Please explain my child to me....very long, sorry!

[seeker]

Dd is in year 8. Doing well by all accounts - last monitoring sheet all 6s and 7s apart from 5s in MFL and Latin which she only started this year, letters home about how motivated and hard working she is, prizes for effort - all the bit.

Apart from IT, which is a 4. A bit strange, we think. Teacher at parent's evening seems evasive, but seems to be talking about a different child - she needs to focus, never speaks up in class...Dd has said before that this teacher is really bad at explaining the task they have to do and is not approachable. Seemed to us nice but dithery and not really on top of things.

Anyway, the next day we get a call from the Head of IT - dd hasn't handed in some homework. We know that the work was done - we saw it being done. Said we'd talk to dd.

Turns out after forensic questioning that she hasn't handed in any IT homework since November,(even work she has actually done) and has constructed a complicated structure of lies to us and the school about it. Can't explain why. Lots of tears and apologies, but still no explanations. And actually, more lies until she was metaphorically pinned to the spot and the truth came out.

I'm amazed that the school let her get away with it - it's a strict and "on the ball" place. But I'm just baffled by dd - she is by nature a conscientious and hard working person. Not superbright, but clever and organized. We've never made a big deal about achievement, only about effort and we have a happy and supportive family environment. And she is very happy at school.

She is grounded until she has caught up with the work - not for not doing the work but for all the lies. But it's an explanation I'm looking for and she can't come up with one.

I need one, because I have been badly rocked by the lying and I need to find a way to rebuild my faith in her.

I think I can understand the lying more than the not handing in work she's done. That would be to cover up for what she knows is wrong & to try to keep out of trouble. We like to think our kids won't lie to us, but 99% or more of them do.

Unless, by handing in the work she's done she would expose more stuff that she hasn't done, I can't understand why she wouldn't hand it in unless is was all part of a dare or something peer related like that, though the perfectionist thing might explain it too.

Hope now it's in the open things resolve themselves seeker.

Seeker- what did you mean by the teacher being 'evasive'?
Are they trying to distract from the fact that he/she should have followed this up if it was from Nov, rather than her getting away with it?

I suspect that is why she was evasive.

It's difficult to describe really. It was just that all the other teachers had mark books in front of them and could say exactly what dd had been doing, the marks she got in the last test and that sort of thing. The ICT woman seemed only to want to talk about the project they are doing next term, and the new ICT equipment they are getting. We got through the entire interview without finding out the "no homework since November" fact - that emerged when we talked to the Head of ICT the next day.

hmmm, seems odd- surely the parents' evening is the opportunty to talk about th echild and her progress?
Is there a personality clash perhaps?

The lying thing is a bit odd, seeker, but don't underestimate the power of teenage denial.

DD1 got a detention last term for not handing in homework -- according to her it was basically a misunderstanding, information wasn't passed on to her, yadda yadda. I did say I'd support her if she wanted to contest it, but she went all mature on me: 'oh no, it just makes the teachers really grumpy if you argue about it, it's easier just to do it."

So far so good. HOWEVER, it turns out at the parents' evening that far from being a misunderstanding, the detention was for the 6th piece of homework missed in a row. And this was history, which she's planning to do for GCSE and is actually good at.

[beats head against hard surface]

I don't think there is any rhyme or reason sometimes why kids do homework and don't hand it in.

I remember when DS1 was in the fourth grade (year 5), I went to see his teacher because I was concerned about the 3 hours of hw a night. The teacher said that wasn't possible because (according to him) he didn't do any homework, ie he didn't hand any in. Consequently, he got zeroes for various classes. Zero??? We thought he was reasonably bright, how could he get nothing for 6 or 8 weeks worth of lessons, especially at that age. DS didn't hand his hw in, ever. Everyone else did and for some reason the need to do this passed him by. The teacher assumed he didn't do any hw because otherwise he would have handed it in...We never ever got to the bottom of it, but after going ballistic at the teacher and then him, he mended his ways (and the teacher promised to contact us if there was a problem).

Fast forward to now, as a teacher. When I go through girls' folders (maybe once a half-term), I will often come across the odd piece of completed but unmarked homework. For some reason, they just didn't hand it in. I can never quite figure it out. They don't do it consistently enough for me to get concerned and involve parents, but I do wonder why they don't just pass it in when everyone else is doing so.

I put it down to all the other odd behaviours of teenage girls...

My DS hasn't handed in most of his geography, I found a note in his books saying homework was missing. He'd done it but hadn't stuck it in his book.
Think the problem is he keeps it in his plastic folder so it doesn't get creased and forgets to put it in his book.

Boring subject + rubbish teacher = no work from roomforthree. I scraped a D in IT gcse, but I had A* and A for all my other subjects.

Interesting, roomforthree. It would be entirely unprofessional of me to slag off another academic subject, but I wanted to relate the essence of a conversation I had on the back end of this thread with DD (21).

BoffinMum to DD (who has IT GCSE with a good grade) this evening: So what did you learn on the course then?

DD: Not much, frankly.

BoffinMum: Could you install a domestic broadband and wireless network connection, for example? Like we have?

DD: No. I wouldn't have a clue.

BoffinMum: Could you reinstall your operating system if your hard drive crashed and needed replacing?

DD: No, not even our IT teachers could do that. They got in the technicians.

BoffinMum: Could you work out what might be wrong with your printer?

DD: No. I would buy a new one.

BoffinMum: So could you set up a little website for yourself on something you knew a lot about?

DD: No way.

BoffinMum: So what did you learn?

DD: We got quite good at using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. But I could do that before anyway.

If you expand out the name - ICT = Information and Communications Technology, and it is very heavy on the Information and Communications bit, and very light on the actual technology. It is very focussed on the purpose of communication, and finding ways to communicate according to your purpose efficiently, accurately and effectively.

