I am just going to launch straight away into this month’s rant. I wanna know, exactly when I am finally going to be free from homework? I mean sheesh, I have been doing it since third grade and I am wondering if it will ever end? OK, the work stuff can be new ground and generally quite appealing to research as it is of professional interest but come on…long division? correct use of prepositions, adjectives and metaphors? conjugating French verbs? For crying out loud, I didn’t conjugate French verbs when I was in school. To be fair, I will say that thankfully, my kids seem to manage with the grammar from both languages mainly on their own but OMG! OK it’s math, just math homework I am sick of. How many times in my life will I have to go over carrying, decimal placement, how to convert a fraction to a decimal and vice versa and calculating the slope of a line and polynomial equations and all the endless formulae that I was expected to memorize but now is provided at the top of every quiz.
I guess I am thankful that I had a great math teacher as I actually managed to learn it and retain how to do it…my kids have not been so fortunate and so I find myself year after year going over the same math problems and trying with every fibre of my being not to lose my mind on the child in question when they stare blankly at me with the ever popular, ‘I don’t get it’, that is the culmination of my 20 minute explanation about ‘order of operation’. I have hired tutors, enrolled them in VSB Summer school, math camp, math club, math workbooks and Kumon, to no avail. I really must just let it go and admit defeat. I am not so confident in my ability that I consider this a personal failing as a parent, there are many things that I am just not skilled at; reading the French bulletins from school, poaching eggs and checking the oil in my car come to mind immediately, I own that. Teaching math is just another line item on that list.
I guess some things are just easier to let go than others. Especially since, as a result of my inability to tutor them in math, now I am often their personal calculator when they wonder how much is 73% off this cute top for $25 and do they have enough money or, if they make $10/hr babysitting, how many gigs do they need to pay for a ticket to an Ed Sheeran concert or how many hours at 10 km/hour will it take me to run away from their endless questions….oh wait, that one’s mine.
Better brush up on your math, it is certainly a skill that keeps on giving…or taking away, just be sure to do everything in brackets first.