Daughter goes to a school following the tenets of Montessori upto middle school, where till now we were all a pampered lot. By 'we' I mean both the kids and the parents. Everything taught was hands-on, and the school accomodated itself to the child's pace. Not complaining at all. A has learnt wonderfully well, and all of it stress-free, too.
So we love school. It suited us perfectly. A is a quick learner, and does a lot of original thinking. Except for one little hitch. We knew this at home already, but this year, for the first time, it featured BIG at her parent-teacher meetings. Every teacher we met came up with it. All of them praised her work as a student-"But, her work is very slow. She needs to speed up in writing, eating, etc. Other children are done with their work, but her work spills over into other classes. Result- she has to take the classwork home with homework. She loses out on free time and fun activities too."
The school follows the ICSE curriculum middle school onwards, and the workload has increased by leaps and bounds this year. The same kids who had never faced any tests (Sure they had quizzes and spelling-bees and such, but again, it was all stress free and not graded!) now had a line-up of weekly tests every term, all graded and counted for assessment. There were the competitive Olympiad tests to prepare for. We also have plenty of homework + classwork-to-be finished everyday, in at least two subjects.
It might not seem like a big deal to parents whose children have been handling the stuff from kindergarten level, and they'd be within their rights to scoff at my hyperventilating. For them, I'll say that consider someone who has never done any sort of regular physical training. Now consider that this person suddenly has to plunge into running 4-5 kms everyday, without taking it step by step. Result- Hair pulled out in clumps?! You get the point.
So. Homework. It has become our waterloo. An assignment that should take no more than half-an-hour to finish gets stretched over a good part of 2 hours. This is in no way due to not understanding what to do, or not knowing the stuff, or even inability to do things fast. On a day that she has a fun activity like a birthday party lined up in the evening, she does finish it at super speed. So- lack of motivation.
The teachers came up with a couple of interesting theories regarding this. It is simply because
(1) she feels she knows it anyway, so why does she have to do it all again? - an attitude that the teachers have recognised in her, and which they tell us is found in many children who come from a school background like theirs. The child's mind has to be reprogrammed to accomodate the demands of an ICSE curriculum, notwithstanding the fact that almost everything is being introduced to them through the montessori methods.
(2) she day-dreams a lot, and her mind is occupied by so many things that she finds infinitely more interesting, and which she is bursting to share with you. So she'll keep meandering off into some line of thought and tell you all about it, and get offended if you do not respond as enthusiastically, but try to bring her back to ground reality by reminding her of the work waiting for her.
Now almost all of this is very creative and very interesting, and about things that are of interest to me too. Case in point- something that she has seen that day triggers off an idea for a story. But as I have told her so many times that she needs to finish the work that she has to finish first. I agree with her that some of it is mindless- copywriting for 2nd /3rd languages for eg., but if you've got to do it, there is no option.
The other time-wasting problem we have on hand is eating. Subject for another post.
A is also one of those kids who needs longer sleep hours, a complete 10 hours at the least. So if we have to get up in the morning at 6 to be ready in time for the school bus, we have to be in bed by 8 pm. She also has dance and music lessons three weekdays after school. This is something that she herself has opted for, and is passionately interested in. We prefer to have these on weekdays, as the weekends can then be free to chill, at home or outside, without the additional hassle of having to hurry then. This leaves us with that much less time for homework and self-study on weekdays.
The whole of last year, everyday had become a battle. Not really between the two of us, (although it seemed that way often), but between the time available on hand and the time we actually took for something. It caused a lot of resentment, both for her as I was perceived as being pushy, and a nagging mother, (I can see it from her tween POV) and for me as the more I pushed, the more she resisted. And this was my turf, as the husband would be away at the office at that time, which made me the bad cop.
There had to be a way out of this catch-22 situation. Inspiration came in the form of this post by Sangi. I decided to adapt it to my needs. A had always been rewarded for something specific that she needed to do, but now needed an added impetus to do it. This time, I thought I will carry it a bit further, and set long term goals.
I worked out a system of points, under which she gets 1 point apiece for getting ready on time in the morning for school, eating her meals (breakfast and dinner on a school day, and lunch included on a holiday/weekend) and 2 points for finishing all her homework in the time I say it should take, after assessing it for the day. No carrying over homework to 'do it tomorrow.' And all this has to be done without my having to shout.
That adds up to 4 points /weekday and 3 points /weekend day.
