I present: your child's homework!

[AmericanZero8503]

What I don't understand is why on earth they were so dead set against going to the library. We give away information for free, find the exacts books you need, even get them from other libraries (with more than one day's notice, that is) for you. All you have to do is come and pick them up!
Going to the library can be just like having someone do your project for you.

Some people don't get enough credit for excellent customer service...but most librarians are up there.

I had a project to do and I called the library just to SEE if they had books on this subject I was writing a paper on. Well the librarian took my name and I never thought anything of it, I just thought they would leave a note about what I wanted when I came in.

The next day I go in and this librarian that always waits on me (she's about 75...so don't get that impression) has a STACK of books ready for me to take home. I couldn't believe it...needless to say I wrote a letter to the library director. People like that don't get enough credit.

-K'Z'K, spending her Friday night posting her students' grades online because they can't possibly be expected to keep their own records....

I spent my last semester in college as the Programming Director of the college radio station....and I can relate to what you're talking about. I was in charge of a group of mostly freshman...many of them had never seen a radio station before.

They held up every stereotype of a college student. Lazy and way too dependent on mommy and daddy. I actually got in trouble by the Advisor for having a meeting and basically telling them that if they don't grow up they can leave (after I had a student's PARENT call in...and as I found out later their parent's are three hours away and they're good at faking a cough so they can go out and party instead of work). Apparently at my college coddling is allowed, so that they can get by and get that degree.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Back when I was in school *cue groaning from younger folks* we went to the library for help with homework assignments. We didn't have the Internet, we didn't have homework hotline numbers to call. If you had your own set of encyclopedias, you were blessed. That saved a trip to the library.

It always amazed me the amount of people who would come into the bookstore looking to buy books for one research project. What happened to the library? I know it's still there.... I never once bought a book just for one homework assignment.

My favorites were the people who would come in and say "My kid needs a book for a book report on <insert vague category here>." I would try to get some more information (reading/grade level, interests within that category, etc.) and when we eventually found a book, the last question was almost always "If the teacher doesn't approve, can I return this?" (Oh, and bonus points if they didn't even have the kid with them.) They drove me crazy, but then some of the teachers also drove me nuts because they would send a whole class off to find books without giving them clear guidelines, so they could flounder around for something in hopes that the teacher would accept it for the assignment. And the people who thought I was some kind of reference librarian...I don't know what you want/need!! Go to the library...they have people who actually went to school to learn how to help you with just this sort of thing! I'm just a bookseller!

Oh, yeah, and I also had a set of encyclopedias as a kid. And I had my 10 year college reunion back in April, which means 2008 will be 15 years out of high school.

[Reyneth]

Going through school (not long left now, thank God) just in the last years, one of the first ports of call was a 1978 set of World Books that my mother had gotten for high school. Its a full set, all 21 volumes, plus a research guide and index and the two Australasia volumes, along with the Year Book suppliments from 1979 to 1987.

I used to read them for pleasure when I was younger

Ok, you're freaking me out.

We must be twins or something. Both Nikon fans, both freaks who would read the same version World Book encyclopedias FOR FUN. I learned a lot that way. But man, was/am I a geek!

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

I spent my last semester in college as the Programming Director of the college radio station....and I can relate to what you're talking about. I was in charge of a group of mostly freshman...many of them had never seen a radio station before.

They held up every stereotype of a college student. Lazy and way too dependent on mommy and daddy. I actually got in trouble by the Advisor for having a meeting and basically telling them that if they don't grow up they can leave (after I had a student's PARENT call in...and as I found out later their parent's are three hours away and they're good at faking a cough so they can go out and party instead of work). Apparently at my college coddling is allowed, so that they can get by and get that degree.

Many of those kids who are dependent on mommy and daddy can be so because mommy and daddy have lots of money. And if mommy and daddy "Donate" a bunch of said money to the college, Junior gets a free ride. Sad, but true.

[Bagboy]

What I don't understand is why on earth they were so dead set against going to the library. We give away information for free, find the exacts books you need, even get them from other libraries (with more than one day's notice, that is) for you. All you have to do is come and pick them up!
Going to the library can be just like having someone do your project for you.

