Wednesday, March 22, 2023

A diller, a dollar....

 Ah, but today was a disappointing day. One of the things that I have been much concerned about is that William never has homework. Never. Not one time in over 3 months. 

I found this suspicious. We discussed it many times and he always explained, "I get my school work done in Advisory." (That seems to be what we called 'study hall'.) There used to be a place where you could log into William's school information We used it all the time when we homeschooled, but I can no longer find it on the website. 

My youngest daughter kept saying, "You've got to figure that out. William is in the perfect situation right now. His school reports are going to his mother. You don't have access to that information. He's going to play that to his advantage." 

I looked. I tried to find that portal, and could not. It's not where it was when we were home schooling, anyway. I looked for it a couple times, talked to my daughter, tried to download a school app on my phone, but it turned out to be for weather alerts and cancellations. 

This morning, I got an e-mail from my oldest daughter. A teacher had e-mailed to say that William was five assignments behind in her class. 

As soon as I read the e-mail, I got the very sick feeling that this was merely the tip of the iceburg.

I got added to the school information. I discovered that what I was looking for is now called Home Access. His password had been changed since we homeschooled. 

I got in and had a look around. He is missing 8 assignments in math. The other classes had just a couple missing assignments, but at least in those, his grades were good. 

My heart sank. 

I sat down and wrote e-mails to all his teachers. We are all on the same page now. They all think he's a very nice boy. 

He is.

But he's a very nice boy who doesn't like school. 

Walking home from school, we had a very serious talk. He looked down, with very red cheeks.

He's got 4 assignments done on his laptop. One of his teachers is sending home some work tomorrow night. He's got a full weekend to get the math sorted out. He'll get it done. It's never been a situation that he can't do it. He just doesn't want to. 

Motivation is a lot easier than trying to help him understand something he can't comprehend. 


44 comments:

  1. William has learned a valuable lesson. You can't just not do stuff. You will be found out. He is lucky he has you.

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    1. I'm trying to accept that this is a time of great changes for him. He's a good kid. Navigating those changes are critically important.

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  2. You are awesome, Debbie! Good for you! William is very lucky that you are so resourceful. I would wonder about there not being homework too. I know my granddaughter has a LOT which she has to get done efficiently since she also has a lot of dance commitments at school and at studio.

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    1. I think that perhaps this is William's problem. He has become a bit 'unengaged' in life. We are doing our best to keep him actively involved in things beyond our four walls.

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  3. In Primary (elementary) school I rarely did any homework, the work was so easy I sailed through all exams. Then I got to High School ( we don't have the junior/senior divisions, it's all just High School) and boy did I suffer from a lack of study skills!

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    1. This! Learning how to learn is essential for smart kids who can just ‘get it done’ in the lower classes.

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    2. I think that is key. I was exactly the same way. I breezed through school. I read constantly. In sixth grade, my teacher was amazed that I was reading at a college level. So learning happened by osmosis really.

      Until I met algebra.

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    3. I loved to read - but Algebra took me Down, only got a C in Geometry. Had to take a remedial Pre-Algebra class in college in order to get my degree in English.

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  4. The real question is why he doesn't like school. It isn't a one size fits all situation really and in school you do have pressure to conform. Not everyone does or can learn in the same way. Teachers are under pressure too

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    1. Teachers are under huge pressure. William may need extra help with a subject or a lesson, but he has people to turn to outside the school setting. Simply deciding something is difficult is not the solution. Looking at something, deciding that it is difficult and asking for help is the solution.

      He is a pretty social fellow. School has been his only real social outlet for a long time. We are hopeful now that he is able to hang out with friends outside of a school setting, to go do activities, etc., he will be see school as a time to knuckle down and do what needs doing.

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    2. I hope so too. Often asking for help or even admitting that you need it is very hard

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  5. Poor William. I know how he feels, but it is important to have a good education.

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    1. School is a responsibility, and really, it's about making sure that he understands that his responsibilities are not optional. It is a requirement that he shoulder them. If he needs help, he needs to ask for help.

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  6. Well, at least you can now keep an eye on his progress to put your mind at ease. I bet he won't want to disappoint Grandma.

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    1. He is pretty embarrassed. This morning, he assured me that he WOULD be talking to his teachers. He assured me that he will work very hard.

      I hope so, but at this point, 'trust but verify'.

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  7. Do they ever ask him what he's interested in and expand on that? I loved writing essays.

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    1. He is a great little writer. He's a good artist. Unfortunately, there is math....

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  8. Hopefully, you and he are back on track now.

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    1. I have a feeling we are. I imagine that it is a bit of a relief too. I can't imagine what it felt like to have your grandparents asking about homework day after day, and 'covering', knowing that you were not being honest, hoping not to be caught. It had to be very uncomfortable. He is a good kid at heart, but he sometimes needs someone to hold him accountable, so to speak.

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  9. When we did virtual learning with the grandies during COVID, my daughter found out remotely the younger one was watching videos during Zoom times! Man, was she busted. We had them for 35 weeks during COVID, alternating weeks with my daughter. Good luck! Good research you did!

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    1. Well...it is a bit embarrassing that it took an e-mail from the teacher to kick things into high gear.

