Just a few short weeks into the new school year and the homework is already piling up 鈥� for kids as well their parents.聽
Homework can be overwhelming at the best of times, even for children who don鈥檛 struggle. For those who do, it can lead to a real distaste for everything associated with school.聽
Nowadays, worksheets are sent home as early as kindergarten. Some espouse that it鈥檚 best to get kids used to it as early as possible, while others believe there is a true benefit to studying outside the classroom.聽
Yet parents and educators alike groan over the homework ritual, particularly for children in elementary or middle school.聽
It鈥檚 interesting to note, however, that there are entire countries, as well as pedagogies such as Waldorf, that embrace a homework-free or light-load attitude. Studies have proven that homework simply doesn鈥檛 pay the dividends we are led to believe. In fact, forcing too much homework on young children has been shown to dilute their academic potential.聽
Homework is costing kids a love of learning and detracting from the information they are able to absorb 鈥� essentially lowering their overall learning potential. 聽
In Finland, where formal education begins at age seven, the graduation rate is 93 per cent, compared with 78 per cent in Canada and 75 per cent in the U.S.聽
Two out of three students go on to post-secondary education in Finland 鈥� the highest rate in all of Europe, and in 2006 Finnish students鈥� mean scores for the PISA (the program for international student assessment) demonstrated the highest marks for students around the globe 鈥� over Hong Kong, Canada, Taiwan, Estonia, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Netherlands and Liechtenstein.聽
There is no homework in Finland for young children. For high school students it might amount to a total of three hours a week.聽
Just this week a friend raising her children in Switzerland recently wrote to me to say how relieved she was after meeting her son鈥檚 teacher and hearing his views on homework.聽
鈥淜ids need to rest and play so that they can come here to learn,鈥� he said.聽
The nine-year-old had previously been receiving hours of homework a night and was missing out on family time. It was a great stress to everyone in the house. Now he does 30 minutes once a week. Mom and son both feel like they can breathe again.
Education critic and best-selling author Alfie Kohn said, 鈥淓ducational success should be measured by how strong your desire is to keep learning.鈥澛�
So it should go without saying that encouraging a love of lifelong learning is, in some ways, the goal. A child who delves into rich and colourful novels; enthuses over playing music or singing; or carries out science experiments in their free time is learning of their own volition.聽
This is not homework. This is curiosity and engagement at its best. Not to mention, many parenting and education 鈥渆xperts鈥� suggest that these moments are born out of boredom. Kohn, who has penned 14 books on parenting and education, speaks to the frustration and exhaustion children experience with copious amounts of prescribed homework. He鈥檚 found that children no longer have time for healthy activities and are depleted of their interest in learning.聽
The cost on family life is also amplified: parent-child relationships suffer because mom or dad often becomes 鈥渢he enforcer,鈥� and a sense of family is lost when a child is not able to participate in things like meal preparation or helping out around the house.
In New South Wales, Australia, parents recently pushed back against the homework zealots and won. Their kids are now completing standard journals on a daily basis, writing about how they cleaned their room, helped with meals, cared for pets, did physical activity or engaged with music.聽
This approach is a lot more in line with what 鈥渉omework鈥� started out as, according to parenting guru Kim John Payne, author of Simplicity Parenting.聽
Payne recounts that at the turn of the century in the early 1900s 鈥渢eachers would expect daily reports from parents on how the children participated in the home life 鈥� carrying out chores such as sweeping, cleaning, milking the cows and sweeping the barn.鈥� The expectation was more about communication between teacher and parent about the child鈥檚 efforts to meet their responsibilities in a day and age when there was scant leisure time to be had.
Today we have more down time, and leaders in child development are urging parents to see it as just that. Moments when the brain and body can either rest and recharge, or become enlivened with ideas and the motivation to express them.
There鈥檚 a time and a place for everything. We must recognize that, for young children, schoolwork belongs at school and that homework can 鈥� and should 鈥� take on a whole new meaning. 聽
