Homework Blues
When I told my husband that I was thinking about giving my college students homework, he was aghast. "You won't be popular if you do that," he said. "And you'll lose your job." Well. So far I haven't assigned any homework, but here at home, I have to nag the six-year-olds to finish theirs. First graders have homework every day. Jio's pretty good about doing his, but then his homework is fun. Today he had to draw a picture of his family, something that he enjoyed. Lilia, on the other hand, has been doing homework for years now and the novelty wore off long ago. Over the past week when I tried to get her to do her homework, she punched me in the face, drew big Xes on her paper, and tore her homework prints in half. I didn't assign the homework, but I feel unpopular and ill-suited to the job.
posted by Gaijin Mama at 6:17 AM
4 Comments:
College is a reward for getting through school, and the vacation before real life?
Maybe I missed something, but are your children twins? What sort of homework is Lilia asked to do? I'd love to see Jio's homework. My daughter is in a Japanese/English immmersion program in 1st grade. It would be interesting to see the comparison.
I gave my Japanese college students homework; most of them did it, some never did, and I was given a lot of grief for wanting to fail them for not having done the work by the college somuka. I wound up being strongly advised to pass them regardless. It was kind of disheartening.
Yes, Tami, college is pretty much a vacation here.
And yes, my kids are twins. Lilia is deaf. She can communicate via sign language, but school instruction is pretty much in Japanese. Her homework is writing words in Japanese, a picture diary with a sentence or two, and math prints.
It's the opposite of how it is in the U.S., isn't it? Americans think kids should play and college students should work hard. I remember my (adult) ESL students from Japan and expected me to entertain rather than teach sometimes.
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