(no subject)

[shadesong]

And what gets me more than anything about the homework is that this kid is freaking brilliant, she's just lazy. Okay. Her spelling words: planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, universe, galaxy, constellation, solar system, darkness, particles, solid, liquid, vapor, temperature. And she knows these words. She can spell 'em, she knows the order of the planets, she told me - in a nonwhiny moment - how Neptune and Pluto are gradually shifting position to Neptune will be farther out. She just doesn't wanna do the work. I mean, I can understand the protest if she really isn't capable, but she *is*.


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Comments

[azurelunatic]

What might work, since I was there before: try telling her that she has to get used to doing boring homework now with this stuff because she already knows it, that way, when she runs into something she doesn't know already, she'll know how to do the homework. For the rest of the class, who may or may not be as smart as she is, the homework is for learning the planets, et cetera. For her, the homework is for learning how to sit down and do homework, practicing it, and she actually has to do about half as much work as the rest of the class.

I was there; I did my homework only under protest, and I'm bleeding out my eyes in college now.

[branwynelf.livejournal.com]

But the fact she's bright, can do it, and knows she can do it, is exactly why she doesn't want to. It's easy, it's boring, and kids just can't understand the need for repetition. Nor, apparently, the concept of "just do it and get it done and then have the rest of the evening free and easy."

I so understand and sympathize, 'song.

Two more days, school starts here, and I'll be starting down the same path. Trust me on this.

[azurelunatic]

Which is why I'm back in college and studying my ass off. It would have been so easy to learn this back in high school; I wish someone had had the right words to explain it to me in a way that would seriously sink in.

[dorei.livejournal.com]

Institute a point system. Assign a certain number of points to each task you want her to complete, whether it be homework, or chores, or whatever. Create a rewards list. Assign points to the rewards. Let her earn those privileges by doing her homework, making her bed, cleaning the living room, etc., etc.

[yendi]

We actually had one last year (before she went down to be with her grandparents for the summer), and are planning on reinstituting it after Dragoncon.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

We did the point system last year... it half-worked. She worked it out so she could get away with not doing things she was supposed to and earning the points she lost back in ways that she considered fun.

Re:

[dorei.livejournal.com]

Then you also institute a point system in which she loses points for NOT doing things. Also make the "fun" things be only 1 point, and the miserable icky things be like 10 points.

[two-star.livejournal.com]

I totally sympathise with Elayna, since that's how I felt about homework when I was younger. I remember one thing that I did that worked. I was in middle school, taking what I felt was a completely worthless class in Georgia government, and was being given homework problems that obviously wanted verbatim regurgitation from the textbook. And worst of all, we were forced to copy the homework questions from the book as well.

So to show how pointless I thought the excercise was, I traced the questions and answers from the book. And when I started getting bored with that, I began turning the paper as I traced, making curlicues with the questions and answers, and then I made a maze in the shape of a tree.

I don't think my solution is necessarily applicable here, but perhaps you could find some way to make it a challenge for her. Perhaps you could get her a calligraphy pen, and make it about the calligraphy and not the spelling. I dunno.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Oooh, she hates writing cursive. But maybe with a calligraphy pen...

And I wouldn't be upset if she was doing something that used her brain, like you were. She's just sitting there and whining.

[two-star.livejournal.com]

Oh, and by the way, Elayna is full of it; Pluto is currently moving away from the sun and returned to the status of being the farthest planet in 1999.

[whitecrow0.livejournal.com]

My layman's understanding was that Pluto has a more elliptical or possibly irregular orbit and does, on occasion, fall inside Neptune's. (I love astronomy but my subscription to Sky & Telescope lapsed in about 1993... )

[two-star.livejournal.com]

yeah. Pluto's orbit is more elliptical, and its most recent period of being inside Neptune's orbit just ended. (I suspect that perhaps Elayna was reading a 30 year old book, written when Pluto was still getting closer.)

I used to be a member of the Planetary Society, for their bimonthly magazine. Neat stuff, but they had a few pet projects that they talked about over and over again.

[bellacrow.livejournal.com]

you asked her why she doesnt want to? you told her that this doesnt go away, she has to find someway of dealing with homework for the next decade at the very least.

[sogi.livejournal.com]

you know she probably feels just how i did. it was far too easy and not worth my time to do practice work on things i already knew..... though i can't say that benefitted my grades any but i can see why she wouldn't want to do it..... i used to read my text books in the first week of school and then never open them again........ and then when i was given homework about something ridiculous that i didn't need to research i just didn't do it. do they have some kind of advanced placement program you can get her in?..... if this makes little sense i'm sorry. i'm tired right now.