Who does your childs homework?

[wobbycarly]

yes back to topic i think i would help with my daighter's homework, but only so far as explaining/simplifying questions for her, she would need to come up with the answer through reasoning.

that said, i can understand how dads can get carried away with dioramas, volcanoes etc....

Did someone say "volcanoes"!!??!?

 

[travelbug]

I recently won a victory. He's been getting taught to do times table the past few years as 3x1, 3x2, 3x3 etc when I feel it should be 1x3, 2x3, 3x3. Focus is then on the 3 and you can show 'lots of' in practical terms. I haven't wanted to say 'you're teacher is teaching you wrong', but I was finding it hard to teach 'lots of' when first the focus is on 'a lot of 1', then 'a lot of two', then 'a lot of three' etc instead of being on 'lots of three'! I finally chatted with his principal and asked the thinking behind the method and he was surprised he was being taught that way, said that he shouldn't be and spoke to the teacher about it. I asked Matthew if the teacher seemed upset at all (I hoped I hadn't pi**ed him off) and my grandson said that his teacher had laughed and said "your Nanna is a smart lady, that what I said was right and that Matthew should listen to me. He had only taught the other way because that's how he'd been taught." Nice to know, but still a bit odd I thought because he apparently asked the class what way they'd prefer and it was a 50/50 split. I think it should be one way (the correct way ) for all the class, but I'm not going to push it.

Good on you. Teachers are only human and once you've done your training there is no real checking unless you are obviously having trouble.

I often have student teachers.You'd be surprised at some of the things they say and how they confuse some concepts. There are only so many lessons etc you do at Uni. One trainee didn't even know about the Dewy decimal system. I wonder how he looked up books at Uni? Another one was teaching about 3D shapes. She had pictures of 3D shapes and said they were 2D shapes because they were flat. The kids were very confused.

I used to work with a woman who was always doing her senior highschooler son's homework. Seriously - she'd say, "I have to go early today, I have to get to the library before it closes. [Son] has an assignment."

A few years passed like this. When he was in Year 12, I finally knew her well enough to ask her what the hell she thought she was achieving by doing it all for him.

Well, it turned out that the kid wasn't too blessed in the brain department. Not disabled or anything, just on the lower end of the normal scale, with a side order of immaturity and laziness. (No surprises there). She didn't expect him to do well in the HSC or to go to uni or anything like that, but she wanted him to stay in the school system for as long as possible. She reasoned that if he went into the workforce, it would probably be as an apprentice, and he'd be exposed to a culture of drinking, etc before he was old enough to handle it mentally.

So her solution was to baby him through school so he'd be a bit older before he hit the workforce. She was under no illusions about what he could achieve - it was just a means to an end.

I dunno. I could see where she was coming from. From her perspective, it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

I can see her reasoning but I think it would be better to have a son enter the workforce with the attitude that you try your best. Not that if something is a bit difficult just sit back and someone will take up the slack for you.
I'm thinking the child would have the same difficulties in the workforce that he had a school thanks to his mother.
There are millions of people out there with low IQ's that perform well in the workforce. It's about attitude.

 

[sue78]

This thread is just hilarious. Wow, it proves to me that some of u guys are very patient!

I think I could go as far as writing an essay for my kids as a guide to what they need to do? but they have to write it themselves.

I know I will be tutoring my kids until I am not smart enough to then I will get them extra tuition for subjects which they may struggle a little in.

It's not that the teachers are not good but just that some kids are a bit slow or doesn't understand the way the teacher explains it. There are many ways to learn and some teachers are excellent at explaining and simplifying the explanations. I was really lucky that my mum hired a tutor for me on Saturdays...it was only 1 hr and cost a bomb. But it really helped me to excel in that subject and I scored a good mark (year 11 and 12). I was able to use his methods to tutor my friends who were struggling and made it seem easy to understand.

In Asia, kids start extra tuition as young as Grade 1. I remember when I was growing, I had tuition almost everyday after school. Yet I was still an ave student. It's so competitive in Asia....the whole class is above 80% and the top students are like 99.1% 99.9% etc If they planned to study Uni in Oz and did the equivalent Year 12 tests here, they could sit for the tests by Grade 10 in Asia (except the subject English).

Kids give up easily when it's too hard to do and then they end up falling behind. It's important to show them how to do it in a way that's easy to understand then they feel encouraged to do well.

 

[jaycee]

Correct me if I'm wrong, Simon, but aren't the results the same (ie 0), if you use 0% as in your example?

If you use any other percentage figure, then they are two completely different answers.

Amy

200 x 10% = 2
200 x 10 = 2000
In the first sum, th eanser is a %age of the 200 - less than the 20 itself.

battler was saying, if you multiply 200 x 0% the answer = 200, because the 200 itself has not been removed. why then, is the answer of 200 x 10% less than the 200 itself which again has not been physically removed ?

you jsut have to think of it as "0" groups of 200.

0 groups of anything (100, 200, 1) = 0. There physically are none !
1 group of 1 = 1

it get confusing ywhen you write it out, and it looks wrong as the number is reducing to nil, but it's a SUM.. the result is the result...

$200 earning 10% interest earned $20 this is xpressed as a sum like this:
$200 x 10% = $20

$200 earning 0% interest earned $0 if you were to expres this as a sum, it would have to be written like this:
$200 x 0% = $0

 

[james_w]

We certainly have some smart cookies on this forum,
my daughter is now in grade 5, we don't do her homework for her at all.
But help her when it's needed if she doesn't understand the question I always say lucky she has her mothers brain.

 

[Simon]

on the table

Hi Guys,

I am Simons girlfriend, Brooke....just using his log in because I really really want to write on this thread.

I am completely HOPELESS at maths, and generally remain firmly ensconced in my world of english lit where, lets face it, you can make stuff up and no one can say your answer is wrong.....

So.. I have to admit things like this tend to confuse me somewhat....until we looked at it like this:

If you have an equation like 2 x 5, you could lay out 2 lots of five things on the table and then add them all up...and there would be 10 of them...right?

So if you have 2 x 0, you could lay out 2 lots of nothing on the table and then add them up...and you would have nothing....

anyhow, it works for me and I love the way everyone on SS has completely different ways of seeing things.....

 

[darcy13]

I have been following this thread as well , and I too must say there are some smart cookie's out there .

I get the 2x0=0 bit

but I will say on battlers behalf that some of the explanations appear to be some what confusing on the surface , but enjoying the thread and learning a little as well .

stuart

 

[Strannik]

none whatsoever
i usually check it and tell her what's wrong, and if she doesn't understand it i can explain, but i never do it for her

 

[zargor1]

I can't believe that this thread has used 108 responses to attempt to convey the logic behind 2 x 0.

Thank #$%^ Battler didn't ask what 13 x 13 is (don't do it Battler!!).

Although Brooke sounds nice (Sorry Simon

Zargor

 

[james_w]

I can't believe that this thread has used 108 responses to attempt to convey the logic behind 2 x 0.

Thank #$%^ Battler didn't ask what 13 x 13 is (don't do it Battler!!).

Although Brooke sounds nice (Sorry Simon

Zargor

theres a calulator on your desktop