By refusing to provide a due date, he's also being unprofessional (IMHO!). Projects, whether for school or work, typically have due dates. Why are his special?
Both another mother and I who brought this point up at conferenced (minus calling him unprofessional
), were given the same spiel regarding how "if I was having a house built, I'd want the house to be built the way I wanted it even if it took longer. I'd rather the builder took an extra week than finished it on time and it wasn't done right." While there do appear to be deadlines in his mind by which the assignments must be done (like the end of the quarter maybe), he feels that it benefits the students to not have those deadlines and to just work away at their best product and turn it in when it is done which is, presumably, before the deadline he has in mind (which has not been shared with the kids).
How can anyone plan until they know the date?
I believe that I used that exact quote in my conversation with the teacher. Dd has too much other homework to be planning to write rough drafts of essays so the final product is her best work if she doesn't even know when the final product is due. If she knew when it was due, then she'd plan in time for work on his stuff too and not focus solely on what feels like more pressing assignments from other classes that have actual due dates.
I get the impression that we are going to be muddling through this year without it being a great year either way. She's having ongoing issues with algebra this year as well due to the fact that the teacher has decided not to teach this year. She spends a few minutes at the start of the class introducing what they are going to be working on and then gives them an assignment to work on independently or in a group and then that's it. She either spends the rest of the period sitting at her desk correcting papers or wanders around the room to see how everyone is doing. It seems to be "independent study algebra" which basically means that dd comes home with stuff she hasn't learned and I run a second class at home once or twice a week to show her how to do the work. She isn't a natural in math where she picks it up with no instruction. That conversation was had with the math teacher as well. I hope that, too, doesn't cause dd problems.
Overall, this year doesn't look like it's going to work too well for dd and she's fortunate that she has me at home to help her deal with this mess.
