EveryWoman

Whose homework?

I remember when one of my sons was still in primary school. Parents protested about piles of homework their children and wards were getting. The argument was that many parents are usually tied up with their own work and businesses to fully attend to and help the children. They were sometimes too tired to even do the homework with the youngsters. The end result was the children getting punished through detentions for the failure to submit homework. This meant staying on for another 30 minutes to an hour, delaying further their pick-up by the already busy parents, thereby igniting the vicious cycle further.

This may have been an exception to the school. However, I have observed this tendency of handing in homework elsewhere— something which schools have adopted from way back— with the notion that parents will help out their children. And children by their nature will not open their school bags to do the work (only in exceptional cases) unless supervised or pushed. And schools will give two or more such work expecting parents to get involved. The idea is good as it allows students to keep busy by extending their school work and enthusiasm at home. It is meant to keep the young minds alert all the time, not only within learning premises.

However, to pile up work for students is as good as tying down parents to the same. A few students will actually do the work on their own, let alone do it all without coercion. And in these modern times of trying to make ends meet, some return home very late and don’t have the time to check. And again, schools cannot assume that every parent is literate or at least able to do what they deem easy school work. Nothing should be taken for granted.

What am I driving at? Schools should strive to take the responsibility of teaching students enrolled there. Assuming that parents will be available and are capable of dealing with the pile of work is absurd. And punishing children for the ‘sins’ of their parents is outright unprofessional.

Parents in my instance decided to engage the school by instilling the sense that school work should be the responsibility of teachers. Parents are involved in encouraging students, checking their performance and discussing with teachers at appropriate forums. Not everyone can teach, hence, the different professionals. Parents have their own work which they are comfortable with. Schools should not impose work on parents and punish children for it. Things and times have changed. They keep changing. We can re-look how we do things now without necessarily getting stuck in the old ways of doing things.

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