That's an interesting story. One reason I'm not a perfectionist about my kids' homework is that a lot of it is crushingly uninteresting. I have two kids, and

That's an interesting story. One reason I'm not a perfectionist about my kids' homework is that a lot of it is crushingly uninteresting. I have two kids, and I work with them often on homework, especially math. I like to look for interesting ways to approach problems, to show them there are ways to do things that aren't a series of steps that need to be followed with high levels of exactness. Sometimes the teacher heaps on so much basic arithmetic that there's no time to do both. if it comes down to a choice between investigating interesting ways to go about a problem or chugging along with a mechanical approach, I'd rather investigate a problem in greater depth. That may mean a worse grade, but it's a balancing act. To be clear, I always advocate respect for the teacher in terms of civility and politeness, but I do want my kids to independently assess the learning value of their assignments. There have been assignments that seem to be little more than an exercise in penmanship. I have reflected on how teachers used to (perhaps still do) force kids to write a dull sentence 100 times as punishment. In that sense, at times, my kid's homework is nearly indistinguishable from a punishment. Just to be clear, this isn't always the case, my kids have also had good teachers and interesting assignments as well.