I love going to the library. Nantucket's Athenaeum is awesome, they have really good science books ,as well as old nantuckety stuff.

[TryNotToBeThatOne]

One of the few 'kid's project mommy' that I remember is one who had, somehow, managed to worm out of her kid what she wanted to do. Mom had a few ideas on how to do it but was uncertain.

I was happy to help her select (craft section of shop) the supplies that would do a better job than what she had originally selected. She knew what she wanted the project to be, she was just uncertain of the best way to do it.

Heck, I remember catching heckfire for not having my paper on time in high school once because the computer I was using died (I was using one that belonged to a friend of my dad's). I was scolded for 1) not saving it more often so I wouldn't have so much to retype & 2) not doing it sooner so I would have time to retype before it was due. By my mom & the teacher. *pout*

I won't mention how old I am. But so far I've only noticed one person that I can say for certain is older than I am, with the possibility of a 2nd one.

Don't get me started on my diorama for the book Waterbabies. One recommendation: do not try to paint a glass Aunt Jemima syrup bottle grey. Unless you know a lot more about painting on glass than I did.

[protege]

-Pascal and C (no + or ++) were the languages to know for programming. Something called Visual Basic was just catching on.

Why does that sound familiar? I never took Pascal, but I did take several C classes. What sucked, is that towards the end, it added the + and ++...to make it really annoying

-We still had to use numeric format (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) to call up web pages. No DNS in wide use.

I don't remember using the numeric format, since most of our terminals used the current format to call up pages. There were still a few pages with the numeric type though.

--A 15" monitor was badass huge. We had one 21" screen in the lab for page layout work done by the publishing/editing classes.

Also about that time, a 486 was considered fast. It was truly mind-blowing when the Pentium I 100Mhz machines arrived. Now those are used for doorstops

...and yes, I've been out of college 10 years. When I graduated from high school in '94, there was no 'net....other than the various BBS thingies around town.

[d962831]

you shoulda said, I'm sorry but I'm not getting paid to do your child's homework, you'll have to go do the research yourself, I've done everything I can. And then laughed when they scoffed at you and stomped off. Seriously, since when does the parent make someone else do the homework for the kids, I mean I've heard of parents doing it themselves, but never trying to make someone else do it.

[LadyAndreca]

My parents got a set of encyclopedias for us when I was in first grade...1986. I used to spend hours reading those, and used them to teach myself chess, too. Dad taught me how to use them, too, when he caught me copying an article to do a report for my 2nd grade social studies class. He was angry at first, until he realized that I didn't know what I was doing wrong, but he explained plagarism to me so clearly that I've never wanted to try it since.

I know it might drive some librarians and customer service folk crazy, but, I hope there is some teacher out there still who will assign a report and mandate that the internet cannot be used for anything more than just checking to see if a book is in stock at the library/book store. Make the children actually do research the "old" way AND cite it.

Most of the papers I had in college would allow no more than one website for 3 or less sources, two for 5, three if they required more than five sources. I was surprised at the number of people in my class that didn't know how to do actual research.

I'd learned in grade school how a library is organized and how to use a card catalog, which came in awful handy when the public library was in Library of Congress, but I'd learned Dewey Decimal. I think it was in the second half of second grade...they brought the whole class to the library for an afternoon and we just learned how to look up and find books.

In middle school I had a major paper due (hey, seven pages is a monster assignment when you're 13) where we not only had to have five sources, we could only use one encyclopedia and no websites. AND we had to have X amount of hours logged at one of the public libraries.

[redmountaingoldfish]

My thoughts on the two main topics of this thread.

Do My Homework

My dad is a professor in the department where I work. One fall our department was besieged by dozens of really stupid emails from high school kids looking for help. Now these were not the "I heard that you are an expert on ABC and was wondering if you could refer me to any of your articles on ABC." Those emails are just fine, as professors always like it when you call them experts.

