Does this make me a bad mom? The oddities of schooling in Jordan...

So, I can't decide if my reluctance to get worked up over homework in KG2 makes me a bad mom. Now, let's take a little stroll down memory lane, shall we? When I was a kid, we spent first grade learning our letters, second grade learning to write, and third grade adding in cursive. Kindergarten was not only elective, but fairly unusual. Mostly only kids like me (with a single parent who worked) went to daycare at a place with a KG. In the US, from what I gather, the kids Butterbean's age (KG2 or just plain Kindergarten in the US) are being evaluated on whether they know their letters. That's all. They're not supposed to be able to write them, just know them. So, I find it hard to get worked up over the fact that Butterbean isn't racing ahead at this. Writing English letters is hard. And, honestly, a big part of me wonders if writing is like potty training. You can spend one week when they're ready (say at age 3) or 1 year when they're not (say at age 2). Somehow I sense this may be like that. Butterbean doesn't have super-developed muscles. But, from my perspective, she's doing just fine.

The second beef I have is that they use the British system. Now, not to seem insular, but... c'mon. It starts with the paper they are using. Now, when I was a kid, we learned to write on paper that looked like this:

___________________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
___________________

Fairly simple, right? The capital letters go from the top line to the bottom line. The small letters either start or "bump" at the small line. Letters like p and g (that go below the line) go below the line. Nothing complicated here to me. So, imagine my confusion when I got a note from Butterbean's teacher saying to write "between the lines". We did. Okay, they were different lines, but that's not my fault, right? Let me demonstrate for you. Her paper looks like this:

___________________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
___________________

Allow me to say, hunh? So, reading the cryptic note and being confused, I asked the teacher about it. I said, well, we did write between the lines (meaning the heavy lines). Apparently they need a CHART to explain exactly how you are supposed to write the letters. Perhaps this system is just a bit too complex, you think? So, I asked why and the answer I got was, we use the Nelson system. Ahhh. And? So what? Sorry to be skeptical, but, I don't get it. So, I thought and thought, and thought. Finally I got it. They want you to use the second dotted line as if it were the solid bottom line in my example. Goofy, but okay. So, here's my real issue with this. When they start writing on big people paper, there are only 2 solid lines. And the ps and gs will go below that line. So, this system seems to be more confusing than helpful. But, that's just me. I'm also bucking the system by having her write words with American spelling (so take that!) since we tend to use fewer letters (as in my example aeroplane vs airplane).

So, all that said, if they have to use this goofy system, wouldn't it be better to have the paper designed as such:

______________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
______________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

So that both lines that will eventually go away are hashed rather than solid? Seems to me that would make more logical sense. You could make the top line of a set heavier to denote a new set...

Okay, so enough about handwriting. I started this post because I spent a whole weekend day without doing even a shred of homework. We played, we did an art project (creating paper Christmas trees with Lil Kinz one of which is now hanging proudly in the kids' room), watched videos and such. Somehow doing homework just didn't jump into my mind. So, does that make me a bad Mom (all of the homework is handwriting by the way, she knows all of her letters and numbers in English and Arabic, she can read simple words in both languages, it's just the handwriting thing)? I'm just wondering what you guys think?

Happy lackadaisical parenting!