The week a close friend was dying, I wrote the school and told them that homework would not be a priority, that during that week we would be concentrating on our friend and our family. I got a return email explaining that homework was an expectation and not doing it would result in D#2's not being able to fully participate in class. Bad parent!

Homework is one of those ideas that sounds good in theory: practicing skills, involving the parents in the child's education, and learning time management. It might surprise you to learn that there is very little correlation between homework and those things. Instead, homework strains families, frustrates kids and is generally not meaningful enough to be done at school. Internationally, the countries that show the highest academic scores—Japan, the Czech Republic, and Denmark—assign very little homework. The countries at the bottom of the list generally assign much more.

During the time that a child should be playing outside, exploring interests, developing passions, and learning how to interact socially, many kids are spending up to three hours a night on homework—and that's in elementary school. Parents often feel obliged to be heavily involved. Indeed, in affluent school systems, the demand for homework is very often parent-driven. But this means that children from single-parent, non English speaking, or low income families may not have that parental involvement. When homework is necessary to participate in class, these kids find themselves at a disadvantage, thus widening the ever-growing gap between privileged learners and those who aren't for whatever reason.

More and more educators are starting to see the harm that excessive and unnecessary homework can do. In a thoughtful article called "Rethinking Homework", a principal talks about three important facts about homework: the negative effects of homework are well-known, the positive effects of homework are largely mythical, and more homework is being piled on students despite its lack of value. He goes on to make recommendations as to how homework can be improved.

One of the articles he quotes, "Homework Hell", talks about homework from a parent's point of view. She rails against the craft-type homework that requires late night runs to Wal-Mart. I join her in feeling admiration for the child who demonstrates higher level thinking skills in doing as little as possible on a particularly silly project: Assigned to construct a relief map of one of the 50 states out of plaster of Paris, the boy chose Nebraska. He made a flat rectangle. As his aunt said, "You've got to love a kid who puts into the assignment exactly the effort it's worth."

Homework almost sent my child and me over the edge. I feel very fortunate to have been able to pull her from her homework-loving school and put her in a school where lots of learning takes place, but no homework is assigned. Her anxiety has plummeted. Interestingly, she occasionally can be found after school doing research and writing stories and reports. She brought home a book she is interested in reading. The pressure is off; let the learning begin.

We have a name for adults who work all day and then continue at home as well: workaholics. We know that is not healthy. I hope someday we will realize that is equally true for children and let them spend their afternoons and evenings learning in experiential and active ways. Until then, perhaps more of us should just say no.

December's rant

You know what really annoys me? People who can't keep their its straight. I'm not talking about kids writing a first draft or people scribbling a quick note. I'm talking about people with editors or public relations staff, people who should know better. And that includes teachers, by the way. Take this ad that's been flashing across my computer screen for the last several days: Dell's New Adamo PC - www.AdamoByDell.com - In a Class of It's Own. Fast, Thin & Light w/Intel Technology. If they don't do details, do I really want one of their computers? I'll stick with my Mac, thank you.

Years ago I taught a community college class made up of people who had worked all day in a factory before they drove over mountain roads to take my basic grammar class as part of earning their GED. One older woman heaved a great sigh one evening and said, "I ain't NEVER going to get my hits straight!" But she did, though I'm not sure she ever understood what I meant about ain't.

Surely if this uneducated mountain woman can get her "hits" straight, Dell can as well. Possessive pronouns don't have apostrophes. It's is a contraction for it is. It's not that hard.