Silly Parents, Homework is for Kids!

What parent hasn't asked that?

"I dunno. Is it?" Hmm, here's something new.

Has the Age of Enlightenment given way to the Age of Enablement? Are parents really helping children when we assist them with their homework? How much is too much?

Who is doing the learning here, anyway?

Homework starts at a very early age these days. Maybe six and seven year olds simply aren't ready for it yet. As compassionate parents, we see them struggle, and we step in. However, should we still be bailing them out, when they reach junior high?

In my kids' school, even first graders have significant homework every night. Basically, whatever the class doesn't finish during the day is magically transformed into homework. Despite our teachers' extensive professional training in preparing appropriate lesson plans, even the most efficient students seem to have carry-over work every single night.

Gee, do you think this might be planned? After all, these teachers are smart people!

Great for teachers!

This practice of sending unfinished work home offers the teachers complete flexibility. They can be spontaneous and creative in the classroom. If a child asks lots of questions, the principal stops by for a visit, or the class hamster escapes from his cage, the teacher need not worry about falling behind.

Teachers can leave the building with clear consciences every afternoon. After all, they completed their lesson plans. By the next morning, each student is expected to be ready for the next installment in every subject.

What about families?

On the other hand, this practice virtually destroys busy families' hopes of carving out unstructured evenings together. We simply have no idea what deadlines may come home in our children's cartoon-licensed backpacks on a given evening.

Because such young kids have not yet developed independent study habits, parents are drafted into supervising assignments, reviewing materials, and even tutoring their children about the subject matter.

Honestly! Home-schooling would be less of a time commitment than managing my kids' homework!

As kids advance to higher grade levels, the expectations intensify. Science projects, flower or leaf collections, geography projects, and even elementary grade term papers are assigned. Visual aids must accompany reports, of course.

Please don't call our home on a school night. I won't answer the phone anyway. I'll be practicing spelling lists, reviewing history facts, typing book reports, and searching madly online for photos to add to a science paper for my kids.

Seriously, what are we teaching kids, if homework is so complex that it requires parent involvement? Supervising assignments is one thing, but completing the work is quite another!

Parents make the honor roll!

Stroll through the elementary wing of your local school, and look at the colorful displays of student work in the hallways. Actually, much of it is not student work at all. You can clearly see which projects were truly completed by children.

In one third-grade class at our school, an insect collection arrived in a glass shadow box with freeze-dried bugs neatly attached to foam-core board with surgical pins and actual sutures. Guess what? The student's parent was a cardiovascular surgeon. Who did the work here?

My kid's project included the expected number of bugs, hot-melt-glued to the inside of a shirt box with hand-written labels. A few wings were torn, but the bugs were basically intact.

Who got the A? You guessed it!

I'm loaded for bear now!

This year, my daughter will take creative writing. Just wait till those kids start their composition projects. Hand me the keyboard. My fingers are tingling already!

Can anyone say, "Honor roll"?