It's getting tougher to be a kid. A lot tougher.

[Jackpine Radical]

This essay is copied with permission of the author from a professional mailing list to which I subscribe. When I read it, I just knew i had to share it here. Because of the nature of the list, I cannot give a link.

It's getting tougher to be a kid. A lot tougher.

When I was one of those beings, the daily questions upon coming home from school were pretty simple:

1. How was school?
2. Do you have any homework?

The answers were usually"

1. Fine
2. No.

And then I could play. If I had to do homework, I'd squeeze it in somewhere, at a time and place of my choosing.

Now, assignments are on the internet. Parents can see them all at a glance. Tougher still on their kid is that parents can now see weekly test scores. Kids no longer have any place to hide. For parents, it's a boon. For kids, it's living with Big Brother. Remember him? Big Brother is watching you?

It's part of the silent indoctination that's going on now. We've left the Reagan doctrine of "Trust but Verify," and now, thanks to the InfoGen, no longer have to trust at all. We KNOW. Knowledge is power. We parents have a lot of it now. Kids, less. They've become Big Brother Watchees.

Now we don't have to ask the questions anymore when Junior comes home from school. It's all there on the web.

"You got a D on your social studies exam and didn't turn in an assignment in math. And, you have a paper to do for Mrs. Jorgenson in History due this Friday. You need to get started on it."

"What about play?"

"Not until you get those grades up and get your work done."

"But I'm doing better in math."

"Not according to your internet grades and your teacher's comments."

See what I mean? Big Brother is Watching. He's here to help you. Like us when we get audited for anything...case files, taxes.

It's already here with my Worker's Comp cases. Send in a request for payment and a full set of case notes have to accompany the bill. Big Brother is watching each and every single session. I know how it feels, kids.

Gotta go. It's tax prep day, and Big Brother needs a feeding.


Frank Froman, Ed.D.
Quincy, IL

[Liberal Veteran]

1. I don't understand.

It's a bad thing that parents have access to their children's homework and class assignments and can monitor their grades?

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I think it's a bad thing to live in a world in which

constant surveillance is the norm, and for people to come to accept that state as OK. The writer's point was that these kids are being trained early that there is no right to privacy. This is how you create sheep.

I sometimes think that we who are over 50 or so are among the last of the species to have escaped serious domestication in our childhoods--the last wild humans, as it were, with all of our progeny caught up in the programming and tight scheduling that begins now virtually at birth. Day care, preschool programs, organized sports--no season left unfilled, no hour left unscheduled. In my childhood, with the exception of those hours I was confined in a one room country school (really!), I was free to wander the woods, hang out with friends, or whatever, without constant supervision and surveillance.

[Posteritatis]

5. And to backpedal from my other post here, you've got a point there. (nt)

[seabeyond]

7. also the cell phone. i finally got kid a cell at almost 16. the continual and absolute connection

to child, always accessible.

i tell son to turn off phone and only see to make calls out. i am not giving it to him so i have constant access to him. but for him to make calls, like pay phones of the past.

[Posteritatis]

3. Yeah, that part doesn't really bother me

It's the trend towards homework for its own sake, or specifically to prevent kids from having free time, which drives me up the wall. A reasonable amount of it given for appropriate reasons with parental access to same? That'd be absolutely fantastic.

[Phentex]

9. In elementary school it was unreasonable...

I'm talking pages and pages of busywork and often the same type of assignments every week. I hated making them do it!

It's better in the later years or at least it seems to have a purpose and it's not the same crap every time.

[Posteritatis]

12. That sounds familiar

Late in elementary school one of my teachers started throwing 10-20 pages of busywork at the class every night for just the math class alone, on top of other assignments; he was one of those "if the kids aren't doing homework from 3:30 until bedtime then they're going to be out breaking laws or something" types.

I never understood why people let that mindset become popular.

[ejpoeta]

17. they don't have a lot here. my daughter usually gets everything done in school

and sometimes has one or two things to do at home. I like that they can have time to play or do other things. I remember how much homework i had as a kid... they have A LOT LESS>

[NV Whino]

6. It's a bad thing that big Brother is watching

This is only the start.

It's also a bad thing that kids don't have time to play any more. Kindergarteners have homework theses days.

[Posteritatis]

8. And there's times where the homework is specifically so they won't have time to play

That's always bothered me; I got hit by the leading end of that in school and have only heard worse about it since.

