Monday, May 25, 2009
Parents vs Homework
The word 'homework' is an uncountable noun but it carries the most countable workload for my son. How do u feel when ur 5 year old comes home with 6 pages of homework. For instance he might have 4 pages of writing (if u compare with those days we had half the page of writing during school hours where the other half of the page has a picture on it) and 2 pages of sums to subtract. I fail to understand the point of this continuous drilling. Does a student get any intelligent by this gruesome drilling? I believe it does not necessarily make anyone any smarter but could make someone hardworking. It was all about fun, enjoyment and learning through hands on activity in those days when I was in Kindergarten. Can't children be children anymore? Why society's expectation has to be so harsh? Sometimes I tell my son that u don't have to do everything, just one page of each would do good. My efforts to persuade him has availed to nothing. I could see fear in his eyes when he couldn't finish every single page. He could wake miidle of the night and talk about homework and early morning when I am about to rush out to work he could come and talk about finishing the homework. Competition between schools and to be on top of the list that produces the best students have a cost. A cost children has to bear. Is this fair on children.
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You know shaz , when my son was in Std 4, I was so pissed of with the amount of homework that he had to do. In my frustration , I wrote to the press about how the sydtem was robbing my son of his childhood.
ReplyDeleteAnd the religous school which he had to attend in the afternoon would always plan the examination at the time of the daily school exam period as well--adding more unnecessary pressures. I went to see the Jabatan Pendidikan if they could re-do their academic calendar--BUT NO ! they do not like the idea of being made less important. I argued that the curriculum , I admit is important, bur they could still readjust.
They told me if I didn't like it, I could take my son out of the state religous achool ---and I did !
And my son still turn out to be a good Muslim.
How could they give so much homework to a 5 years old kid? makes me scared of what future kindergarten would be 4 my daughter...
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