Today a friend told me that her third grader was having to do research papers with MLA citations. That seems young to me, to really need to understand how to do research, but I said ok and asked how he did. It turns out she took him to the library, looked things up for him, wrote the paper and did the citations herself. She says she usually ends up writing her kids' papers for them because all the other parents at her school write the papers for their kids and her kids would get a bad grade in comparision if they wrote them themselves, which they won't do anyway and she can't have them getting bad grades.
Now, I am a little surprised that there are that many parents at her school involved enough to be writing their children's papers, but even more so that my friend was so nonchalant about doing it completely by herself. I asked her what they could possibly learn from having her do their work for them and she said they didn't learn anything, but that they had a lot of really pointless assignments and homework and it didn't really matter if they did it or not anyway and it's important that they make A's.
Now actually on one point, I kind of agree. I personally think school kids get a lot of busywork and unnecessary homework, but if you're going to have your kids in school and you don't like the assignments, you should probably either advocate with the school for more pertinent assignments or you should expect your kids to do the pointless stuff. Or you can let them get a bad grade if they won't. Natural consequences in any case. But it seems like the worst thing possible to do is say "I'll do it for you because it isn't important that you learn this anyway." We unschool at home, so my kids virtually never have learning assignments that are pointless to them, but when they do enroll in an outside class or a team, they are responsible for getting things done for that endeavor or suffering the consequences of not doing it. I don't nag or threaten. Ever. I will remind them if I think they've forgotten and will offer appropriate help if they don't understand something and will point out what the natural consequences will be if they don't do it. And then I'm through.
So my friend has a daily struggle with her kids to get them to go to school or do their homework. Lots of faking illness, dragging their feet, and just refusing to go. I had wondered what was really feeding that because they have friends and don't seem to actually hate school when I talk to them, but I am thinking now that if she has consistently given the message that the things they do at school aren't inherently important; that you only go to get a good grade so you look good to other people, they would naturally extrapolate that there's really no reason to go at all.
A while back I had told my friend, knowing her children were getting bad grades, to just tell them it was up to them if they passed or failed and then let it go. Stop nagging. Don't do it for them. Stop fighting about it. Stop making up unrelated punishments. If they really won't do their work and get held back a grade it will be a lesson they'll remember and it won't kill them. The easiest way to make your point with anything is with natural consequences. She came back a couple of weeks later and told me she'd tried that, but that natural consequences don't work because they still weren't doing their assignments so she was still having to nag them. Sigh. I don't think I can explain it to her any better than I have.
So, am I wrong? Should you make sure your kids pass at all costs? Is getting a good grade in your file more important than learning? Am I just not understanding how school works these days? Personally I'd rather have my kids sitting on the couch all day staring into space than learning the lessons that my friend's kids are learning about what education means. I think it would be less harmful in the long run to be benignly ignorant than to be actively hostile to learning. Any thoughts?
(Note to anyone worried about it: My kids are not sitting on the couch all day staring into space ebign ignorant, I'm just saying *if* they were...)