Totalling to 26 points /week. If she gets all the points for the week - totalled on Sunday evening, she gets a bonus of 4 points.
That totals to 30 points per week.
Add up all points over a period of 3 months, and I will put in a rupee for every point, and she can buy anything she wants that is age-appropriate.
If she wants to save this money up, I'll add one rupee for every 10 that she saves.
Re-assess the situation and repeat the cycle over the next 3 months .
A has managed to get herself very excited over this system, and till now she shas stuck to it, 18 days into the new year. I hope she sticks it out long-term. Keep it going and it should be followed out of sheer habit. And hope to look at this experiment as our first step to a stress-free, relaxed approach to the increasing work as she grows up.
I'm keeping all my fingers and toes crossed. Praying that it works.
And Amy Chua can go take a hike!
10 comments:
My daughter is just like A in sleep and eating. Luckily for me, home work has been okay until now, but like you say, it's early days yet.
Son is the one who drags with homework, something that should take 10 takes an hour with whining, talking, 'why should I's, et al. And the lack of time so resonates. Our reading together or their just hanging out et al is so little and I feel bad about that.
Something my mom said to me (I must have driven her up the wall in so many ways!) when I was little is something that stayed in my mind - she said "it is the school books that taught you enough to be able to read story books like you do" and from then on, for me, it became almost a duty/gratitude thing.
Starry is an example of how charting has worked - and well! Hang in there, you are doing your best and anyone who meets A can tell that. She's got a joy in her that lights her up from within.
Hugs!
I face this with my elder girl, she loses out a lot on playing, because she eats so slowly in school, no matter how little she takes or how much she likes it. But things have improved mightily since I've started letting her serve herself, prepare as much of her own food as possible, and packs her own lunch and snacks (we check the box of course). You won't believe it, she still eats like a squirrel sometimes, but she's been taking seconds AND thirds several time, and speeded up her eating a lot!
I know, these sudden jumps in expectations are tough, my kids will start HW in fifth!! But Div gets the occasional Math and diagram/composition, maybe to get us used to the concept!! Definitely, I've had to be proactive, and sit down with her for half an hour at least every day, just for the habit, except, now it's all fun and casual.
The charting and points/stars/stickers really work. And you are right, for most kids, once they've been thru' a cycle, they kind of get into the habit. We had morning getting-ready charts for a while, after 2 months, they got used to hurrying up, and now are pretty self-propelled!
Good luck to A, and great going, you!
And I forgot to link to that Scietific American article...it makes sense, hard work and good 'habits' and attitudes just can't be dismissed! I hate admin work and paperwork, but they are so essential, but sometimes my disorganisation creates trouble, so I plan to focus on those skills a lot!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids
Echo Sangi: she has got a joy that lights up from within. You are blessed and so is she.
And, well, like I told you, she is considered a ‘walking-talking encyclopedia’ by her peers - so there!
And starry’s methods are worth writing a book about. or at least a blog :)
We have mealtime issues, too. Bigtime. Will post about them sometime. In the meantime, I think I should read up all of Starry's older posts, AND check out the Adele Faber books she mentions, to get more pointers.
I guess a lot of fault lies with me too. I was a slow child when I was her age- at writing at any rate, and she may be getting it from me. I also hate it when she dawdles, as the work and getting ready is all we manage to do, losing out on all the fun things we can do together- think of all the books we can read, discussions we can have, games we can play, activities we can do, places we can go, if only we can clear away the essentials quickly enough- and go ballistic- which perpetuates the vicious cycle of more resistance. I hope this new method pulls us both out of that.
And I know. I AM blessed to have her. I keep reminding myself about that. Will be surely depending upon you ladies to keep reminding me of it if I slip up!
I think I haven't blogged abt mealtime issues much, mainly becoz I blog abt stuff AFTER I'm sure we've resolved it :-D And while there's a good improvement in apetite, health and speed here, I will stay pessimistic before I blog it! Besides, it goes way deeper than I want to go on my blog, so will email you!
I am sure it will all work out well...with a mom like u and kiddo like A- it cannot be any other way
@Starry: I know what you mean. Even my blog is just 1-2% of my life. I try to write only about things that are positive. Superstition, and not so comfortable with sharing everything with the world as I'm not really THAT anonymous.:(
We need to have a talk sometime. I'm ceratainly in awe of your methods.
*certainly*
@Art: Thanks for the confidence. More that I feel right now.:)
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