Ridiculous homework assignments

[~Journey~]

I need some input on how you see this issue.

My youngest DD (7th grade) just got 'lucky' with one teacher that has already put us through all kinds of crap with the older DD.

School started last Monday and on Tuesday DD came home with the first assignment that left us gasping. She had to multiply the size of a world map from a book by 4 and then transfer it on a poster board given to her by the teacher. It had to have all the longitude and lattitude lines on it and all countries and waters had to be colored the same color as on the map in the book. Fun part about it was that the sheet of paper she gave the kids didn't even fit the measurements.
And all of this was due on Thursday :

So DD works hard on this and turns it in on Thursday only to then be told the teacher is not gonna grade it because she is extending the time to work on it for another couple of days.

That Thursday she gave another assignment. The kids had to make a globe. Due today (Tuesday) (yes, we too had a holiday weekend but I guess that didn't matter) No info on how to make this globe, what materials to use. Nothing. After running all over town for 2 days unable to find something round (no styrofoam balls anywhere to be found) that would work only to then have to work with something that didn't work out at all DH and DD gave up in utter frustration. DH wrote the teacher a note. I didn't read it. I was way to ticked off to deal with it any longer.

Now I would love to know what you think about this. What is the sense in these kind of assignments? Shouldn't the children be able to work on their homework by themselves or is it a must that the whole family gets involved let alone the money and time spent driving around, looking for materials and sitting down with the child to work on the project?

Im am very angry about this. And as I found out from DD her friend's parents aren't happy either to put it politely.

How do you handle this kind of problem?

[mattemma04]

I would go the cheapest route to help my child get these done to their satisfaction,and remind them that the grade the teacher gives means very very little. It is just one of many things the teacher will give them to do,and I wouldn't want them fretting over getting every detail right. Having fun and being creative with it would be what I would hope for.

And I agree that it should be something the student does.The only help I would think a parent should give is by getting the supplies needed.And again with the supplies the teacher should not expect a family to be able to buy top of the line things.

If my dd had the globe project I think we would have bought one of those punching bag ballons,covered that with strips of newspaper dipped in glue or wet flour,pop the ballon when its hard,and then paint away.Not the prettiest thing,but it would get the job done.

[amydawnsmommy]

Originally Posted by ~Journey~

School started last Monday and on Tuesday DD came home with the first assignment that left us gasping. She had to multiply the size of a world map from a book by 4 and then transfer it on a poster board given to her by the teacher. It had to have all the longitude and lattitude lines on it and all countries and waters had to be colored the same color as on the map in the book. Fun part about it was that the sheet of paper she gave the kids didn't even fit the measurements.
And all of this was due on Thursday :

Two days notice hardly seems fair. That sounds complicated.

Originally Posted by ~Journey~

So DD works hard on this and turns it in on Thursday only to then be told the teacher is not gonna grade it because she is extending the time to work on it for another couple of days.

I would definitely be talking to the teacher about this. That is totally unfair!

Originally Posted by ~Journey~

That Thursday she gave another assignment. The kids had to make a globe. Due today (Tuesday) (yes, we too had a holiday weekend but I guess that didn't matter) No info on how to make this globe, what materials to use. Nothing. After running all over town for 2 days unable to find something round (no styrofoam balls anywhere to be found) that would work only to then have to work with something that didn't work out at all DH and DD gave up in utter frustration. DH wrote the teacher a note. I didn't read it. I was way to ticked off to deal with it any longer.

Now I would love to know what you think about this. What is the sense in these kind of assignments? Shouldn't the children be able to work on their homework by themselves or is it a must that the whole family gets involved let alone the money and time spent driving around, looking for materials and sitting down with the child to work on the project?

I agree, the project should be something the child can do on their own without enlisting the help of the whole family and costing a lot of money.

Originally Posted by ~Journey~

I am very angry about this. And as I found out from DD her friend's parents aren't happy either to put it politely.

Did you (or the other parents) talk to the teacher? How was the note responded to?

[Mizelenius]

OMG. I'd love to see her written objectives for this.

[Lingmom]

Is this a new teacher? Or a teacher new to the grade/subject?

In her defense... I recall on my first week of teaching middle school, I didn't have a very good sense of what a 12 yr old could do in a given amount of time. I started off with higher expectations and had to tone everything down. You might gently let her know the number of hours your child worked on the project and that her expectations might be a little too high. It's a hard balance to find the right amount of homework... It seemed that parents complained if it was too little and other parents complained if it was too much.

[~Journey~]

Originally Posted by amydawnsmommy

How was the note responded to?

The very polite note dh wrote her ( I read it as it came back with her response) was answered in a very rude way by her. Like she was talking to a child she deemed to stupid to count to 3. Dh and I gave dd permission to not do the assignemt. It was never again mentioned by the teacher...

Originally Posted by Lingmom

Is this a new teacher? Or a teacher new to the grade/subject?

No. She is not new to the school and not new to the subject. My older dd and we had our share of fun with her before.

[kater07]

Sounds like the kind of things I did as a child. As a parent, I look forward to those assignments, and hope that our teachers give them. What a GREAT way to make kids aware of the geography that will come this year (countries, capitals, oceans, etc.). I believe it was 7th or 8th grade when we learned so much about things using the Longitude and Latitude lines on the map.

Paper mache + a balloon or a nice ball from Target would have worked for making the globe round.

I don't think that it's fair to make such short deadlines for those projects.

I also think that the teacher is probably thinking that your DD is getting help from her parents on these and expecting the other parents to help their kids too. It sounds like a great quality time project to me. It sounds like it really frustrated you. I found this http://www.gma.org/surfing/imaging/globe.html when I did a Google search.

Sorry that it frustrated you so much. Hope you can work it out.

[Mizelenius]

Originally Posted by kater07

Sounds like the kind of things I did as a child. As a parent, I look forward to those assignments, and hope that our teachers give them. What a GREAT way to make kids aware of the geography that will come this year (countries, capitals, oceans, etc.).

I think there are better ways, though. I think these things need to be in context, otherwise it's just a fancy drill.

I was looking at a placemat of DD's. It has all these cats (she loves cats) and their countries of origin. DD is into learning about the US, but I thought-- this would be a cool way to study world geography . . . through cats!

[Hera]

One of the best teachers I ever had had us make globes as a project. We did it in class with balloons and papier mache and it took us the entire year. Yes, this is an extremely short period of time for such a complicated project, at least if she wants it done well.

[Oriole]

A few thoughts on the topic:

*Sounds like a great project to me. I always love watching my kid working on things like this.

*Two days is most definetely too short of a time. :

*No reason to take rudeness from anyone.

*As a teacher, you can NEVER make all parents happy... Just like someone here said, some parents complain that there is too little homework, and others will complain that there is too much. Someone will always be unhappy.

Hope you can work this out