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Homework Help

Support Your Child's Academic Obligations

By Carma Haley Shoemaker

Let's face it, when you graduated from high school or college, the last thing you ever hoped to have to do again was explain the difference between an isosceles and an obtuse triangle or find the circumference of a circle in centimeters versus inches. The bad news is, many parents are finding themselves faced with these very issues once again when their child asks for help with homework.

Many parents feel that the schools our children attend today are different from those of a generation ago, and experts agree. "The difference between our memories of elementary school and today's reality for our children can lead to conflicting emotions," says Douglas B. Reeves, Ph.D., author of Reason to Write: Help Your Child Succeed in School and in Life Through Better Reasoning and Clear Communication (Kaplan, 2002). "On the one hand, we want our children to have more opportunities, better education and a more sound preparation for the rigors of secondary school than we had. On the other hand, many parents occasionally wish that today's schools were more familiar, with a little less structure, fewer tests and more fun."

If you don't recognize the math in your child's homework, think about how the world has changed since you were in school. The math looks different because the world is different.

"Advances in science, technology, information processing and communication, combined with the changing workplace, make it necessary for all students to learn more math," says Gay Dillin of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in Reston, Va. "The basics are changing. Arithmetic skills, although important, are no longer enough. To succeed in tomorrow's world, students must understand algebra, geometry, statistics and probability. Business and industry demand workers who can solve real-world problems, explain their thinking to others, identify and analyze trends from data and use modern technology. Instead of worksheets, your child may bring home problems to investigate that are related to real life – investigating salaries, life expectancy and fair decisions, for example. After all, the future is closer than it may appear."