Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [114]
Mr. Ickes (Melanie’s fourth-grade social studies teacher). I had a negative opinion [about him] from parents. They don’t like his teaching methods. They don’t like his gruffness. People didn’t like Ms. Hortense (Melanie’s third-grade teacher) a lot because she was very old-school and had not changed or adapted her teaching. Her classroom was very boring. There was nothing bright or exciting. Her bulletin boards were not exciting and not conducive to exciting kids about education. At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t one [of the parents who disliked Ms. Hortense] but Melanie would get a lot right on the paper, and the only thing acknowledged was what was wrong.
Ms. Handlon’s network also provides her with information about what steps other parents are taking as they try to resolve school-related problems, such as how to ensure that homework gets done correctly and on time. Her conversations with other mothers help her develop strategies for interacting with educators.
[Some of us mothers] were talking about the conferences that are coming up, and what points are going to be brought up, and what we are going to talk about. And the biggest concern I hear from parents is the amount of homework. It’s every night. It’s on weekends. It’s constant.
Despite her belief that Melanie’s teacher assigns too much homework, and her awareness that other parents are concerned about this issue, Ms. Handlon does not raise the topic of homework directly with any of the educators or administrators at the school. Instead, as the rest of this chapter describes, she tries to help Melanie herself, going over her daughter’s schoolwork with her at home, each afternoon.
CULTIVATING ACADEMIC SUCCESS:
INTERVENING AT HOME
In separate interviews, Mr. and Ms. Handlon each define homework as a major problem within the family. Ms. Handlon is frank and succinct: “Our biggest conflict is homework,” she tells the interviewer. Mr. Handlon focuses on the volume of homework the children face. He estimates that Melanie does “two to three hours [of homework] every night.” He describes the family routine this way:
That’s all we do with them at night is homework. They come home from school, get a snack, and they’ll start working on homework. And they’re still working on homework, and they’re still working on it when I get home. It’s entirely too much homework. I don’t think I did that much homework in college.
Ms. Handlon voices similar concerns during her interview, and she returns to the topic informally with a field-worker one afternoon as they sit in the family minivan, waiting to pick up Melanie after school,
[Melanie] worked on her homework [Sunday] for four hours with her father. From three until seven. I can’t believe that the teachers assign so much on the weekends. Don’t they have a life?
Neither Mr. nor Ms. Handlon seems to believe that all homework is bad and both appear to accept the view widely held among middle-class parents that children must do homework in order to succeed academically. What the Handlons object to is the quantity of work, the amount of their children’s time spent doing school assignments, the amount of their time given over to their children’s homework, and the useless nature of much of the work. These elements, alone and in combination, result in a further problem, namely the constant presence of tension and conflict in the home. Homework sets off painful, protracted battles. Ms. Handlon and Melanie appear to have different ideas about how much help with school-work Ms. Handlon should provide, in what areas, and in what ways.
Melanie contends that her homework often is too difficult for her to complete, even with help. Her mother seems to believe that Melanie needs to concentrate more. Especially in math, Ms. Handlon tries to help by taking Melanie step by step through each problem. Thus, even when the questions are not mentally challenging for Melanie, homework can be very time consuming for both mother and daughter. For assignments in which comprehension is also