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High School Teacher Makes Parents do the Same Homework as their Child
The parents of Damion Frye's ninth-grade students are spending their evenings this fall doing something they thought they had left behind long ago: homework.
So far, Mr. Frye, an English teacher at Montclair High School, has asked the parents to read and comment on a Franz Kafka story, Section 1 of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" and a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Their newest assignment is a poem by Saul Williams, a poet, musician and rapper who lives in Los Angeles. The ninth graders complete their assignments during class; the parents are supposed to write their responses on a blog Mr. Frye started online.
If the parents do not comply, Mr. Frye tells them, their child's grade may suffer - a threat on which he has made good only once in the three years he has been making such assignments.
The point, he said, is to keep parents involved in their children's ' education well into high school. Studies have shown that parental involvement improves the quality of the education a student receives, but teenagers seldom invite that involvement. So, Mr. Frye said, he decided to help out.
"Parents complain about never getting to see their kids' work," he said. "Now they have to."
Some parents, he added, seem happy to revisit their high school years.
"There was one parent last year who would write pages and pages of stuff. It was great, so good to read," said Mr. Frye, who graduated from Montclair High in 1994.
Others are more resistant. "When my daughter told me about the homework, I looked at her and said,
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Posted in: News on October 8, 2007 @ 12:00 AM
Tags: School
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that's not really fair. some parents' may like it, but many of them have finished suffering school and to make them relive it is profoundly cruel.
not only that, but why should a busy parent have to worry about doing busywork because they know that their child's grade will suffer if they don't do it? that's absolutely ridiculous!
I like it. If they're going to force us to suffer in misery they're forcing them to suffer in misery.
Haha, they deserve that.
This is just stupid and unfair to both parents and children whose parents won't do the homework. As for getting involved, why not have the parents do something WITH the children, instead of just the same thing? Like homeschooling (hint, hint) or something. On the bright side, maybe they'll see the whole uselessness of the system this way (they mean well). Let's hope so...
mwa ha ha ha!!! if we have to suffer the evil than were draging them down with us YES!!!!!!!!!!
although it would be better if neither had to do homework because that wpuld be best