Did your parents ever help you with homework?

[elrohwen]

My dad writes for a living and would help me proofread and improve my papers. Actually, he still does He never wrote them for me though - he would just say "this part is unclear, you should reword it", etc. I admit this probably gave me an advantage over kids whose parents were not able to help them like this, but it also made me a better writer. But life's not always fair, so oh well

That's what my mom did (though she's not a professional writer, she writes a lot as part of her job). Even in college I would send her papers and have her proof read and offer comments on areas that could be improved. So helpful! I'm not the best writer, but I'm a good proof reader now and I'd definitely do this for my kids if asked.

 

[zoebartlett]

As a high school math teacher, all this talk about MATH being the subject where help is most needed is of course very interesting. I'm fascinated by the fact that those of you who had so much trouble with math had parents that could help you. Why is this? You share their DNA yet they could do and explain math that you couldn't do. Were the old methods of teaching math better? Or is the ability to do math a developmental skill? The latter is something I've long suspected. I started my math teaching career at the satellite campus of a college. The students were mostly adult women going back to school to get their B.A. degrees. They thought I was the BEST algebra teacher! If only we had you in high school, they said, you make it sooooo easy. I thought I was a natural, ha! After a few years of that I got a job teaching the same subject to high schoolers. Suffice it to say that the teens did not find me so great at all, in fact I was accused of confusing them on purpose. I've had to change my style quite a bit! Same subject, same lessons -- I just think that for many people the mind doesn't want (can't?) to tackle the abstractions of algebra until later in life.

I agree with Zoe that I would rather have the parent send me a note saying what my student had trouble with than helping to the point that I can't even tell the kid had difficulty. I think helping if the child asks for it *after* they have tried on their own, and if it means just showing how to do it, is fine. But I know from experience at school that some kids aren't really looking to understand as much as they are conditioned to be lazy by adults that do too much for them. It's a learned helplessness and they will give up without applying themselves. Things like asking how to spell a word (while writing a paper in study hall) and when I hand them a dictionary they're like, can't you just tell me? "Please proofread my paper" turns into "just tell me what all the grammatical errors are and how to fix them." Or, getting back to math, kids that won't even TRY to set up equations to word problems because they hate word problems -- they're just too hard. Sometimes you gotta step back and let them fail (it's just a homework assignment) so that they take responsibility for their own learning.

Maria -- I was one of the ones who mentioned having a horrible time with math growing up. I used to cry all the time because I just couldn't get it. My parents would ask me which part I didn't understand and I would just wail, "the WHOLE THING!" Word problems in middle school were the worst, and then geometry in high school was definitely NOT a high point during my day. Proofs were too abstract. The only thing I liked was algebra because I understood how to get the answer. It was concrete. I believe math is a developmental skill. No amount of explaining would get me to understand a concept until I was ready for it. I had such a hard time with math that I was tested for special ed in that one area. I didn't know that's what it was at the time. I just remember going with a nice lady who asked me to fit shapes together and solve all these really cool problems. I actually found the test results and was shocked that my parents had never mentioned it to me. My mom shrugged it off like it was no big deal. I teach elementary school, and I joke around that there's a reason I teach at the lower level. I don't think I could handle the concepts at the upper level.

 

[mrscushion]

No, they didn't. I did pretty well in school, so they didn't have to. If certain subjects didn't come easily to my kid, though, I would check their work and go over it with them...I wouldn't just give them the right answer to.