<p>oldfort, the notion of my son “signing up” for something – a job, a future mate, a grade – didn’t (and doesn’t) make sense to me. As I mentioned, he signed up for a course, not for a particular grade.</p>
<p>marite,</p>
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<p>Indeed! How great to have such an excellent solution!</p>
<p>Owlice: I love this
And if it wouldn’t cause WWIII, I’d share it with S2. It totally explains the B in French IV.</p>
<p>The fact is that people who choose what they do and what they do not instead of just doing what is reguired, will eventually have problem at their employment place. There are exciting assignments, and there are documentation and status report and so forth. At work EVERYTHING needs to be done. If you are not used to push yourself to do those boring and seemingly not needed but required by your superiors or simply by company policy tasks, it might be a great shocker. It is better to get used to the facts of life and enjoy the rest of your experience, hopefully it is rewarding and fullfilling.</p>
<p>Depends on how much of the work is unnecessary busywork. I chose my career with the idea that it would be minimal. There is a lot of tedious work involved in my job, but it is purposeful and necessary. Unlike making a student do 50 problems when 20 would do just as well, or requiring students to decorate their essays.
When I was in high school, the punishment for infractions was either 10 laps around a huge courtyard or writing a Latin phrase 100 times.</p>
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<p>But doing the homework was not required for my son to learn the material. Just as someone who types 120 words per minute types a report in half the time it’d take someone who types 60 words per minute, my kid didn’t need to spend the time on the problems to learn the material. That freed up time for other things. A company wouldn’t dream of making the 120 WPM secretary take twice the time needed to type a report just because someone else types 60 WPM!</p>
<p>If you want to say that the point of taking precalc was to get an A, then sure, he didn’t do what was required for that, but getting an A is NOT the point of taking precalc – learning the material is, and that, he did.</p>
<p>“The fact is that people who choose what they do and what they do not instead of just doing what is reguired, will eventually have problem at their employment place.”</p>
<p>Which is why my husband started his own business (the first of five) when he was 22. Only once has he worked for a company he didn’t start… and that one recruited him for top management and gave him an assistant (and a department of 250 people) so that he could do the thinking, not the grunt work.</p>
<p>Employers want the people who work for them to bring in a profit; if letting someone else do the “required work” increases their profit, great.</p>
<p>What I meant that MD still have to deal with insurance or deal with person who is hired to dealt with insurance and engineer has to document becuase design will not be acceptable by customer without documentation or has to deal with person who is hired to document. It is inevitable, and it is required. And to get an “A”, student needs to complete assignments. boring or interesting, learning or not, otherwise points will be subtracted. There are different ways people deal with it, and not everybody has a goal of getting an “A”. There is nothing wrong, whatever people decided for themselves.</p>
<p>miami…your comments bring to mind something…
the middle school principal once made the comment to my s that he shouldn’t be frustrated with being in a mixed ability classroom…(they didn’t have honors classes). he further commented that it was good training for son if he became a manager someday…</p>
<p>WHAT? i can assure you that my h hit the roof on that one! we don’t send our kids to school to learn to be managers…that’s for business school ! </p>
<p>this is nothing more than middle schoolism gone wild !</p>
<p><a href=“http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.culture.african.american/2005-09/msg00522.html[/url]”>http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.culture.african.american/2005-09/msg00522.html</a></p>
<p>homework seems to be used as a great equalizer…allows the teacher with the mixed ability classroom…to bring up the grades of the students with lower proficiencies. more emphasis on how they complete the work rather than getting the correct answer. unbelievable !</p>
<p>Condor, that teacher was sadly lacking in logical thinking.
