Since DD is so far behind with writing and probably has a writing disability, I was actually sitting with her and helping her form coherent sentences. I made the teacher aware she was getting help.
blackcap, I have one kid with a writing disability and one who is an outstanding writer and I've done this for both - it's simply teaching a skill to a child who needs to learn it. I don't see this as being the same thing as writing *for* your child if you're not giving your child the ideas re what to write about or actually doing the writing for them.
I stopped doing this because I need the school to see how bad her writing really is. But even for kids with no disability, writing a long research paper is really tough so I'd be really surprised if there are any parents who don't help at all. DD's idea of listing her "references" was to put things like
www.google.com. or
www.my mom.com, or
www.myself.com. The teacher circled these and put question marks. If the assignment is appropriate for the ability level of the kids, then I can see not helping, but I don't think that's the case with a lot of the assignments.
When the assignment seems beyond the ability level of the kids in the class, I'd talk with the teacher. First check in and be sure you and your child understand the assignment parameters and expectations, and if that still checks out as seeming to be unreasonable, express the concerns to the teacher.
DD had to construct a board game for one assignment and present it to the class. That involved printing images from the computer, getting poster board, gluing things, etc. No way could she have figured all that out herself.
I'm going to diverge in opinion here. My kids had to do assignments like this in 4th grade and they were able to do it independently. It took one "how-to" lesson at a very early age to teach my kids how to use our printer. (The larger life lesson was how to prevent my then-three-year-old from *not* using the printer to print images she found online... sorry for momentarily veering OT...). Yes, parents have to purchase poster board and supplies, but I'd expect a child your dd's age to be able to put together her own poster. It might not look polished like it would if a parent helped... but the expectation is the parent isn't helping.
There is another presentation coming up where they have to dress like the person they did a biography on. Parents are invited to come view these presentations. So they think parents aren't going to help arrange these costumes?
We've had projects like this too. Yes, parents help kids pull together costumes if they need to find pieces for them, but in reality my kids had their own ideas for costumes, I just had to help with pulling something out of the adult closet occasionally or finding material. This isn't the same thing as the parent going out and buying a costume or creating the idea for the child.
For the science fair, it was completely obvious that most kids had parental help putting together their posters boards if nothing else. So I'm not sure if the teachers are stupid enough that they really think kids are doing these things on their own, or if they expect help with some things but not others, or ????
As I mentioned above, having judged a lot of science fairs, it's usually pretty obvious who's had parental involvement vs over-involvement vs no-involvement. Most science fair judges take that into account. It's also not usually just the board that's the most obvious - but talking to the kids you can find out pretty quick whether or not the project was a student idea carried out by the student or a parent-infused project.
I don't think that the issue is whether or not teachers are "stupid" - my guess is that teachers can see through a situation where a parent is over-stepping bounds in helping, and that's what led to a request of the whole class that parents not help with typing or whatever.
I'd also add - parents and teachers aren't the only ones who can usually see when some students are receiving extra help above and beyond what is expected from parents. My kids are *very* aware of this, and they don't come home saying "Mom, why didn't you do this for me too?", instead their take-away is more of thinking it was lame on the part of the other parent. They rarely see it as something that has anything to do with the student, fwiw. Also, please know I don't mean that's *you* at all blackcap
polarbear
