School and has started and you know what that means
– homework. Look, just the word
”
homework
”
brings up horrifying memories of sitting at the kitchen table
while mom made dinner and tried to help me figure out fractions
using her mixing bowls and measuring cups. Let me tell you, it’s
not a coincidence that I don’t cook.
School and has started and you know what that means – homework. Look, just the word “homework” brings up horrifying memories of sitting at the kitchen table while mom made dinner and tried to help me figure out fractions using her mixing bowls and measuring cups. Let me tell you, it’s not a coincidence that I don’t cook.
Of course, once you become a parent, homework is even more frightening. Because not one of us really understands our children’s homework. Oh sure, there are parents who deny this. There are parents out there who want other moms and dads to believe that they really do know how to conjugate verbs in Spanish – even though they took German in high school and their Spanish is limited to “margarita con salt” and “uno burrito grande, mild.”
But with those few exceptions, most of us are willing to admit that we still don’t understand algebra.
I think parents should take a special homework “tune-up class” before school starts each year. This way, when our children bring home particularly challenging assignments, like learning the alphabet or adding more than two numbers together, we can actually help them complete it.
Trust me, without this tune-up, we’re dead meat. I know. I’m a mom and I freely admit that I don’t understand homework. I never have and – here’s the worst part – I don’t think I ever will understand it.
In fact, I don’t know who invented homework, but I’m certain that person was one sick, twisted puppy. How else do you explain the fact that millions of schoolchildren around the world bring home assignments that their parents can’t understand?
I’m positive that hundreds of years ago, when teachers got tired of trying to drum knowledge into the heads of kids whose brains were otherwise empty, they finally got together in the teacher’s lounge to complain. And one of the teachers, a wise woman with many, many years of brain-drumming behind her, said one simple word, “homework.”
And parents have been tortured ever since.
Look, maybe it is farfetched that teachers are conspiring against parents – but think about it. We parents went to school for many years. Why can’t we do third grade math? Take a look around you. Adults that cannot comprehend high school grammar run the world. What’s wrong with us? Do we graduate and suddenly go brain dead?
Across the country, kids are bringing home their work and parents are “helping” with it. And you know what? We have absolutely no idea of what we are doing. We are sitting at desks in every state of the union, trying desperately to remember multiplication tables and what the exception to the “i before e” rule is.
But last week, a miracle occurred. Junior brought home some homework that I actually understood. I’m telling you, I was so happy reading the instructions that I nearly broke out in song. I got it. I really understood that Junior had to take information out of tables and use that information to answer various questions.
Unfortunately, Junior didn’t understand the homework. And that’s where the real trouble began.
Oh, I tried to explain it. I said, “Look, we’re going to answer the questions, using the data in these tables.” And Junior said, “Huh?” And I said, “See these questions? The answers are in the tables.” And Junior said, “Huh?” And then I said, “We’re going to read the questions and find answers to them in these little thingy-bops in your math book.” And Junior, because he has a very large vocabulary, said, “Huh?”
And I realized that I might have known what to do with the homework—but I had no idea how to communicate that to my son. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? So I did what any parent would do. I wrote a note to his teacher asking for extra help with the homework.
And you know, I still consider that a victory. Because even if I couldn’t make my son understand the homework, I could rest easy knowing that at least once in my life as a parent, I understood third grade math. And that should count for something. Shouldn’t it?
