Long division…belch
I remember the first time I saw Jack problem solve. He was 2. One of his favorite things on the face of the planet was the light switch. He loved turning lights on and off. That was his past time. Problem: he was too short to reach it on his own. Solution: he had a table and chairs in his room that was just his size. One day I saw the wheels turning as he looked at the switch then at the chair. I had never seen him stand on a chair, so I was curious. I watched from around the corner as he dragged his chair to the light switch, carefully stood on it, and turned on the light. I was very proud…in that “my child is not a Darwin reject” kind of way.
Years have gone by…and I don’t have much to report.
Until tonight.
He hates homework. He just gives up usually and trudges through it. He retains very little. So tonight, when he started working on division, I knew it was going to suck…and it did to begin with.
I literally did the first 4 problems out for him, just to show him, and then had him copy them. He wouldn’t even do that. It was like he forgot how to write. His whole body went into some weird limpness.
So, he started on the rest of the assignment. The whining was nerve racking. He just gave up.
“OK…here’s the problem…193 divided by 5…what do you do first?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well…write it down…now what?”
“I don’t know”
It went on like this for the next 12 problems. Then I saw it. That moment of looking at the chair…then the light switch.
He got into a rhythm at the 13th problem. I barely helped him for the final 8. It was awesome.
“HA HA!!! Awesome!” I yelled.
“What?”
“You did it. That was a great job!”
“Um…OK…Dad you scare me.”
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Well done for hanging in there and scaring your son. A father should do both.
The benefits of homework for students lower than senior years is shown to be doubtful in a lot of research. I wonder if we don’t push ‘em way too hard on this stuff. That’s NOT a comment about you Bryan, it’s about a school system that puts more onus on parents to complete elementary homework, more pressure on the family system and more pressure on the kid with incredibly low results for all that pressure and effort.
Whoops, I smell a soapbox. Sorry.
It IS an awesome moment to see a person from your own genepool have a learning moment. I remember those moments fondly too…
April 24th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
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