Sometimes I complain about my kids' homework, mostly when it astounds me how much earlier in their school careers they seem to be learning things, compared to when I went through the educational process. But so far I've been lucky, in that I still understand the material, and it hasn't gone over my head quite yet. Riley needs help figuring out the mean, median, mode, and range for a set of data? I'm there! Derek wants me to check his calculations using positive and negative numbers and exponents? No problem! (The one exception so far has been the dreaded Statistics--I will never understand those damn "Box-and-Whisker Plots" to save my life.) But every year we inch closer to the time when they're going to throw a question at me, and I'm going to stare at them blankly, trying desperately to come up with an answer because I have no idea what they're talking about.
For example, in Science class, Derek is involved in a unit called Sudden Impact, where they investigate forces such as speed, motion, friction, and gravity to see how they affect objects. Their final project will be to design and test a model-car-bumper that can withstand a significant impact when rolled down a ramp. Sounds absolutely fascinating, right? But the other day he brought home a question sheet he needed to fill out, related to--I'm not kidding--Newton's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Laws of Motion. Holy 6th-Grade-Engineers, Batman, that's nuts! Even worse, Riley recently wandered into Derek's room looking for a new leisure-time book to read, and picked up a series that Derek just finished. As he began skimming the first page to determine if it was appropriate for his comprehension level, he looked up and noted, "I wouldn't have known this word, if Mrs. C (his 3rd-grade teacher this year) hadn't already taught us about 'Narrative Arc'! You know: tension, climax, solution... " Oh, of course, honey, I ponder those things all the time! (Meanwhile, in my head, I'm protesting, "Dude! You're EIGHT! Knock it off with the NY Times Book Review vocabulary!) Later during soccer practice I heard him color-commentating while kicking a spare ball around with his buddies--"and Riley shoots, the tension builds, it's the climax, he SCORES!!!!" Well, at least he's an athletic nerdling...
So it turns out I was terribly naive in thinking that my days of organized, enforced learning were long over. ("But I already served my time," she says, whining!) If the first quarter of 3rd and 6th grade are any indication, this could very well be the tipping point, when I will have to commit myself to (gasp) studying along with my sons, so I can remain a useful resource in their academic pursuits. No one ever mentions, when discussing the joys and rewards of parenthood, that at some point there will be a return to the days of hitting the books at night, in order to keep pace with the young scholars. Now please excuse me, I have to go brush up on scientific notation and double-bar-graphs so I'm fully prepared for Homework Hour!
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