<p>Teachers of Seniors often gear the class to start looking more and more like college classes- assign reading at the beginning of the week, quiz at the end, not checking homework, but being available to go over it if quiz grades are going down, that is why the homeworks starts to count less and less</p>
<p>My oldest Senior D has noticed that- I ask if she has much homework, and it always lot of reading and studying, and papers, but not much of the stuff we are used to.</p>
<p>What you can ask is if he needs any office supplies- a calendar, folders or anything </p>
<p>Sometimes in the car in the morning, especially if we are rushing out of the house, I take a second and say- everyone have everything? and sometimes, they say- hold on.....</p>
<p>its a gentle reminder about stuff in general without asking about homework specifically, and lately when I ask, they have forgotten less stuff because they see themselves what they forget about</p>
<p>I wonder if other parents have noticed the "evolution" of homework for seniors that I have</p>
<p>I hope this is of some encouragement to the OP: My oldest son was just like this in HS. Brilliant, but his grades truly did not reflect this because he quite often just did not turn in homework if he was not really interested in the class or if he did not remember to do so. </p>
<p>Fast forward a few years...he now teaches english literature in high school and I could not be more proud of him. Not long ago, he spoke about one of his students ("his kids", he calls them!!! :) ) and he said "He's really bright, but I am afraid he might be a bit of a lazy student." I just looked at my son and smiled, and my son smiled back. He knows EXACTLY how to talk to those kids and to get them motivated. As a teacher, he is careful NOT to assign extraneous homework....as long as his students manage their time well during class, they should have plenty of time to finish their work in class. They often have reading to do at home and, at times some writing, but never just "busy work". That is the stuff that drove him crazy as a young student. Now, as an educator, (and we were discussing this just last night) he reads research on the benefits of assigning homework. Please understand that I am reporting just a bit of a conversation, but he indicated that this most recent study indicates that homework for highschoolers (and I don't know what kind of assignments or what kind of classes this addresses...sorry) really only benefits a very small percentage of students any way...</p>
<p>My point: Hang in there. I believe your son will eventually find his way. He probably just needs to be in a situation that is a bit more "stimulating".... </p>
<p>Best to you!</p>
<p>I went through college just that way - blowing off HW and doing well on exams.</p>
<p>The problem is that I didn't develop the lasting skill sets from the classes. I.e., a year latter I wasn't able to apply those earlier skills in exam situations for the later courses.</p>
<p>Wow. Lots of great thoughts from everyone. After reading the posts I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to ask him if he does want me to help him, if so I will try to guide him towards some kind of real organizational resource (not sure yet what that is – but will figure it out). If he wants me to back off then I will do just that and let him manage himself with the understanding that this will prepare him for dealing with college life. Thanks again for all the responses.</p>