A daily tug-of-war with a second or third grader, with you
cajoling, coaxing and threatening to complete school homework in time and a
reluctant, tired and irritable child in turn pleading, crying and throwing
tantrums. Is there something wrong with the child or is the real culprit the
amount of homework itself?
Points in favour of homework include the idea of reinforcing
the lessons learnt in school, inculcating a sense of discipline in the child
along with a healthy habit of going over what has been taught on a daily basis.
When you look at homework thus, it is difficult to understand why it is
abhorred by children and parents alike.
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According to the National Education Association, children
should not be assigned more than 10 minutes of homework per grade. This means,
a third grader should not be working on home assignments for more than 30
minutes a day. Since they already spend
6-7 hours at school, plus an hour or even more travelling, when they are asked
to work for yet another couple of hours at home, there is no time left for play
or cultivating other hobbies or even to bond with the family. The result need
not be stated as we are creating a frustrated, unhappy and restless child and
even pushing the child towards early burnout.
Setting homework is actually a methodical process that needs
to be done with a set goal in sight. Mindless non-age appropriate project work
that forces the parents to do the homework on behalf of the kid just to gain
marks defeats the very purpose of project-making. Many a times, homework is outsourced
to professionals which is unfair on children who slog over it themselves
but will naturally fall short of the finesse achieved by adults.
What can be achieved by brief, yet effective exercise can become
overkill when heaps of the same activity is dumped on the child. A child can
devote only so much attention to one activity. We have to also remember that
children are also dealing with a number of subjects on a daily basis.