[seabeyond]

4. this is true. right on. i have it in my house. it does cause problems that wasnt around decades

ago

a couple things.

so often the teachers are not putting assignments in books. parents are raggin on kids to get it in. i turned it in mom. not according to teacher, verify. the grade is low. only cause teacher didnt enter grade. regardless, it is low, off the puter.

another big thing i am seeing in the schools is a report card every three weeks. we get three 6 weeks reports. then we get two or three progress reports. the problem, the progress report is only showing three weeks of work. if kid did especially good, or especially bad, parent is flipping out. not seeing the grades average.

it is such a mess for kids

and for parents.

i feel for the kids as i use the program and do the same with my kids

[Zax2me]

10. No it isn't.

Just go back a hundred or more years. Less, in many cases.

A kid in 19th century US or elsewhere, for that matter, is laughing at this notion.
He or she laughs because they worked the farm for three hours before going to school at all.
Got up before the sun.
They could not log onto the Internet. The first thing they did in the morning was go outside in freezing weather to use the outhouse.
Health care?
Please.
You were lucky if a doctor lived within a days ride - by horse and buggy.
Disease? Roll the dice.
Want a drink of water?
First take the half mile hike in the morning to retrieve it.
Your father passed away last spring at the ripe age of 48 - caught something and didn't make it. He's buried beside your sibling who died of an infection at the age of 12.
No school for awhile. The teacher left and a replacement won't be here for another 4 months.
Sorry it is 100 degrees in the classroom, but we don't know what air conditioning is yet.
Laptops? I have chalk and an old hand blackboard for notes - does that count?
Oh, the poor poor kids of today, they have it SO rough.

[Keith Bee]

11. WAHHHHHHHHH!

:cry:

[Zax2me]

14. Right...?!

So many comforts afforded the 2011 student, and it is HARDER to be a kid now more than - ever?!
Why? No play before you get your grades up?! Because you lied about your math grades and your parents found out you lied because the grades are on the Internet?!
LAUGHABLE.

[boston bean]

13. I ask my son your first two questions.

I do not keep track of him in that way.

If there is a real issue, I get an email from the teacher. And I usually get an email about twice a year and when I do, things turn around.

I will not consume myself or make his life miserable over the small things. If he passes his courses and makes it to the next grade, I am delighted.

He hasn't failed me yet!

[Brickbat]

15. Meh.

I'm a parent who uses the online grading information, and I find this laughable.

[Taitertots]

Tougher? Only if they don't have absentee parents

I don't know anyone who advanced beyond high school whose educational progress wasn't dramatically influenced by their parents. This is just a new tool to help the parents who care about making sure their children don't grow up pathetically ignorant. The dead beats will continue to do little, while expecting the education system to raise their children.

[ejpoeta]

16. I don't have such access, but even if I did I wouldn't approach it that way.

First of all, as a parent I want to give my child an opportunity to tell me themselves what's going on. Like if the school has called me about my 12 year old's not getting something done or getting in trouble, I will ask her how her day was and see if she tells me. If she doesn't then I will tell her the teacher called or something and we will discuss it. I think it is all how you approach it. She has to have me sign tests anyway so I know what she has gotten. But then again, her grades are in the 90s, so....

I don't know. my kids as a rule are to do their homework as soon as they get home. Their first priority. Even on a friday because it's better to get it out of the way so you can have fun the rest of the weekend. Except if there is a sleep over or something in which case saturday it must be done. Also, tv is very limited here. and internet. They will ask, but I tell them to go play. Emily usually will read then. Or go ride her bike. Once Emily told me on Friday she had an assignment due on monday. I was not happy. so she spent all day sunday making a volcano. And we discussed ways to avoid this happening again.

There are things that concern me about having the ability to know everything your kid is doing and where they are going. It takes away the opportunity for them to be able to be responsible and feel independent. However, if they are getting into trouble and failing things, it's good to be able to see what's going on so that you can help them to correct it. I don't know if I had access to all scores etc I would look at it. It would be nice to see what homework they have though so that I can make sure we don't end up doing three weeks worth of work in one day... and by "WE" i mean emily.

[KittyWampus]

18. Whoever wrote this had crappy parents who didn't care enough to check grades and make sure

homework is done.

[Fearless]

19. There's a difference between Big Brother and good homework habits.

[uncle ray]

20. sounds like he is taking a long route to complain about taxes...n/t

[Brickbat]

21. Yup.