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conulyA book report. She was supposed to read a book on any holiday (December holidays implied, but not explicitly stated) and then write about what she learned about the holiday.
In the spirit of the thing, I put a book on Diwali, which I know little about other than that it exists on hold at the library. The library promptly lost it.
So we had to scramble to get a Christmas book for her to read. She decided to read Jingle Bells, Homework Smells.
Well. She did this all at the VERY last minute. We literally finished her second draft (she has to bring in a "sloppy copy" and her finished work) on the train to school. Funnily enough, "don't put off your homework" is the supposed moral of the story... but we'll get to that.
She didn't even want to do it right. Her "three sentences" barely counted, and I had her redo them entirely for her second draft. "The main character is Gilbert. He doesn't do his work. He hands in his book report late." She utterly refused at first to write "I learned not to put off doing my homework" or anything of the sort because, of course, she didn't learn that and to write it would be lying. In vain did we all point out that her teacher would neither know nor care! Lying. Is. Wrong.
On the train I managed to get her to write a little more, retelling the story. As I pointed out, her teacher doesn't care if she learned anything, she just wants to make sure Evangeline understands what she read. So, assured that she wouldn't have to lie, Evangeline managed a full paragraph about this book. And then we came to the moral. She suggested (correctly, I think) that the real moral of the story is "If you make a snowman instead of doing your book report, and bring in your report a day late, you'll still get full credit. So why rush?" But she as quickly rejected this as not being appropriate for school. (I wish she hadn't!) Instead, she wrote down, very carefully, that Gilbert learned not to put off his work, because he might not be able to get it done at the last minute. (She, of course, learned nothing of the sort, as seen by the fact that she was doing her own report at the last minute. And heaven forbid we lie!)
On the subject of homework, Ana says she's not allowed to take notes in math because her teacher assumes they're WRITING notes and takes it away. How she's supposed to study or do her homework when she can't refer to classwork, I don't understand. Yesterday she got very upset because her homework asked her to identify the "mode" and the "range" from a set of data, and she couldn't remember the definitions - and of course, she couldn't find them in her notebook either.
I'm not entirely sure she's correct about this, but I told her to talk to her teacher and if the teacher still refuses we'll write a note in. This is ridiculous. (Of course, throwing a tantrum within 3 seconds of reading a difficult math problem instead of thinking about it and/or asking for help is also ridiculous, but I can't solve that with a note to the teacher, can I?)
In the spirit of the thing, I put a book on Diwali, which I know little about other than that it exists on hold at the library. The library promptly lost it.
So we had to scramble to get a Christmas book for her to read. She decided to read Jingle Bells, Homework Smells.
Well. She did this all at the VERY last minute. We literally finished her second draft (she has to bring in a "sloppy copy" and her finished work) on the train to school. Funnily enough, "don't put off your homework" is the supposed moral of the story... but we'll get to that.
She didn't even want to do it right. Her "three sentences" barely counted, and I had her redo them entirely for her second draft. "The main character is Gilbert. He doesn't do his work. He hands in his book report late." She utterly refused at first to write "I learned not to put off doing my homework" or anything of the sort because, of course, she didn't learn that and to write it would be lying. In vain did we all point out that her teacher would neither know nor care! Lying. Is. Wrong.
On the train I managed to get her to write a little more, retelling the story. As I pointed out, her teacher doesn't care if she learned anything, she just wants to make sure Evangeline understands what she read. So, assured that she wouldn't have to lie, Evangeline managed a full paragraph about this book. And then we came to the moral. She suggested (correctly, I think) that the real moral of the story is "If you make a snowman instead of doing your book report, and bring in your report a day late, you'll still get full credit. So why rush?" But she as quickly rejected this as not being appropriate for school. (I wish she hadn't!) Instead, she wrote down, very carefully, that Gilbert learned not to put off his work, because he might not be able to get it done at the last minute. (She, of course, learned nothing of the sort, as seen by the fact that she was doing her own report at the last minute. And heaven forbid we lie!)
On the subject of homework, Ana says she's not allowed to take notes in math because her teacher assumes they're WRITING notes and takes it away. How she's supposed to study or do her homework when she can't refer to classwork, I don't understand. Yesterday she got very upset because her homework asked her to identify the "mode" and the "range" from a set of data, and she couldn't remember the definitions - and of course, she couldn't find them in her notebook either.
I'm not entirely sure she's correct about this, but I told her to talk to her teacher and if the teacher still refuses we'll write a note in. This is ridiculous. (Of course, throwing a tantrum within 3 seconds of reading a difficult math problem instead of thinking about it and/or asking for help is also ridiculous, but I can't solve that with a note to the teacher, can I?)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 09:02 pm (UTC)