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Monday, February 11, 2008
Homework headaches
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Once a week I mentor a seventh-grader at a Gwinnett middle school. We work on reading, writing, social studies and math. I took AP calculus in high school, so I’m not math illiterate. But seventh-grade math is killing me.
The word problems read like a foreign language. It sometimes takes us 15 minutes to get through one problem. Then she has about 20 more to solve. We search her textbook for clues. If that’s no help, I try looking through the teachers’ guidebook.
This left me wondering about homework and its purpose. What’s the difference between busy work and true homework and how often is that line blurred? Where do you turn when you can’t help your students or children?
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