Hilary Duff Struggles to Help Son With Homework as She Stopped "Real" School in 3rd Grade

[just444]

Hilary Duff Struggles to Help Son With Homework as She Stopped "Real" School in 3rd Grade https://t.co/xviueP5l2B
- E! News (@enews) October 20, 2019

source

Hilary posted on instagram about her troubles with helping son Luca with his 2nd grade homework

"This guy with his spirit and kindness. Homework is already no joke in 2nd grade. I stopped

Comments

[wormsinthedirt]

I've commented about this before but my parents never helped me with my homework. I might have asked them a question here and there, but they definitely never sat next to me. Now parents spend are expected to spend hours a night working on homework with their kids. No wonder everyone's so depressed and anxious.

If I have kids I'll either homeschool them or send them to some kinds hippie school. I don't have time for this shit lol.

[screamingintune]

Now parents spend are expected to spend hours a night working on homework with their kids.

hours? At what age level/location/type of school? My niece and nephews don't ever seem to have an unreasonable amount of homework and they span from elementary to high school. Are you referring to elite private schools?

[wormsinthedirt]

I'm thinking of parents of public school kids. But it's not just anecdotal, parents spend way more time caring for their kids than they used to: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/25/upshot/the-relentlessness-of-modern-parenting.html

I don't feel like rereading the article to confirm the stat but I think working moms spend more time with their kids now than stay at home moms did decades ago.

[emptyobsidian]

Yes and some of the homework is designed to involve the parents. Which, on one hand, I get. Like, I get the motivation behind it.
But then my nephews had homework that basically said "get your mom and dad and..." (which, already sets me off) and then its something that would take hours to do and walk through with a kid that my SIL or brother have to do after working a full day and then also making dinner...
Its a LOT.

[wormsinthedirt]

also if the work depends on the parents, wtf are kids supposed to do whose parents work nights, or are sick, or just don't give a shit?

[emptyobsidian]

It definitely disadvantages children who do not have a stay at home parent of some sort or the type of parent who wants to help.

[syvlie0o0]

I understand them wanting to involve parents. I feel like the biggest problem isn’t necessarily funding, but that some parents truly do not give any shits about their child’s education whatsoever.

[emptyobsidian]

Some don't give a shit, but there are also others that may work nights and not have like, 2 hours in the evening to work on a worksheet with their kid. I feel like policies like this inherently disadvantage children who do not have a stay at home parent of some sort or even disadvantages caring parents who are a single parent household or work outside normal hours.

[thelxienoe]

I volunteer at a public school and used to run the after-school program for our class one or two days a week. They easily have hours of homework at 3rd and 4th grade, depending on their ability level (to remember and apply) and maturity level (to be still and get it done).

I’d imagine an elite private school has this problem as well, but has more resources like tutors. Or the teachers are paid so well that they feel okay volunteering extra time during after-school hours if a kid stops in with a question, which is also a behavior they have to develop and remember to consistently use. I’m sure private school kids are told more often by their parents to ask questions bc some of our students who had gone to private schools are the ones that ask for clarification on homework all the time.

[prosopopeya]

Bizarrely enough, that's not true of all private schools. I teach at a college preparatory high school, and I get paid less than public school teachers and am expected to be available before/after school, and during my prep time, and I should attend our sporting events, etc. I think the difference is most teachers at my school WANT to be available for our students as much as possible so we do it, but I'm learning so much about private schools. The great irony is that parents spend a lot of money to send their kids there, but the reality is that we don't have all the same resources as a public school, especially in re: kids with different needs, like learning disabilities.

The biggest difference is class size and face-to-face time with our students, which probably does help encourage them to come to us with questions or speak up, because we get so much time with them and we develop pretty good relationships.

[wormsinthedirt]

Yeah in my experience private schools are more chill. They don't need to teach to the test so there's a lot more flexibility.

[prosopopeya]

Oh definitely! I can tailor things exactly to my students' needs, and we can adjust the curriculum to what we see as most important. That's absolutely the best thing about it.

[thelxienoe]

Ah man that’s tough. It might just be because MN has a booming charter school system as well (no unions), but as far as I’ve seen, the pay and resource difference between public and private is huge. I do know about the disabilities issue though. A classmate of mine spent all this money getting her kids to private school only to find that they had no obligation to work with her son’s disability or even form an IEP.

[homicidalslayer]

See, I'm in Pennsylvania and my public school teachers had a strong union and were paid WAAAAY more than my private school teachers, but the public school contract required around 100 hours of after school involvement to bolster clubs and programs, IIRC.

Your state needs to scrap all school voucher programs and reinvest in its public school system.

[thelxienoe]

I’m not sure if we do vouchers in MN. We do have a really strong charter school presence in the Twin Cities, but they’re technically public. I used to focus specifically institutional sociology in education, but a lot of the specifics now escape me. I just know that (as you seem to know off the bat, lol), the union isn’t strong publicly and doesn’t even exist in charters. Though I’m still kind of biased towards charter schools because I graduated from one (which was created as a sister school to a public school/within a public school district) and have worked (now volunteer) within a great one. The students are beating statistical odds predicted by their demographics. And they’re all such good kids

[green_monsterx]

I went to a (very good) public high school and I had 4 hours of homework a night in HS. Starting junior year, we did college classes, too, and that also piled onto the work load.