Update on homework discussion
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| Wed, 11-03-2004 - 2:46pm |
Bay- thanks for your advice on handling the issue. We did spend most of the conference talking about C's progress and how she was getting along with her new classmates (new school, new district).
Towards the end we talked about the Wordly Wise assignment. He said it was the first year he was trying it. His goal was to get the kids to think more and challenge them to use their analytical skills rather than to just assign busy work. I told him I admired his goals but questioned why he would choose a text that was meant for 6th grade.
Well, guess what. He didn't know it was a 6th grade level text! He asked me how I knew and told me he assumed it was a 3rd grade level text because it was book 3 of the series. I pointed him to the publisher's website where it tells you what book goes with what grade level and asked him to consider an alternative assignment for Christy. Needless to say, he was open to the idea. Christy won't be doing assignments from a 6th grade level text anymore.
I have to say, out of all the reasons I could have gotten from him as to why he was using a book meant for 6th graders, the last one I was expecting was that he didn't know it was for 6th graders. I am a bit disappointed about that, but otherwise, I think he has good ideas and this has been a lesson learned for all of us.

I am glad you were able to come to some kind of compromise and hopefully you won't have any problems like this in the future. Your daughter must be relieved too.
Hugs
Tara
He sent me a nice email this morning...
"Gabriella,
Thank you
>for the link and the heads up about book 1. You'll be pleased to hear
>that
>the night after our conference I went to the bookstore and found a more
>grade level appropriate Wordly Wise book. It is one level less than "Book
>1" It is level "C" and it is much better. We will be beginning this new
>book on Monday. Thank you for all you did to help me discover my mistake.
>Josh"
This has taught me that I can't just assume that he knows what he's doing and I have to keep my head up. He is very young and I'm thinking he is in his first couple of years of teaching, so he is learning from this too, I suppose.
I'll try to be easy on him. :)