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  10. Ooh boy. Well, you got to the bottom of it and all of this shows that your intuition is spot on.

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    1. I never thought of it that way, but yes...I better start heeding that intuition.

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  11. I am glad you found out what was going on. Thank goodness he has you to help him get back on track.

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    1. Well, he was embarrassed. I tried very hard not to lecture. He's gotten himself into a pickle and now he has to get himself out.

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  12. Both of my girls' grades are reported on a weekly basis to my email account by class. That helps keep track of these sorts of things before they get quite so bad. Gone are the days when parents would only find out when they got the quarterly report card.

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    1. I like that (grand)parents have access to this information. When mine were in school, this sort of thing did not happen unless your kid got in trouble. Then you were sure to hear from the school. I heard from the school regularly until my son turned 18. It all stopped. I thought he had matured. Turned out the fart had walked into the office and changed his address of record to a po box conveniently rented for just this occasion. Because he was 18, he could do that. Unfortunately, I had no idea that he could do that.

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  13. As former teacher I've heard this story many times. As they say there's more than one way to skin a cat so kids will find other ways to get out of homework. On the other hand , I'm not a big supporter of homework.

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    1. He doesn't, as I understand it, get a lot of homework. They assign work and what they don't finish in class, they can work on in advisory. If it is not done in advisory, it becomes homework.

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  14. Well, I gotta say, I was William when I was a kid. I procrastinated and avoided homework as much as possible -- and I think we got more of it back then. Nowadays there seems to be some acknowledgement that homework doesn't always help students remember information, and some teachers don't give it or give less of it. (I thought you were going to say he really WASN'T getting homework, but I guess not!)

    We have "Advisory" too. I think in my day it was called Homeroom.

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  15. William is a lucky kiddo to have you looking out for him and keeping him on task. Kyle gets most of his work done in Advisory as well and hasn't had much homework since kindergarten. I think that will change once he hits high school. It has been a weird adjustment for me and Mrs. Shife that the school district we live in doesn't do homework.

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    1. When my oldest was a child, schools sent home an hour of homework starting in kindergarten. She hated it, and fought me on it. She's very smart. She reads constantly. But man, that girl did hate school. I am ever mindful of the mistakes I made pushing her and losing patience with her, trying to make certain that the mistakes that I made as an inexperienced mother do not rear their heads again now that I am a grandma.

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  16. Hopefully William has learned a valuable lesson from this. One of the things that kids learn in school is a sense of responsibility, your handling of this and his resulting embarrassment are a good sign. Well done.

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    1. I am hopeful. He's lost his beloved tablet until he gets this all sorted out, and that's a big blow.

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  17. At least you have got to where you can see this. Paris's school are "transitioning" from one app to another - so the app we can see, that last year would tell us when things are due - has nothing at all due, and the one that does isn't available for parents yet. Bonus is that you have a kid who sees the error of his ways and will knuckle down. That is a blessing. Jeanie

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    1. That kid can't do his overdue assignments because he 'forgot' his folder in his locker. He did write a paper and get it submitted.



      Tomorrow, his grandma will be picking him in the office. If he shows up in the office without that folder, he will be required to return to his locker and pick it up.

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  18. Ouch, this brings back memories of getting my kids to do their homework! For so many years…! Gahhh! They both are good and smart individuals now, thankfully, but I’m sure they gave me some extra gray hairs…😅Best wishes for you all- William will surely be fine with so many people loving him❤️

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  19. Ricki commenting above! And btw- I always thought homework was a little unfair- the kids are in schools for hours, and then they have to come home and watch for another hour or two? (Which means more work for parents too.. and we’d been up since at least 6am!!)

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    1. He really doesn't have much homework to do, as long as he keeps up with it. They have their lesson, they are given their assignments. They have time to work on it in class, and then they have an hour in advisory to work on it. It's only what's left over from that they bring home as 'homework'. Much different from when I was a kid.

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  20. Ouch! (I'm sure the mother's plate is full, but if she initially had access to the records, I'm surprised she hadn't learned about this sooner.) But, he's learned he can't fool the grandparents forever.
    It wasn't a school thing, and I now forget what my young son did that garnered being grounded for a week or so, but instead of just grounding him, I grounded his Nintendo video game too. I took it to my neighbor's house, so my son couldn't even find it anywhere in my small house. Might have to put William's games in "time out" until he's caught up with schoolwork. I bet the school has loaners for kid's who have lost their tablets.... Hang in there Grandma, he's lucky to have you. He just won't tell you for a few years.....Linda in Kansas

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  21. Hello! Just came across your blog and am enjoying reading it. :) My son had the same problem in school: he would do the schoolwork but refused to do homework. He figured if he was doing good IN school, why should he have to do homework? Which, honestly, I can't fault him for thinking. Thing is, though, that he turns out to have ADHD, which compounded the issue. Homework is boring, so he preferred to do other things. I did finally end up taking him out of school for homeschooling (actually more "unschooling" as it's called) at which he excelled. He learned about what he was interested in, and when he took the test to 'graduate', he was in the top 6% of his grade. Public schools really aren't set-up for everyone. Good luck with William!

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