I hate 3rd grade homework!
Ugh, I hate homework in general. I hate it that Annika still needs assistance from me to complete her homework. I hate math words problems. I doubly hate math word problems with extraneous information. I triply hate math word problems that teach bad math. I also hate grammar homework. Yuck!
Example:
Suzy Buttface observed that in her school 236 students walked to school, 427 students rode their bikes, 523 were driven to school by their parents, and 879 students rode the bus. About how many more students rode the bus than walked or rode bikes to school? A) 100 B) 300 C) 500 D) 1000
First I had to try and get Annika to read the question carefully enough to realize that it was asking for Bus - (Walk+Bike) and to ignore the rest. Then I had to explain that even though 879-(236+427)=216, they really want you to figure out that 900-(200+400)=300. My mathematical mind thinks that an error of approximately 100 students is significant enough to make this an example of BAD MATH.
I think I'm still pissed at all of the elementary teachers who told me that you could never ever subtract a big number from a small number. I was almost 13 years old before I found out that the answer to 2-5 was -3, not "You can't do that.".
I also hate vague spelling homework that wants you to sort funky drawings of words that might be foot, spoon, moon, pulley, hood, cougar, etc. according to phonetic symbols that I have no clue what they're supposed to sound like and my dictionary is nowhere to be found. I can't even really sound out the differences because I don't know if my Texas tongue and ears work the same way as the official dictionary pronunciation. Not to mention that I'm really not sure what the hell words the drawings are really supposed to represent. Grammar was never my strength... I can write an A+ paper using outstanding vocabulary and sentence structure. However, I will never be able to tell you what the name of that structure is. I know what a noun is, I know what a verb is, I can usually divide a word into syllables... Beyond that I get confused.
I can't even blame the teacher... If she had her druthers the kids wouldn't have homework. The only time they ever do these silly workbook sheets is for homework, so it's up to me to explain it to Annika.
I hate homework.