Sleeping All Day.
My dad would accuse me of thinking it was my birthday or something, and it isn't but I still slept the day away as if it was. I wasn't alone, my lazy dogs were right there with me zonked out and sleeping like the lazy pigs we are today.
It was nice though, and really I had some very entertaining dreams. Dreams that kept on coming as I hit the snooze button on my alarm every ten minutes for an hour. I thought I would only sleep 4o minutes, but I kept on sleeping until I finally realized I had better get up and get something productive done.
I guess I can't complain about all the things I didn't get done today, my day off, but I will spend the rest of the day trying to catch up. What's the difference? I am always trying to catch up. It takes hours and hours of reading and note taking to keep up with my one class and the tests are still next to impossible to pass.
This semester is almost over, and there is no one more thankful about that than me. I am just glad my math class is fairly easy, I have had to devote so much time to the other class, I barely have time to do my math homework. Which makes me incredibly thankful for the brilliant math teachers I had in high school, it is on that basis alone that I have achieved A's on all of my math tests. Actually, my current math teacher is wonderful, I enjoy her teaching so much. Every time I go to class it is the same thing, I look at the material, feel completely clueless about it, then she explains it, and a flood of memories returns to me, and I am able to do the math with little or no problem at all.
The teacher told me I was a good student. She asked about what math classes I had taken. I told her this was my first math class in way too many years to count, and that I can't remember how to do any math at all until she shows us on the board. She laughs and says you must have had good teachers in high school, I agree that yes indeed I did. Sadly, there are people in my math class who have trouble with basic multiplication facts, they never learned them. I recall very specifically that I was forced to learn them by rote memorization in third grade.
That's the problem with schools these days, they don't force kids to learn anything by rote. I believe that. My math instructor and I discussed how kids are given just a bit of everything now in schools, but they become masters of nothing. You can't learn math doing a few problems a day, you've got to do at least 30 to master the problem.
Anyway, I've been thinking about homeschooling a lot lately. I am really considering it for next year. My sister in law is homeschooling their daughter, and she's doing quite well. I think it is time to take a giant, although scary leap with out own daughter. I found the most wonderful homeschooling website, I can't remember where, but I intend to sit down and follow the many links this lady has on her site. That's just one of the things I want to do this week.
I've got to take off and get the kiddo. Back later. Maybe. I've got a lot of studying to catch up on.
I would love to homeschool my kids, but I know full well neither I nor the hubby have the self-disciple for it. But, yeah, I remember learning my multiplication tables. I went to a small school where my grade was the largest ever and had to be split into two classes. In 5th grade we learned multiplication table through 12's and 2 or 3 times we had a "contest" of sorts, class against class on reciting the tables. I vaguely recall the whole thing coming down to a draw. :-) Anyway, I feel like I have to fight my daughter to learn to do math manually and quit using a calculator. The hubby is no help with that battle as he backs her up. FRUSTRATING. Ah, but maybe I can keep our son focused on non-calculator math. Heh, I say that as if I can manage a checkbook without a calculator and math was one of my best subjects. LOL
ReplyDeleteThat's another thing my current math teacher expressed concern about, children are being allowed to use calculators to do math in grade school. She said another trend is that kids are encouraged to learn math through discovery, sounds nice, but what it really means is if they don't "discover" it, well I guess that is just all right.
ReplyDeleteMost kids, especially those who have a difficult time with math are going to discover it is easier to not discover it at all. I don't know, but it seems much more difficult as a parent to encourage your child to learn these things when the school is not reinforcing that effort.
Remember the teachers that held kids accountable to the work? My daughter is in 5th grade. She has yet to come across one of those types of teachers.
The discipline thing is what has stopped me from homeschooling as well. My fear is that I will fail at the effort through lack of discipline. However, it has reached the point that I could not do worse than what she's got already. Well, it is something I have been thinking a lot about, but I have not made the decision as of yet.