Flutterby™! : Homework or social 2001-11-20 16:04:40+00

Homework or social

2001-11-20 16:04:40+00 by Dan Lyke 4 comments

Argh. The long-awaited second meeting of the Weblogger User Group happens this evening. Last night Alec called me up saying "Help, I have a test and I don't understand the subject." So, alas, I'm skipping the meeting to go help the alpha rat boy with complex numbers.

Tonight we're implementing a new rule: He gets a list of all of his tests for the rest of the semester. I will help him study immediately following a test, and we'll work on learning what the teacher should be teaching up-front, so by the time he gets to class it's all review. Now that I've taken on this project I'm kinda suckered into finding solutions, but it's damned frustrating 'cause I only have a limited amount of control and influence.

Dori is right in this regard: High school is good for teaching communication between obstinate parties, one of whom wants to hide the goals and obfuscate portions of that communication.

Let me guess: the teacher either won't tell Alec or you when the tests will be, or what will be on the tests, or both. Am I right?

High school is good for teaching communication between obstinate parties, one of whom wants to hide the goals and obfuscate portions of that communication.

Actually, I think that high school is lousy at teaching that. What it's good at is providing lots of examples for practice, if the student understands that that's the lesson being taught. Which is why I keep ranting about this topic.

I feel like these kids are being shoved in front of pianos and being forced to play scales for hours on end. They've never been told that the goal is to learn how to play the piano, or that the point of these exercises is to learn the necessary basics. Learning to play the piano is a great thing--but we should tell the kids that that's what's going on. Especially for those for whom it doesn't come naturally (speaking as one of those, myself).

Missed you at the meeting, Dan! I'll be away for the January one, so maybe we can do lunch or dinner in Berkeley some time before February.