Homework, my pet hate
Homework, one of my pet hates. If I may, let me take you back to my days at school. Most afternoons were spent playing outside with a minimum of TV and a minimum of homework. I remember doing a few maths sums, some spelling words and later on in primary school, some reading. I do not recall my parents helping me other than to check that I had done the work and that the answers in maths were correct. This is a far cry from today's scenario.
I receive many calls and emails from moms who are desperate about the amount of time they have to spend in the evenings with their children doing homework. By Jill Murray
I have a few questions about this situation and perhaps someone in the know can answer them for me. Unless trained as teachers, parents do not have the expertise to help their children with work they do not understand. This becomes more and more evident as the children progress through school. Should parents be helping their children with the homework? If the answer is yes then who is helping the parents? Where do the parents get this know how? This brings me to my second question: Why do children have so much homework?
Before moving my children to a new school I battled to help my three children with their homework after school. Often they had in excess of an hour each. Due to the age differences I could not do their homework together so I ended up trying to spend 3 or 4 hours in total on homework each day. To be honest I am not sure what was harder, running a business or trying to help the kids with their homework. It was an impossible situation and none of us were winning. Eventually in desperation I told the principal of their school that he must accept the responsibility of teaching my children and that I would only do a minimum of homework with them. If I had wished to home school my children I would have chosen that option. I am not a teacher, I am a parent.
Since then I have found a school where the emphasis is on teaching the child at school and although they have homework they are able to cope with it more or less on their own. I can see that my children are learning at school as it is evident in their behaviour. I also can see that the children have learned to be self disciplined about doing their homework on their own. I believe they are able to do this because the homework is a reasonable amount and they understand the work already.
I am happy, the kids are happy - it's great.
I do still feel sorry for the poor kids out there who are spending hours each day trying to do work that they obviously do not understand. I also feel sorry for the moms and dads who are battling to fit "homework" into their already unbearable schedules. Being a parent, not a teacher, is a choice many of us have made. Does this mean that homework centres will become the norm for many of our children, or shall we simply say "It's too much!!!"