No, all of them went like this: "I was wondering if you could tell me the main causes of depression and the main treatments for depression and a definitiaion for depression and how people get depressed." I mean, they were emailing professors asking them to type up stuff from basic Intro to Psychology textbooks.

My dad emailed some of the kids back asking about their class and found out all of the email came from a class from a particular teacher at my old high school. My dad called up that teacher and said some... things... and we no longer get really stupid emails. At least in mass.

Internet Sources
This is to some of the people on CS who seem to be "*grumble* well back in my day we used 15 year old encyclopedias and liked it *grumble*"

I have found, starting in high school, that many times the best sources for papers are academic journals. And the internet is actually the fastest, easiest, and best way of finding those.

Here are a list of sources from the last paper I wrote from all internet sources (and got an A on).

The United States Code
The 9/11 Commission Report
The ACLU
The Library of Congress
The Los Angeles Times
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition
The US Treasury Department
The US Senate
The Herald (UK Newspaper)
Wikipedia (but only for simple definitions)

It's all about finding reliable sources who happen to publish online.
An added bonus of Internet sources, you can write papers on things too new to be in books, like the paper I mentioned above.

[/rant]

[Lady Legira]

I remember one piece of homework I did when I was at school (late 80s-early 90s). It was for science, we had to research a form of alternative energy so I did wind power. My step-dad helped me by taking me to the university library and showing me how to do some research and giving me tips on what was good for my paper. We then typed it up on our super dooper 386 (made a great monitor stand later) and put the nice pictures I had photocopied from one of the books to give it some detailed examples. My step-dad did the writing because he had a very clear hand whereas I didn't (I had proof that it was my idea to write the stuff anyway). Then it was photocopied to make it look better (this is what you get when your step-dad published a magazine as a editor) and then I gave it in, late as usual.

Now I had actually made a effort on this one instead of the usual half hearted attempts at essays that I usually did and do you know what the teacher said...

"This is too good, you must have had it done for you" and then gave it a low mark. I never gave in any homework for that class after. I could prove the work I put in for that and I had the details of the books I took the things from. HOW could I have cheated. The teacher should have said "This is much better, I'd like more like this but can you do this, this and this differently." Instead of pretty much telling me off for trying.

As you may have noticed this is still a sore point with me

[tropicsgoddess]

What I don't understand is why on earth they were so dead set against going to the library. We give away information for free, find the exacts books you need, even get them from other libraries (with more than one day's notice, that is) for you. All you have to do is come and pick them up!
Going to the library can be just like having someone do your project for you.

Exactly!! They could've looked up the stuff over there on the computers or encylopedias. I have to say that was the epitome of procrastination with the mom and her brat. I once worked for a big chain craft store for a short time for the Christmas season and I did see a ton of parents and children come in asking for those display boards for science fair projects along with other stuff for school projects too (clay,wood,etc.).

[deafcat24]

What happened to kids expected to remember their homework

I'm not that old. I went to school 1986-2000.

When I was in Elementary School, I was expected to remember my own homework. I didn't get my first agenda until I graduated elementary and moved on to middle school.

My nephew is in grade three.

He doens't need to remember his homework, he has an agenda to write it down in. I went to the same school.

Now getting him to do his homework is another story according to my sister.

[aurelemsrealm]

My parents were pretty strict about the homework getting done before we did anything fun. If we fudged on it, then we just suffered the consequences. They helped us if we were having problems, but we were expected to do it ourselves.

I think I'd be a professional student if it was a viable option that would pay the bills. The library is close to home for me. It's just a few blocks away from the house on top of a hill. I can see the roof of the library from the front door of the house. I do tend to spend time there when I have free time and actually want to get out of the house for a while.

I was one of those geeky kids who would spend weekend afternoons in my room reading an encyclopedia or the dictionary. I could spend hours lost in books, doodling on my chalkboard, or doing other quiet activities like that.

[Seshat]

I think I'd be a professional student if it was a viable option that would pay the bills.

I've heard there are places that need professional researchers - not in the sense of experimenting and figuring things out, but in the sense of finding out what's already known about stuff.

Maybe you could research professional researching?