Prompt #5

When I go to my school, one of the first things the math teacher does is to check for homework. I see her frustration because sometimes half of her class does the homework. The teacher has a system where children can earn little gifts at the end of the month, by completing a certain number of homework assignments. It seems that now it does not have a significant impact, because many students do not do their homework. Perhaps this system did impact students at first.

I try to talk with students to find out why they don’t complete their homework. In conversations one child told me that he takes care of his little sister after school, and another child told me that he does not do much after class because sometimes his parents are not home. My impression is that those children do not do their homework because they have to do things that shouldn't be doing as taking care of their little brothers and sisters. It might also be happening because some students' parents have to work a lot and do not have time for their children, or because parents do not know how to help their children.

To help increase the at-home study time, the math teacher has done workshops to teach parents multiplication facts and other math procedures; so that they can help their children. Unfortunately, there has been one workshop this year, and from seventy five parents only eight parents went to that workshop. This is unfortunate, because if parents do not make an effort to learn how to help their children, these children might not succeed by themselves in school and life.

I might face these types of challenges when teaching. If I do face those challenges, I believe I would try to learn more about students, why they do not do their homework, or why they do not seem encouraged by learning. Perhaps that would give me the answers to help those students. One of my tools is the language; I could communicate with the Latino parents and students in Spanish. As the math teacher did, I would try to get involved parents into their children's education. It could be difficult to do all those things due to the fact that a teacher can only do so much.     

Teaching videos

I thought that these videos were funny and/or interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmVOZ8WJKp4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HG5HqRW6Xw&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G1L-YpTXWs&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCN9zlrVgHk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvFNtoQS7Uk