Originally Posted by ColinsMum
Originally Posted by JJsMom
I'm sorry, I didn't mean at school. I meant for school, meaning home work as well. I don't enjoy when my children get busy work, but in every day life, they will both be faced with work that isn't stimulating or worth their time. They may be in a job that it is required to do such. I don't believe in teaching them that they only have to do that which I, as their parent, see as beneficial.
We may have to agree to disagree. I don't believe in seeing school work, in or out of school, as something the child is doing for the teacher. Setting the work is something the teacher is doing for the child. Its being done is of no benefit to the teacher. If it isn't of benefit to the child, it shouldn't be being done.

I strongly dislike the "they'll be bored in everyday life" argument, because I see it as fundamentally off the point. In adult life, they will probably never do anything that is of no benefit to anybody. Possibly there are some jobs where there's no point in an employee thinking about whether what they're doing is of benefit to anybody, where it's best just to do what one's told, mindlessly. However, I think those jobs are rare (in fact I can't think of one, off hand) and even if they exist, I doubt that any of our children are going to those jobs.

As a university teacher, I wish more students did arrive from school with the attitude that it's their job to make sure they only spend their learning time on things that help them learn - students who want staff to take responsibility for what they spend their time on are problem students who have to be trained out of this bad habit.

I don't think the work they do is for the teacher necessarily either. However, there are requirements that the teachers must meet with the students, and if the students are not given the work in that particular grade, the teacher cannot report correctly. If the student is not doing the addition homework because it's below his level, how can the teacher grade on whether or not he knows addition? Just because the parent says he can?

There is PLENTY in my job that is boring and below my academic level, what I would consider mindless, but I am still required to do it. I'm probably MG, and I do this job for the income and hours to be with my children, not because it is "at my level". It doesn't mean there isn't a benefit to someone for me to do it. But if I take the approach that it's "below my level" or "boring" to me, and I shouldn't have to do it, then what's the difference in that than what you are saying about the child not doing his/her homework because it's not at his/her level or it's innappropriate to him/her?

You are right, we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

Last edited by JJsMom; 10/04/10 10:15 AM. Reason: MD should be MG...