A manager has totally different responsibilities than the workers s/he manages. While workers may be required to perform tedious chores (though more and more of these chores are now performed by automated systems) the manager is not expected to perform these chores, though s/he would be expected to know how to perform them. But a manager should know far more than the limited skills needed to perform repetitive work.</p>
<p>One would expect the A student to aspire to be a manager, not a drone.</p>
<p>I do not care how it used and by whom. completing homework has worked for my D all thru 2 years of college and will continue working for her, she knows that. It worked for her everywhere outside of school / academics, like EC’s, job, volunteering, sorority board (she has declined President position because of time constraints of her daily schedule). She said that her sorority wanted her to be a president precisely because everybody knew that thatever task needed to be accomplished exciting, boring, easy, extremely challenging, will be completed by her in a best possible way and under deadline. This kind of people businesses are usually looking for. But everybody is different, and the way we operate thru our lives is different, everybody find their own way, there is nothing wrong with it.</p>
<p>Busywork is the 20th problem when the first one got the concept accross; busywork is the decorative mardi-gras mask in French class assigned the night before it was due when DS1 had other activities until 10pm and we just do not keep supplies for that type of project on hand in our home; busywork is hours in language lab to occupy the class; busywork is re-write of essays where DS1 knew the teacher would raise the grade just because he did something and so he chose not to do it because he either - a marginally better product was just that - not measurably better and to get the higher grade was a function of some effort not quality effort…</p>
<p>DS1 had his fair share of lapses this year - that is for sure. Sometimes, in the work world - one will be overwhelmed - one will have more to accomplish by deadline than one can ever do - and then one must cut to the chase of what is essential to learn, figure out, or do in order to complete quality work on time.</p>
<p>I think the trick is to help kids construct a life that reflects their strengths and desires, not ours.</p>
<p>My parents thought I was absolutely crazy to spend so much time on books and academics. I am an academic now, so it was the right approach for me.</p>
<p>My brother was a more “well-rounded” type with a less glossy resume. He had less stellar grades and less honors and accelerated classes. He played softball in our cul-de-sac every day. His sports skills are mediocre, but he “plays well with others” and is in a mangerial position in a non-profit and has some visibility on the national scene.</p>
<p>We both ended up exactly where our natures were best utilized.</p>
<p>If someone told me I had to go out and play softball to succeed I would not have been able to comply.</p>
<p>There is a problem if you have a kid who doesn’t want to do anything including seeing friends, taking a hike, reading a book, playing an instrument and is only interested in watching television. Then I’d worry.</p>
<p>But if a child is actively engaged in life in constructive activities s/he’s going to be able to construct some life that fits.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP;
Glad that your approach worked for your D. Our approach worked well for our S, and, apparently, for other posters’ kids. I’m also glad that your D seems to be a compliant kid, not given to complaining. Our S was making mischief (on a very small scale) out of boredom. Doing mindless tasks or class assignments that only occupied a fraction of his brain freed the rest to concoct various schemes for entertaining himself–and the class.</p>
<p>Her son is entirely off-base to say she shouldn’t contact his teachers. Unless he wants to be self-supporting and pay for college he is incredibly selfish to refuse to retake tests or do supplemental homework to raise his grades. His parents work hard for their money and they have every right to expect him to work hard at his “job” which is currently going to school and taking tests. If he wants to pay his own way then he can do whatever he wants when he hits 18 but he sounds like an very selfish and unappreciative brat.</p>
<p>I wonder how the boss of the OP’s son will feel when his work is “good enough” for his company or his client. Not the best way to get ahead in this world. I understand noone wants to do busywork but sometimes you have to do what is put in front of you.</p>
<p>This is actually giving me some ideas on interviewing questions.</p>
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<p>And sometimes, you don’t.</p>
<p>My son did not have to make vocabulary cards for Latin in order to learn the vocabulary. I thought it was a great assignment, making these index cards with nouns in one color, verbs in another, etc., and I fully understood why the teacher gave this assignment: she’s helping kids learn vocabulary by giving them different ways to learn. A lot of kids need such aids; I had to study vocabulary when I was taking French, and making vocabulary cards would have been an aid for me. </p>
<p>But some kids (mine, at least) don’t need such aids. I’ve never seen my kid study Latin, and he certainly has never studied vocabulary words. (I’m a little freaked out by this, BTW; who doesn’t need to study vocabulary when taking a language??!)</p>
<p>The ultimate point of the assignment was to learn the vocabulary, however. My kid didn’t do the cards, but did learn the vocabulary. He accomplished the goal in much less time than other kids, without what for him was busywork. That freed up his time to work on other things. </p>
<p>I’m sure an employer would just hate to have an employee do something in much less time than it takes other employees; guess I’d better make sure I have a basement apartment for my kid to live in when he’s out of school.</p>
<p>Owlice, sorry but you misinterpreted what I said. As an employer I would want an employee to do what work he is given. Sometimes the tasks are somewhat mundane, but they still have to be done. Just because it’s not interesting isn’t a reason not to put in the effort. In your example, if the employee finished it more quickly, all the better.</p>
<p>Certain employer do not like employees to take short cut even if it means it could be done faster. The reason is short cut may work once, and another time it could introduce careless mistake. It is especially the case when someone is overly confident of his ability. A careless mistake in some type of work could mean millions of $ loss for a firm. It is true in my line of work. At the same time, other type of work may very well appreciate someone taking risk and not always follow the rule. Depending on what a person is like, it is best to find the job to fit one’s personality. There is no need to be offended by what people are saying here.</p>
<p>In my line of work, if an employee could find a better/efficient way of doing something, I would want it to be approved and documented before he goes ahead with it. The reason is if something should go wrong, we would need know where to look to find the problem.</p>