Why Is My Kid Saying School Is Stupid? What I Learned As A Parent And Former Teacher
The water for boxed mac and cheese was boiling over when my 13-year-old Jax slammed the front door last Tuesday. He dropped his backpack on the counter, a crumpled granola bar fell out onto the floor, and our golden retriever dove for it before I could react. “Why the fuck is school so stupid?” Jax said, slamming a half-completed math worksheet down next to the overflowing pot.
I turned off the stove, wiped up the water, and leaned in to look. Jax had gotten all 12 problems on area of irregular polygons correct. His teacher marked it incomplete, took three points off his grade, and wrote a note at the top: “Must show all three methods to get full credit.”
Jax got the first method in two steps per problem. He’d figured out how to split the shapes faster than any of the methods the textbook taught, and every answer was right. I wasn’t surprised. Six months earlier, Jax had redesigned our backyard storage shed after a storm knocked half the wall down. He measured the entire space, calculated how much plywood and insulation he needed, adjusted for the window we were adding, and cut every piece himself. The shed hasn’t leaked once. He can do area. He just couldn’t be bothered to do it two more unnecessary ways for a worksheet.
I used to teach 8th grade math, so I know exactly why that worksheet existed. It wasn’t for Jax. It was for the district’s checklist. Three years ago, when I was still in the classroom, my administrator told me I had to include multiple methods for every core standard on every assignment, because it showed up on our teacher evaluation scores. If 90% of your assignments didn’t document that kids learned multiple methods, you got a bad rating, regardless of how well your kids actually performed on tests. Most teachers don’t think these assignments are stupid. We just don’t have a choice to skip them most of the time. The stupid doesn’t start in the classroom. It trickles down from people who don’t spend every day with kids, making rules to check boxes.
That day, I didn’t do what I used to do when Jax first started complaining— I didn’t tell him to just do what the teacher says, I didn’t tell him he was being lazy, I didn’t lecture him about respect. I also didn’t march up to the school to yell at his teacher. I’ve been that teacher on the receiving end of that yell, and it doesn’t fix anything. Instead, I said, “Okay, it’s stupid. Let’s get it done in 15 minutes so you can go work on your treehouse plans.”
We made an agreement after that day that’s made all of our lives easier, and it’s something any parent or caregiver can try. First, we have a 20-minute rule for any assignment Jax calls “stupid.” If he already understands the material, and the assignment is just extra hoops, we do it together. No dragging it out, no arguing, no staying up late to finish it. We knock it out, add a 1-sentence note to the teacher that says “Jax already demonstrates mastery of this skill, we completed the extra work as requested” and move on. Second, we carve out 30 minutes three nights a week for the learning he actually cares about. Right now that’s designing his treehouse—he’s calculating slope for the roof, figuring out how much weight the floor can hold, looking up local building codes for tree structures. No grades, no checklists, just learning to do something he wants to do. Third, if a whole week of stupid assignments has him really frustrated, I help him send a short email to his teacher that asks “Is there a way I can show I know this skill without doing the extra work?” It doesn’t always work, but more often than not, teachers are relieved to not have to grade extra pointless work either.
A week after that rant, Jax’s teacher wrote back on that worksheet. She said she agreed the multiple requirement was silly, that she has to follow the district policy for now, and that going forward Jax can just show his method as long as his answers are correct. That was a small win, not a revolution. We still have rants every couple of weeks. Last week he came home mad about having to write a 5-paragraph essay about a book he already wrote a 2-page creative story for, because the essay was required to “prove” he read it. We did the 20-minute rule, banged out the essay, and went back to the graphic novel he’s writing for fun.
I still don’t have any big solution to fix the whole system. Most of us can’t afford private school or homeschool, and even good schools have stupid, pointless hoops kids have to jump through. What I’ve learned is that you don’t have to fix the whole system to make it bearable for your kid. You don’t have to take the side of the system over your kid when he says it’s stupid, and you don’t have to turn every stupid assignment into a big fight that ruins your whole evening.
A common mistake I see a lot of parents make (and I made it myself at first) is assuming if your kid says school is stupid, they’re being lazy or they don’t want to learn. More often than not, they’re saying it because they’re spending all their time jumping through hoops that don’t mean anything, and they don’t see the point of it. They know when work is just checking a box, and it makes them feel like their time and their brain don’t matter.
Some days school is still stupid. That’s okay. We just get the stupid part done fast, and get back to the stuff that actually matters. It’s not a perfect fix, but it’s working for us so far. We’ll see how it goes next semester.
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