ODYSSEYWARE

Teachers have numerous challenges in the classroom, such as curriculum writing, testing, grading, and a multitude of other tasks necessary to keep the classroom running. Students, the focal point of the whole exercise of education, also devote many hours to preparation, classroom time and homework, often extyending the typical 8 a.m .to 3 p.m. school day well into the evening, starting again early the next morning. But what about parents? According to WKRG in Alabama, homework and class materials that students bring home burden parents serving as impromptu tutors who might not have the foggiest clue what it is their kids are learning, making them reach far back into the archives of their own grade school learning:

I’d like to be able to help him more when he gets frustrated,” Smith says, “But I honestly don’t know how. I just try and calm his nerves, keep him focused and tell him that getting the right answer isn’t always the only answer, as long as he tries and doesn’t give up, that’s what really matters.”

Is this uncertainty hurting the student, however, when mom and dad mean well but do not have the correct answer or unintentionally mislead junior? Homework and other extended learning opportunities can undoubtedly help students learn more about a particular topic but only when students receive correct information. It is difficult to gauge what level of misinformation is created when a parent who, for example, might be an expert on corporate law, is questioned by his or her daughter about the function of the aortic valve in the heart for a biology question. Although the student might have had a perfect grasp when they left the classroom for home, will that grasp be retained throughout the evening?

It’s a philosophy that most teachers, from elementary to middle right on up to high school, will agree with. Students are given homework not just as busy work or punishment, but as a means of measuring how well the day’s lessons have taken root.

As the news report suggests, that root may take hold, but it may not stay for long. For that reason, OdysseyWare’s curriculum provides secure one-to-one messaging for students with their teachers where they can ask relevant questions regarding that day’s class instruction and any question they might have that requires some further explanation. So relax mom and dad. With OdysseyWare, we’ll handle the tutoring and extended instruction!