It is not about rigging up a computer system. Such a course would have Computing in its title.

That's another thing I find baffling about dd - the work she had to do sounds really interesting and useful. They had to pretend they were running a music festival, research bands, find out about the requirements for a venue, make a website for advertising, make spreadsheets for ticket sales and numbers.....the lot. You'd come out at the end of that knowing a lot of very useful and transferrable IT skills, wouldn't you?

That sounds like a good project. The best kind are the ones that genuinely interest young people, or help them to do something they already need to do (ie a directly link to elsewhere on the curriculum at the time they need it).

A project like the one you describe can develop a lot of ICT skills - from using search engines and menus to access large websites, getting info from public databases, manipulating information using spreadsheets, making posters and presentations, and writing a report.

I don't know why people put down ICT but these sentiments will reach their DCs. It has taken me 20+ years to hone my Excel skills and I am still learning. It is great that kids get to do it over just a few years.

It is relatively easy to use Word and Excel for simple stuff, but what they are supposed to be learning in ICT lessons is how to go beyond the simple - to use advanced features, and to automate.

I thought it sounded interesting - and dd said it was . It seemed to me to be covering a lot of useful skills that wouldn't be covered when using IT in other lessons.

There's a difference between using a computer as a combined typewriter and encyclopoedia (like Anna suggests her children do) and actually learning how use it to do stuff that couldn't be done just as easily if a bit slower with a pen and paper.

And then there's another area called, I suppose, something like IT support, which would cover stuff like installing operating systems and setting up wireless networks, as Boffinmum suggests.

More tot his than meets the eye. I'm still at the typewriter/encyclopoedia stage, personally!

I've been thinking a bit more about this overnight. I think the syllabus as it stands misses a lot of opportunities to help people become more intelligent and self-reliant in their IT use in the medium to long term.

I thought the printer question was particularly interesting, as 90% of the time you would just need to turn it off and on, or check the cable, yet by giving these simple actions blue collar connotations, we are apparently encouraging kids to abandon equipment rather than understand the basic physics of why these simple steps can be helpful in getting the job done.

Similarly I seem to recall that they did work on what different kinds of networks are, yet to fail to fully understand the basics of what installing a home broadband network involves (i.e. reading the bit of paper that comes with the equipment, thinking about dynamic IP addresses and security, that kind of thing) suggests to me they don't really know what one is and what its extended capabilities might be (eg networking printers in the home, pay to view tv, internet telephony etc).

With regard to extended use of common software functions, many students simply can't navigate Blackboard adequately without instruction at university (especially the perils of the Drop Box function for their essays), and if they managed to do a simple mail merge without supplementary information being provided and us holding their hands, I would drop off my chair. Many of them don't even seem to know where the spell check button is. We, on the other hand, who have never had ICT lessons in our lives and often even less on the job training, have many fewer problems, because we seem to have better transferable skills.

In terms of Data Protection they are frankly clueless, putting up all their personal information on Facebook for the world to enjoy and Facebook to sell with no regard to the consequences.

To me it seems that a combination of low expectations and a Windows environment has led to de-skilling here, in the same way that Food Technology appeared to eliminate the ability to actually cook. I think ICT lessons would be a lot more satisfying for pupils if they felt a bit more empowered to tweak their own technological environments and gain some control over their internet lives, instead of the subject being essentially reactive. They might also be more questioning of our current attitudes towards ICT within society, and ultimately do some good.

What do you think of the project based approach at dd's school, Boffinmum?

I couldn't really comment without having it in front of me, but I understand this approach is common in ICT.

Projects work on two levels - ideally they should introduce and/or consolidate subject knowledge, whilst at the same time reinforcing work done in literacy, numeracy and so on. The best projects synthesise knowledge from many subject areas. Poor works sits in a subject silo and is characterised by pupils' inabilities to get to grips with basic concepts and theories essential to the subject, and it is also often peppered with basic numeracy and literacy errors. In other words, it has achieved very little.

I did teach ICT very very briefly many moons ago at KS3 level, and I used to do things like basic website design and coding, the relationship between binary coding and modern security protocols, higher level desktop publishing of reports and documents, and some day-to-day simple maintenance issues. I am not sure how typical this is - I was just in fortunate position of being left alone to teach more or less what I liked within reason.

What I would add, Seeker, is that there might be a case for doing some more imaginative ICT work at home with your DD, for example helping her set up a little website of some kind using an authoring package, or getting her involved with maintaining your laptop anti-virus or whatever. That way she might get a bit more confident and accomplished in her own time. Also does she actually have her own PC? That often helps.

With regard to the lying, I also discussed this with DD, who on many levels was a terrible liar with regard to trivial things, but also told me a great deal of the secret, private stuff that really, really mattered in her life. She emphasised just how illogical and muddled teenagers can be at times, and how sometimes they just need a bit of space to fail or be wrong. I found this reassuring as this had been my first instinct too, when hearing your problem. This is where school is so useful, I think, giving them a safe environment to try out different modes of behaviour, surrounded by tolerant people prepared to guide them a bit.

Thank you all for helping me get this into perspective. She's worked so hard to catch up, and finally handed the last bit in on Wednesday. We've said that she can go riding again (her best thing - the worst thing about being grounded for her) today.

I do think being grounded has been a good thing for her - she's by nature a really "busy" person who likes to be doing something every second she's awake (she's been like that since she was 6 months old!) so a couple of weeks of enforced 'down time' has given her a chance to breath and think. And we've talked a lot as well.

I've also written a carefully worded letter to her teacher, apologizing for both dd's behaviour and ours, but querying why it took so long for the situation to be picked up - I'll be interested to see what they say.

Anyway - thank you all - I've learned a lot form this thread.

bump to make sure everyone is duly thanked!