Too Much of Homework

Every school varies from the other by its affiliation, curriculum, mission, vision, goals, objectives, patterns of teaching and learning, culture, surroundings, high hopes for students and staff and parental participation. Okay, that’s good in the name of discipline and education because without these two focal elements, the future of students is nowhere.

However, now-a-days, as much as students study in their schools, the involvement of parents is all the same. Perhaps, they are more like home tutors, who need to take of their kids’ study performance, check what’s in their notebooks for homework, maintain rapport with their kids’ school teachers over WhatsApp messaging, and sometimes when their children are in no good mood, they themselves write, in a crisscross manner, to complete their kids’ homework.

In fact, there’s more trouble when teachers assign homework that looks like off-syllabus. Poor mothers have to do strenuous search over their Smartphones to find some relevant images, identical literature, and something novel when required. What’s next?

Well, there comes an auxiliary role of their hubbies to have those images and text printed. After that, mothers, along with their children, become busy and frustrated to prepare their kids with burdening homework. If this gets done, then there are domestic chores that cannot be neglected.

Presumably, what’s taught and told in the classrooms should be prepared and practiced in the homes. That’s like a genuine, wonderful homework!

One of my colleagues narrated that his daughter was tasked with a typical and tricky homework. She was told to go through a lesson, draft out few questions and answers from the same lesson. For a middle school student, this is somewhat a tough task. It’s like coming up with an appealing headline, body copy and punch line from a simple story.

Oftentimes, too much of daily homework and extra assignments, from teachers to students, leave traces of tension and stress in families. More than playing or extracurricular activity, it’s factual that children get stuck with hours of homework and get less sleep.

Now-a-days, even kindergarten students, besides reciting rhymes, reading, learning and practicing alphabets and numbers get trapped with homework. Gone are the days when kids used to scribble with chalk pieces on slates.

It’s not that homework is unwanted or lacks benefits, but it turns ridiculous when parents, for the sake of their children’s homework, have to spend their evenings and browse on the net to download some pictures, get it printed or copy text from various sources to pen down little, creative essays or guide their kids to memorize some poetic stuff for some occasions. With different and newer subjects and completing worksheets, it’s like laborious learning again for parents.

Imagine a mother of four or five school-going kids, oscillating like a pendulum, back and forth from domestic errands to extensive homework. And when children turn naughty or unruly with their tantrums, then poor parents have to gather extra patience and strength to discipline them.

Image source: saudigazette.com.sa