(This is for the Slice of Life, a regular writing activity hosted by Two Writing Teachers.)
“So, ” he said, juggling a neon green soccer ball in his hand, “I got all my homework done.”
I nodded. “Excellent. Now you can spend the afternoon outside, right?”
“Yeah. I have a soccer game,” my sixth grader answered, and then asked: “Do you have homework?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Do teachers get homework? Like we get homework?”
I thought about the staff meeting I was going to with our new principal, where she would be handing out a pile of forms for teaching goals this year and for teacher evaluations. I’d have to fill those out. I thought about how I was going to a meeting after that meeting, with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project, and how I needed to create a plan of action for the year for our Technology Team. I thought about the stack of vocabulary quizzes sitting on my desk.
“Yeah. I’ve got homework,” I said, smiling at him. “Plenty.”
“Too bad for you,” he laughed, as the dismissal bell rang and he raced out to his bus, balancing the soccer ball in his hand, as I yelled out “have a great afternoon” and made my way back inside on a beautiful end-of-summer/start-of-fall afternoon, facing another four hours of meetings. And homework assignments.
Peace (in the share),
Kevin
Ha! Too bad for you! Perfect ending to a loaded list of things to do. We should talk about what you are doing with your tech team. Mine’s on hiatus. How to get it back…
Ha! Love this simple Slice – we definitely have homework, too. Sometimes I wish my dog would eat it…
Thank you for posting. I posted about my son’s reaction to the new “load” of homework in MS. I thought that I would share with him how I “organize my time” and “make a to-do list,” but thought that those lessons could come later on. It was just time for me to listen and help him see that it seemed worse than it was. And reward him heavily with some coding he was really hoping to do instead.
Kevin, as I sit at my computer preparing for the PD workshops I think about the homework educators have. I always love to hear your thoughts.
I invite you to take a look at the Summer Serenity Gallery at http://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2014/09/unveiling-of-summer-serenity-galley.html and then welcome you to find fall with me this autumn.
Yeah, we’ve got homework! And it’s looking at me right now – four bags of stuff to read, figure out, fill out. The kids, I think, have it easy.
I so agree with Tara…the kids have it easy!
Oh the Homework! My 4th grader will ask to sit with me so we can do ours together. Tonight he wanted to help me graph some data for grad school. 🙂 I love conversations like this. Thanks for sharing.