homework | Running With Books

So the new school year has started (Hello Second Grade!) and along with it, homework. Every night. Homework. And it’s really no big deal, this homework. Except… EVERYDAY MATH. It’s a math curriculum that was supposedly developed by the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project. From what I can tell, the University of Chicago is a place where they apparently don’t know shit about math, or how normal people use math in everyday situations.

Case in point, my son’s most recent math homework: a review test to cover the topics that he learned in EVERYDAY MATH back in First Grade. Topics like telling time, and using hatch marks to count, and filling out number grids, and counting by 2’s and by 5’s, a little bit about money, and simple addition and subtraction.

Here’s the rub. The simple addition and subtraction problems? Each one is accompanied by a drawing of a domino with a corresponding number of dots on it. So 5 + 3 = fill in the blank, has a picture of a domino with 8 dots on it. Too dumb to memorize or add in your head or count on your fingers, well, search your house for a domino and add up the dots to get your answer. Because, yeah, that’s how normal people do math everyday, right? Calculator’s be damned! But if you can’t find a domino, don’t worry, your math test will have a picture of one on it and you can simply count the dots to get your answer.

When I was in school, they didn’t put the answer right on the test like that. If they did, that would have probably been called CHEATING.

But perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe that’s how you do your taxes every year? You swipe your child’s train game domino set and start counting the dots while they are wailing in the background about the unfairness of it all?

I say this: you want to teach a child real math? Math they can use? Math they can use every day? Teach them to count on their fingers or give them a calculator. Both are easier and more portable than a set of dominoes. Did they not sell calculators in Chicago when they developed this program? Had the creators of the program lost their fingers in some grisly accident? If so, how did they pick up their dominoes?

And the number grids? They look like a chunk removed from a blank crossword puzzle, with one number filled in somewhere along all the empty boxes. Somehow, don’t ask ME how, my son knows that you fill in the horizontal boxes by increasing the numbers by 2 or 5 or something, and the vertical boxes by increasing or decreasing the numbers by 1 or something. Or maybe I’ve got it reversed. Or totally wrong. I don’t do this everyday, so what do I know? I just know that NEVER IN MY LIFE have I been told to fill out a funky grid like that.

A giant plain number grid that looks like empty graph paper is to be filled in by columns, rather than rows. It teaches the children to look for patterns. I contend it’s far easier to count by ones and just go ahead and write: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12…. My son insists THAT TAKES TOO LONG, and instead spends precious minutes (hurry up and finish your homework it’s dinner time and then you’ve got swimming practice!) calculating the number directly under each number. So the number under 10 will be 20, and directly under that will be 30. The number under 8 will be 18, then 28, and so on and so forth until he’s filled out each column. OMG THE INSANITY! My friend’s son, who also contends it takes too long to count by ones, fills out each square several times. If the number grid goes from 100 to 199, he writes a 1 in each square, then goes back and writes the 2nd digit in each square, and then finally gets around to writing the 3rd digit in each square. To that I say, what the hell? and how is that faster?

Oddly enough, they seem to be teaching the children how to tell time on a clock the normal way, by looking at the hands of the clock. I’m not sure why they aren’t using sundials or a pendulum clock for this exercise, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.

And money? They’ve taught the kids to represent money by drawing circles with letters in them. A penny is represented on paper with a circle with a P in it. Or sometimes, just the letter P. A dime, a circle with a D in it, or sometimes, just the letter D. Learn this, because if it’s truly EVERYDAY MATH, then I suspect the next time you venture into a Walmart, that little smiley face on the blue sign is going to tell you that the dominoes you’ve come to purchase to help you with your child’s math homework cost QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQDDPPPP, and not $7.99 as you’ve come to expect.

The instructions were as follows:

Examples were provided:

I read the instructions and went over the examples with Snags. We made a list of things he might want to include in his picture dictionary. The list contained items like: penguins, turtles, our dog, Luke Skywalker, soccer.

Confident that Snags understood what he was supposed to do, I left him with pencils and crayons and scissors and glue and I turned to the stove to get dinner underway.

It wasn’t long before I heard Snags call, “I’m done!”

I went to check.

This is what I found:

It seems that instead of a picture dictionary, Snags had created a Movie Guide to Star Wars.

Yes, that is my handwriting above each character. I wrote their names because:

a. the instructions said I could help

b. I didn’t feel like spelling each name out one letter at a time while Snags wrote them down, and

c. Dinner was still cooking on the stove

Here are some close-ups:

I don’t recall a scene in Star Wars where they eat cake. Perhaps Jabba the Hutt served cake at one of his odd parties? Or maybe cake just made it onto the page because Snags was doing this homework assignment on his birthday.

His teacher hasn’t seen it yet. It’s due tomorrow.

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Author’s note: This post would not have been possible without the help I recieved from the wonderful Jo at Jo Beaufoix. She told me how to insert photos into my post without breaking my sidebar. Thanks, Jo!