How to Kill Your Teaching Career

We want our kids to learn the basics of English- spelling, grammar, punctuation – all that “boring” stuff.  All the more better if the teacher comes up with an interesting way to involve those lessons, more than a worksheet with “circle the noun, underline the verbs” instructions, the way I learned it way back in the ink-smelling copies and pencil days of school.  And for an English class, you’d think there would be a lot of options, whether an essay about a book that the class is reading or a creative writing topic. What you don’t expect is for your kid to be doing their homework and ask “mom, what do you think I could get a hold of easier, a machete or a gun?”

Square + Triangle = ?

"Ask your mother to look at your homework."

This is my husband's statement to my daughter as I walk in the door.  What?  Surely, my college-educated husband could help my kid with her homework. What was he up to?

My daughter hands me her homework.  "How do you do this problem?"

If 3 squares = 2 triangles.... yes, this is 2nd grade homework. 

Simple: If 3X = 2Y, X + Y = 10, and Z - Y = 6, solve for X, Y, and Z.  But oh, yeah, this was my 2nd grader and she hasn't learned algebra with multiple equations yet.

Aside from calling her teacher or classmates' parents and asking "what the?" I was a bit stumped. My husband had decided to defer to all my teaching and PTA experience to explain to my 8-year old how to solve for square, triangle, and circle without using algebraic equations. My middle-schoolers looked over my shoulder and the 4th grader asked "how's a square and a triangle supposed to equal 10?"

So this is "common core"? Wow. I'm all for curriculum that pushes kids to think and moves them a little bit past their comfort zone. Really, I am.  And something like this example is good for developing their problem solving skills. And as it turned out, makes for an intellectual family activity, as well.  My only complaint, if you will, is I need a workbook or textbook or hand-out of some sort that says "this is what we taught your kid today on how to do this thing" so that we can be consistent at home because I truly was about to teach her about solving for a variable, for which I'm sure I'd get a frowny face from the math teacher.

Our solution: we made a list of square + square + square and triangle + triangle, assuming square and triangle were less than 10 (this is 2nd grade, afterall).  With the equations that "matched", we added square + triangle to figure out which equaled 10 (the second equation) and then - here was the next hard part - had to figure out what minus triangle left you with 6, without, again, resorting to algebraic equations.

Yeah. So this is why moms drink after their kids go to bed.

Another "Family Heritage" Project

Four kids = at least 8 "family heritage" projects so far.

And sorry to say, because maybe it's not a good mom statement or "cultural"person statement, but I kinda get tired of doing them.  I know that they are supposed to celebrate diversity and recognize different heritages and all those wonderful, world-wide lessons.  I'd like to have my kids scribble Langston Hughes' "Theme for English B" on the poster board and recite it, but I don't think that would be acceptable.

The roofline of a Korean palace - I love the colors and design.

My son is working on his now.  There's questions like "what country is your family from", "who in your family is an immigrant," "how did they immigrate here,""what language does your family speak," "describe what do you do to celebrate your heritage," "describe the holidays and dress of your heritage."  As a family with mixed heritage, my kids have a couple of options.  My kids select the Korean family lineage for these projects, because that's more in line with the goals than a poster about North Carolina. (We won't even discuss the incident in which the teacher suggested my child choose some African country instead.)

My kids are partly 2nd generation Americanized-Korean.  As infants, they had 100 Day celebrations and a big first birthday, my mother does cook special foods on New Year's Day, and we regularly eat Korean food.  Do you see a theme?  Our Korean-ness is mostly about food.  The kids don't speak the language, I do only at a basic level, and we don't really celebrate any special occasions. My mother does recognize days such as the lunar new year and the birth or death days of her family members, but the kids rarely do.

The direct immigrant questions are easy.  Annually, they discuss whether I actually am an American citizen or not and can I run for President.  Yes and yes and no, you can't see my birth certificate.  For language, they write "English" although that doesn't answer the point of the question.  They only know basic commands in Korean, "come eat," "come here," "stop talking," "go to sleep" - the essentials of a childhood, so they can't honestly say we speak Korean.

To the other questions, they write answers like "we celebrate Christmas and Easter," because we do, but as I explain to them, that's not because we're Korean, that's because we're Christian.  How about "we eat black-eyed peas and rice on new year's day - with mandoo (dumplings) and rice cake soup"?  That's a more accurate picture of who we are, yeah, write that.

A bowl of Korean rice cake and mandoo soup.

Granted, part of my tiredness of this project isn't the project itself. It's being asked the question, "so, what are you" for over 30 years. I'm proud of my heritage, no doubt, but sometimes I get tired of being asked by random strangers (and yes, I do get asked by random strangers). "No, where are you really from?" "Oh, where is that?" "What do they speak there?" "Say something." Yeah, I love my Korean self, I just get tired of the interrogations.

But for all that, as my son was working on his questions the other day, I realized the best part of the project. My kids sitting with their grandmother as she explains something only she can - her heritage. And no matter how many times she's gone over these same questions with each kid, she doesn't seem to get tired of telling them all about their distant ancestoral home.  And they don't get tired of listening.

To help, or not to help?

If nothing else, late night studying, fueled by Pepsi and potato chips, was a major component of my college career.  Even in high school, I stayed up late on occasion working on some special project.  As everything else, things are moving faster than when we were kids and last night, my middle schooler met the student experience known as the all-nighter - she was up until midnight finishing her 10-page thesis paper.

This paper has been a semester long project.  The class went to the university library to do research in primary sources and actual books (I was pleased that there were going to be more than websites listed as sources, as seems to be the new thing now).  They turned in notecards, outlines, and a rough draft.  And for the past couple of weeks, she's been walking around with the rough draft, working on revisions.  And as her mother, I've been teetering on the line as to how much help do I give her in editing this paper.  

I started off giving her a copy of Strunk & White' "Elements of Style".  And reviewed some general grammar rules, like "s" vs. apostrophe-s vs. s-apostrophe.  Suggested that she read her paper outloud to see if it made sense.  Reading the paper backwards didn't help.  I red-marked her pages and sent her back to the keyboard.  Sometime late into the evening, she had a moment of profound confusion and I had a good laugh when she listed "Iverson" as the mayor of Atlanta, in place of Ivan Allen (apparently her basketball mind took over her history brain).  We went back and forth, over coffee and lemonade, with apologies to the tree that gave its life for her English/World Studies grade.  I was glad to have made it through the night without tears, on her part or mine.

When its time for the solar system model or the science fair project, I send the kids straight to their dad.  When its essay time, he  asks "has your mother seen this?" Right now, we can flip a coin for math.  No matter the subject, its sometimes hard to figure out how much help should you give your child.  How much do you let them figure out on their own?  How big should the safety net be?  What's the lesson learned by letting them makes some mistakes?  How tight do you hold their hand and when do you let them go?

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