Ian hates homework. So what's new? Every kid since the first report card was chiseled into a stone tablet and dragged home has hated homework. I hate it, too.
He probably wouldn't hate it so much if the assignments were of interest to him. But life is unfair, and I am the Queen of Perpetual Unfairness. It is my job to make certain Ian has no fun in life whatsoever by requiring him to complete homework before there can be any laughter in his day.
The latest assignment that has him blowing a gasket every time I mention it is this week's reading topic - Farming Long Ago. All he has to do is write 5 facts he learned from the very short booklet. He is stuck in the abyss of self-pity and has not absorbed any facts, according to him. When we discuss farming, he is able to recall a few tidbits, but these he does not consider to be adequate for the requirements of the task.
After 20 minutes of arguing about whether he should have to do the assignment at all, we took a break to eat a light dinner. The kids chose mac-n-cheese, which they made mostly by themselves in the microwave. While they were eating, I asked Ian if people in the book had microwaves to make mac-n-cheese.
"No," he said in a well-duh tone.
"Where did their food come from?" I inquired.
"I don't know," he mumbled.
"Do you know where our food comes from?" I queried.
"No," he repeated automatically.
"Well, then, this is a good time to find out," I said with a little excitement. We opened my laptop to cruise the internet.
"They didn't have computers back then," he added.
"You're right! They didn't have computers. But we do, and that is how I get all of our meat!" I said as I loaded the website that was to help me teach this lesson.
For the next few minutes I explained how many people still own farms and ranches that raise healthy food for us to eat. My cousin is a rancher, and we buy our meat from him over the internet, and he ships it to us from Colorado. Then I showed him pictures of the meat packing plant. He was a little surprised to see huge sides of beef hanging from hooks in a freezer.
"It kinda looks like fish," he said.
"Well, it's really more like cows than fish, but I think you have the right idea," I explained.
He seemed to be enjoying our discussion about how food reaches our table until I brought the discussion back around to what it had to do with the assignment from hell. He totally flipped out, stomped out of the room, and ranted about how unfair it is to have to answer questions and do homework. He tried to hook up with his Nintendo to block out the evil school thoughts, but I made him hand it to me. Remember - I am the Queen of Perpetual Unfairness, and it is my job to make him as miserable as possible.
I gave him a few minutes to find a happy place while I put the dishes away. It wasn't long before I heard Lego Star Wars music wafting down from the play room. In about 3.2 minutes, everything Ian holds dear (his computer and his Nintendo) were taken away from him. They will be returned when he finishes his homework or when it snows 6 inches in Texas, whichever comes first.
One fact that is very apparent to me: Ian would have starved if he'd lived on a farm long ago.
1 comment:
Perhaps you can find a way to link the assignment to one of Ian's special interests? School assignments are usually so proscribed that it's really hard to do that. But, say, computers - maybe you can ask him when computers were invented, and lead into what kids did without them, and how people and factories worked without computer control, that sort of thing.
I dunno - but it might be worth a try.
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