Not really very funny homework manifesto

Here are excerpts from the homework manifesto that I sent to V's teacher who was worried that he is not doing his homework or class work:

Thank you so much for the note, Mrs. G. Please forgive the length of this email. The topic is one that I am passionate about.

I really appreciate you taking the time to contact us when you have so many kids in your classroom . With regard to your concerns, I would like to provide some context to help you understand our family's approach to school. I also would like to work with you on how you can better engage V in the classroom.

Our family is just a little bit different and I want you to know that.

Vic comes from a line of stubborn contrarians. Never in our lives has a family member done what anyone has asked us to do (okay, we suffer a bit from hyperbole too). Homework is a classic example of how other people's good intentions absolutely do not work on the Bowen-Biggs clan. The only things that works for us is for us to find our passion and vigorously pursue it. Its amazing how this translates in school, once the connection has been made.

V is the third of my children who has never been forced to do homework. Let me tell you about his brother and sister and perhaps you will understand a bit better how we roll.

V's sister sailed through elementary and middle school without doing a lick of work. Social promotion and her ability to ace any test helped her end up in high school on time. She did not do homework, she did not complete classroom assignments, she did not turn in projects -- unless they interested her. Her eighth grade teacher despaired of P ever completing her freshman year, much less high school. She finished with mediocre or poor grades in all subjects, save for math. I tried to get P to do homework later on in her middle-school career but it made us both so miserable that I signed her up for Karate instead.

With that in mind, I'll admit that I was worried how she would do in high school. I'm happy to report [blah blah blah boring braggy mom stuff . . . ]

P discovered that she had a passion for science and math and that completing her homework actually made her more interested in the subjects. She discovered that the more work she did the more she engaged. P's internal motivation is to learn absolutely as much as possible and tapping into that has made it easier for her to complete any assignments that come her way. She has not had any trouble doing homework in her first year and then-some in high school. The karate class helped too, since it helped her with concentration and taught her discipline and self control.

V's brother is an 8th grader at Beaumont. He has never been a "good student" either, nor did he do any homework in elementary school, 6th or 7th grade. In third grade he didn't hand in a single homework assignment although he did complete every extra credit project that was offered. In 7th grade, K discovered that he had a passion for sports. He also learned that if he wants to play sports in high school he needs to maintain a certain grade average. As an 8th grader, his internal motivation is to learn how to do homework--just like he learns how to do a lay-up or how to kick a corner-kick--so that he can participate in sports. He diligently completes his assignments every night without my prompting and with out complaining. His grades are not perfect but they are acceptable. In addition to sports, he also does art and sculpture in his spare time. He is happy and thats all that I need.

I have stuck to my guns throughout both of my older chidren's education and I'm happy and relieved that it panned out (I have spent plenty of time worrying that it wouldn't). The general pattern is that we try and discover each child's passion and help them tap into their internal motivation to pursue it.

Unfortunately, at this point, V's passion appears to be sitting on the couch and watching tv. He does have other interests, including soccer, drawing, old-school role-playing games and inventing. He also has a certain skill that is a double-edged sword: he can get anybody to do anything for him. (I keep telling him he will be a great project-manager when he grows up.)

We have not yet identified what his passion is or where he derives internal motivation. I'm stumped with him. If I get on his back to do homework (which I have been trying to do, just to see if it works) we both end up miserable and mad at each other. He doesn't learn anything and it takes us an hour and a half to do work that really only takes him 15 minutes to complete. At the end of that hour we are both cranky and our evening is ruined. I am not willing to give our family time over to this battle. We do have a great time coming up with fake entries for his reading log and writing silly stories with his vocabulary words.

What I want for V at this point is for him to advance with his class through middle school. I also want him to work hard at the things he is good at, like math. I want him to find his passion and to find the internal motivation that will convince him that it pays off to work hard. No amount of repeating that refrain will make him believe it until he stumbles upon it on his own.

I don't know what to do about the research that he is not doing. Choosing a subject to report on is an excruciating exercise that usually ends up with him hating his topic. So many of the traditional assignments are like torture for him--science fair projects, history reports, book reports, worksheets . . . all of these require following specific directions, filling in templates, and leave little room for creativity. He comes by it honestly--my personal passion when I was in school was to do everything exactly opposite of what was required (I know, you're shocked--ha!ha!). When teachers show me the forms that kids are supposed to fill out in the process of completing their portfolio writing assignments it makes me so crazy I can barely stay in my seat. And V is a lot like me.

I have a very hard time lying to him and telling him that I believe homework is important. What is important is cultivating a love of learning. What is important is finding out how you best express yourself. What is important is wanting to do more, not because someone tells you you have to, but because you feel compelled to follow your passion.

That having been said, I also know that teachers need something to measure performance by, that you need to know if a child is progressing. I also know that you need to reward the kids who do their work diligently and on time. It does not bother me that V will get poor grades for not completing homework assignments. This is something I feel that I have to state explicitly to his teachers.

I welcome your thoughts on how we move forward in our shared goal of keeping V engaged in the classroom. [blah blah more boring stuff about what I will make him do and what I hope she can make him do. . . ]