Melanie’s minor illnesses persist and so too do her mother’s interventions. Hoping to keep Melanie from falling behind, Ms. Handlon requests that the teacher send home spelling lists in advance. She photocopies each new list when it arrives and then cuts it up to make flashcards, gluing each word to an index card. She brings the cards along when she and Melanie go out on errands; as they drive around in the car, they practice spelling the words. Melanie consistently ranks at the bottom of her class academically. The Handlons have hired a private tutor for Melanie, but Ms. Handlon worries that her daughter is “intimidated” and that school is a “negative” experience for her. She believes that Melanie lacks self-confidence and that “she needs something that [gives] her a positive feeling.” She makes these opinions very clear to Melanie’s teacher during a conference. In a parent-teacher conference with Ms. Nettles, Ms. Handlon makes a pointed comment that Melanie’s social study teacher has placed too much emphasis on the negative in grading a test:
With the social studies test that she brought home with the big N (Needs Improvement—this is the lowest grade possible) on the top of the paper. I looked at it and I counted all the ones she got right. I said, “Melanie, compared to the last social studies test, you got like eighteen right on this one.” I said, “That’s a lot more than you got right on the last test so you have improved.” Now, looking at the paper she couldn’t see that. It was just a negative, an N . . . So, I’m trying to get her to start recognizing her positives.
Ms. Handlon’s comments during the parent-teacher conference demonstrate her belief that she is entitled to point out what she sees as the teacher’s failings with respect to the conduct of Melanie’s education. This is a perspective widely shared by middle-class parents, including the many mothers with whom Ms. Handlon interacts when she brings Melanie to and from school or other events. Ms. Handlon’s role as the local Girl Scout leader also provides her with informal opportunities to exchange information about routine and unusual happenings at the elementary school.2 Ms. Handlon knows that many mothers have complaints of one kind or another and that many are engaged in specialized pursuits for their children.
Being embedded in a social network of middle-class mothers shapes Ms. Handlon’s sense of her rights and her responsibilities with regard to Melanie’s education.3 She and the other mothers seem comfortable passing judgment on all aspects of their children’s schooling, critiquing everything from teachers’ pedagogical style to the content of their classroom bulletin boards.
Mr. Ickes (Melanie’s fourth-grade social studies teacher). I had a negative opinion [about him] from parents. They don’t like his teaching methods. They don’t like his gruffness. People didn’t like Ms. Hortense (Melanie’s third-grade teacher) a lot because she was very old-school and had not changed or adapted her teaching. Her classroom was very boring. There was nothing bright or exciting. Her bulletin boards were not exciting and not conducive to exciting kids about education. At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t one [of the parents who disliked Ms. Hortense] but Melanie would get a lot right on the paper, and the only thing acknowledged was what was wrong.
Ms. Handlon’s network also provides her with information about what steps other parents are taking as they try to resolve school-related problems, such as how to ensure that homework gets done correctly and on time. Her conversations with other mothers help her develop strategies for interacting with educators.
[Some of us mothers] were talking about the conferences that are coming up, and what points are going to be brought up, and what we are going to talk about. And the biggest concern I hear from parents is the amount of homework. It’s every night. It’s on weekends. It’s constant.
Despite her belief that Melanie’s teacher assigns too much homework, and her awareness that other parents are concerned about this issue, Ms. Handlon does not raise the topic of homework directly with any of the educators or administrators at the school. Instead, as the rest of this chapter describes, she tries to help Melanie herself, going over her daughter’s schoolwork with her at home, each afternoon.
CULTIVATING ACADEMIC SUCCESS:
INTERVENING AT HOME
In separate interviews, Mr. and Ms. Handlon each define homework as a major problem within the family. Ms. Handlon is frank and succinct: “Our biggest conflict is homework,” she tells the interviewer. Mr. Handlon focuses on the volume of homework the children face. He estimates that Melanie does “two to three hours [of homework] every night.” He describes the family routine this way:
That’s all we do with them at night is homework. They come home from school, get a snack, and they’ll start working on homework. And they’re still working on homework, and they’re still working on it when I get home. It’s entirely too much homework. I don’t think I did that much homework in college.
Ms. Handlon voices similar concerns during her interview, and she returns to the topic informally with a field-worker one afternoon as they sit in the family minivan, waiting to pick up Melanie after school,
[Melanie] worked on her homework [Sunday] for four hours with her father. From three until seven. I can’t believe that the teachers assign so much on the weekends. Don’t they have a life?
Neither Mr. nor Ms. Handlon seems to believe that all homework is bad and both appear to accept the view widely held among middle-class parents that children must do homework in order to succeed academically. What the Handlons object to is the quantity of work, the amount of their children’s time spent doing school assignments, the amount of their time given over to their children’s homework, and the useless nature of much of the work. These elements, alone and in combination, result in a further problem, namely the constant presence of tension and conflict in the home. Homework sets off painful, protracted battles. Ms. Handlon and Melanie appear to have different ideas about how much help with school-work Ms. Handlon should provide, in what areas, and in what ways.
Melanie contends that her homework often is too difficult for her to complete, even with help. Her mother seems to believe that Melanie needs to concentrate more. Especially in math, Ms. Handlon tries to help by taking Melanie step by step through each problem. Thus, even when the questions are not mentally challenging for Melanie, homework can be very time consuming for both mother and daughter. For assignments in which comprehension is also an issue, much more than time is at stake: a general sense of failure and frustration on both sides are regular hallmarks of these mother-daughter homework sessions.
Not surprisingly, neither Melanie nor her mother looks forward to doing homework. Melanie’s first line of defense is to take the offense, as the following excerpt from a field note shows. Climbing into the family’s minivan after school, Melanie immediately mentions—and simultaneously downplays—the fact that she has homework:
MS. HANDLON (in a cheery voice): How are you?
MELANIE: Okay. (pause) I only have math homework today.
MS. HANDLON: How many problems?
MELANIE: Ten. Well, maybe twenty.
MS. HANDLON: That’s not too bad. Only math?
MELANIE: Yeah.
Her mother is not ready to drop the topic, however. Probing, she inquires about other subjects. Reluctantly, Melanie discloses the rest of her homework load. She is hesitant but truthfuclass="underline"
MS. HANDLON: You don’t have any social studies?
MELANIE: Well, maybe a little.