Well it’s
that time of year again. The time of year I have to take the uncomfortable
stand against homework with a new teacher. We’ve received yet another letter
around the teacher’s expectations regarding OUR home time life. Her
expectations are that the children in grade three, eight year olds, should be
doing homework as assigned every night Monday-Thursday. She uses the regular,
archaic reasons to justify why she assigns homework; to teach the children responsibility,
independence, time management, practice for high school etc. Yet, according to
the literature, there is no evidence to suggest that assigning elementary
school aged children homework will improve any of these things. Kids spend
enough time practicing the above skills all day at school. I argue that what my
kids learn at home in the evenings is just as valuable as what they learn in
the classroom everyday and more valuable than what they would learn from
homework. They learn responsibility, independence, time management with the
activities that I plan; though I concede they don’t get practice for high school;
because they are eight. They are children. They are not high-schoolers in
training or little adults! They learn about their bodies, their minds and the
world around them. We have a national problem with obesity in this country, not
to mention that the number of young children with anxiety and depression is on
the rise each and every year. Please can we just allow our kids have some
unstructured time in the evenings.
A typical
day after school in our house looks a little like this. My kids come home from
school and have free time to play with neighbour kids outside. They run, they
play, they build Lego on the porch and they make up games. Sometimes they argue
with friends and they have to figure out how to deal with that too. We eat
dinner as a family pretty much every single night. We have more family or free
time after dinner; sometimes we have extra-curricular activities, or we walk down
to the local skateboard park, or the duck pond to catch frogs, or a family swim
at the community pool. Sometimes we totally veg out and watch TV. My kids have
the responsibility of making their own lunch before bed each night. Then
finally they tuck in for some pre-bed reading.
This week
the anxiety of receiving homework has already set in for my eight year olds and
our family. Before I sat down to write this my daughter was bawling at the
dinning room table trying to understand what was expected of her for homework
tonight. It didn’t make sense to her, and it really felt like busy work to me.
I can’t help but feel like the teacher is trying to schedule MY time and add
stress to MY life! I am expected to sit over her and task-master her into
completing this ‘home’ work. Explain and
explain again what to do, and why she is doing it. This was running into the
time that she would normally be making her lunch, which would now make her late
for bed. Which means now I have to make her lunch and re-organize MY schedule.
I simply cannot understand how this teaches my eight-year-old responsibility,
independence and time management. Instead it is forcing ME to ‘learn’ these things. Hey, thanks Teach!
My daughter knows that if she doesn’t do the homework she is going to be
punished. Oh but the teacher doesn’t call it punishment, yet it sure feels like that to an 8-year-old. The
teacher calls it incentive. You see if she doesn’t do the assigned homework she
will not have a chance to ‘win’ (she draws a couple of names from a box) the
prize at the end of the week. What’s the prize you ask…Candy, it’s candy, the
prize is a kinder egg. The teacher calls this an incentive. I call it extrinsic
motivation that again has been proven to be totally ineffective in developing good
long term habits. When did it become appropriate to bribe children with the
chance of winning candy for doing homework?
When I
informed this teacher that we would not be enforcing homework in the evenings
due to all of the above reasons her response was, “Homework is part of my
program”. When I again stated that based on the research, homework at this age
in not developmentally appropriate and that we, as a family, are engaging in
developmentally appropriate activities in the evening. She stated that they
would not be punished, but that they would not receive her “incentives”. She
did thank me for my support (umm?). So my girls have learned a very important
lesson in grade three. They know that if the homework is something interesting
that they want to do they are welcome to do it and I will help if they need it.
If they choose to engage in the other activities that we do together instead of
doing homework they will miss out on the chance to win candy. They weighed
their options, and decided that giving up some of our family or free time based
on someone else’s agenda was not worth it.
I suggest
this new teacher practice what she preaches and do a little ‘homework’ on what
the research actually says about homework. What the research says about young
children who suffer with anxiety and depression. What the research suggests
about free time and exercise, and eating dinner with family. I am a firm
believer in life long learning, I do “homework” all the time. I read as much as
I can about the topics that are important to me. I expect the same from the
educators that are in charge of stimulating the brains of my children. What you
learned in teacher’s college 5, 10, 25 years ago is potentially no longer
relevant. Best practices from years past continually change. What you did last
year in your practice might not be relevant today or with this current group of
students. It is an educator’s responsibility to stay up to date on current
research. Doing something for the sake of doing it or because you have always
done it is pointless and frustrating for all parties.
