Monday, October 28, 2013

Seriously Walloped

The 4th grade New York common core curriculum is getting the better of me. for.real. Or it just may be my kid. You know the younger one - the one that leaves at least 2 books a day in her desk that she needs for homework or studying, or screams at me that I didn't teach her the 4th part of the water cycle and so now she got 5 points off her test. I thought we covered it with evaporation, condensation and precipitation (we even sang a song about it) Well we didn't cover ground water and that's what cost us (I mean her) the points. sigh. Being berated by a 10 year old on a daily basis over things I didn't help her with when we are spending H-O-U-R-S on certain nights (try Mon-Thurs of every week) trying to get through the work, is just so very draining. I saw one mother posted about it all with her kid and she said it seemed like it was her job now to actually "teach" her kid and the school's job to test the kid. I sort of agree but this kind of pisses me off. I am not a teacher. I do the best I can. Plus there is the other kid in the house and laundry and dinner (do I really have to feed them EVERY night?) It is all just a lot to fit in between 4:15 and 8:15 each night. So I do get that part of it is my kid and part of it is the work and part of it is her teacher, so since I can't really change any of the above I just get to bitch about it all here.

She also has no attention span - example - in the past few minutes when she was supposed to be writing her spelling words three times each (in a notebook that she left in her desk) she has also explained to me about where exactly her eye was hurting her all day at school and why she came home from school on the bus and skipped basketball practice, if I knew about the gymnastics 7 when I was a kid (some sort of you tube phenomenon), who is more flexible - gymnasts or dancers. Yup and that was just to get through spelling words... To keep her focused on one thing at a time is near impossible. And she came home screaming and crying about hating school today. I feel like I am a cheerleader for learning these days and it is not so fun. I have to pep myself up and convince myself that I can do it, I can get through another afternoon of it. And this education isn't even free. We are choosing to pay for it. I know public school kids are struggling as well, but right now I need to sit down and strongly think about the education choices we have made and if they are still working for us as a family. Especially after romp and penetrate were two of her vocab words this week. What are we teaching these kids, and this is a Catholic school. Seriously...