This is a tribute and a major "Thank you" to the community here at Gather. They saved the day in record time, on a day when I was bone-tired, my son had a pile of homework to do and he was stuck with one particular assignment.
The Situation: A long-term school assignment, worked on diligently by my son, due TODAY. He'd worked on it all month, as it was a long-term project. I believe in letting kids do their research, try to find info and not get in there and do their homework for them. So I sat back for nearly a month and he did all right, with one exception.
He had to figure out September weather temperatures for Kansas City, including a graph of the daily highs and lows, the climate zone, the longitute, historical average for high and low temps, etc. The part that stumped him - he had to calculate the number of rainy, partly cloudy and sunny days. This is where he ran into a snag. He couldn't find that info anywhere and neither could his friends and neither could I.
Granted, my brain wasn't firing on all cylinders. It had been that kind of week, with a whole bunch of unexpected things, from a couple of unexpected visitors to a broken washing machine. Our heater went out. Add to that one ill relative, sleep-deprivation and I was long past the point of caffeine helping me get through this. I wanted to sleep. But time - and homework deadlines - don't wait for anyone.
That was at 4:51 pm yesterday. I wrote a panicked note to the Gather community at that point. You can see the link below. By 5:02 pm, a lovely person named Sue had an answer for me! In short, within 11 minutes, she had a site with all relevant info and I simply had to research it from there, finding the exact page.
But it didn't stop there. One person offered the website of a relative who was a weather forecaster. Another person gave me a direct link to the day by day pictures for the month, revealing amounts of rain, whether the day was partly cloudy or windy, etc. . Some simply offered support. It was amazing.
Oh, want to see the original article? Here it is:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977144645
Now take a look at the wonderful responses. What else can I add?
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Comments: 57
Painful People or Painful Things They Said to You
They make kids get up at 5:30 or 6 and that is way too early. Then, doing homework tiill 10. Without your help, who knows how long it would have taken? Plus, everyone else's help!
Now, now...
laughing....Providing a site is one thing. Manual labor is another. Besides, you haven't provided enough info about your house. Does it have a hot tub? Wet bar? Jacuzzi? Swimming pool? Small golf course? Do you have a resident cook or are you a gourmet cook? These things are important. Oh, yeah, is your house very messy?
I personally do not believe in homework, except for some study help for kids who are dragging behind or having problems with things.
Heck, my 4th grader puts in 9 hours a day to learning from the time she leaves until she gets home. Seems to me that alot of adults do not have that much of a workload!
Actually I don't depend on Gather members to solve my homework problems. I am going to publish an article featuring resources we do use. But all of our usual sites and timesavers weren't working last night. It was an odd quirk. It could have taken a lot of time to track down the info, time we didn't have and energy I didn't have.
I woudn't consider using Gather as my homework hotline, lol, but in a pinch they were there! And, wow, am I grateful!
Yeah, is it selective memory or does it seem like there was less homework when we were kids? And yet, somehow, kids learned, mostly at school. Again, I could have selective memory.
I know. I'm generally wiped out by Friday. It is just exhausting, making sure they sit down and make time for homework and then getting them to stay on track. I actually want him to learn something, which is part of the problem. Since they have "social promotion" (they can flunk every class and still move to the next grade) he would not have to learn but I hold him to a higher standard.
I consider basic math and reading skills to be important. Call me crazy.
Last spring I had a beautiful, but unknown, bush spring to life and flower in my garden. Neither myself nor my husband could identify it. I put the picture up here, my husband put it up on some botanical questions website. I had the answer in about a half an hour from my friends here. My husband got the same answer by lunch the next day from his search. Who could ask for more?
::ducks::
I wonder how many other students had difficulty finding where to go for the right information.
Good idea! I'd join the group but I don't know that I want to be in charge of it. Homework is taking up too much time ;)
Or making sure he sits down and does it.....
:)
Thank you for posting your article to !!!Today's Top Photos and Articles!!!@
http://bestoftoday.gather.com/
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977146167
It is under the "Of Special Note" section :)
http://bestoftoday.gather.com/
Jane, I did actually see your article there as well. Congrats on the feature.
Hopefully, it will show up soon.
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