My son’s first homework assignment is one I’ll never forget. He was so proud to have joined the big boys. What do you have to do I asked. “I have to find out how you and daddy first made love …” “What?” - Even by his British School standards this was an advanced topic for a little child. My husband took over. “You mean how daddy and mummy met and fell in love? “Yes”, says our son without the slightest hint of the ‘my parents are morons’ tone that was to become common in his teenage years.
My husband reported slowly in the language that a 6 year old could record. “Mummy met daddy at a party. Daddy said, “you look interesting, I’d like to talk to you.” Mummy said. “Go away”. Then she apologised for being rude and they became friends.
We were pleased - an ideal home work subject. It encouraged inquiry, conversation with adults, sequencing, note taking, report writing, parent involvement, and learning about relationships in his immediate world. Most importantly it was not more of the same learning he was getting at school. It was the application of the skills he learnt in school to his home environment.
It was the first of many good homework assignments that he was given. All made use of the home environment to practice what he had learnt in school, and to give him the chance to prepare an original piece of work by integrating many different skills and knowledge sets to the task.
In those early days many assignments were designed to help him visualize and conceptualize measurements and volumes; to give concrete form to his academic work. For instance, when he learnt about litres at school his homework was to find a pint container and fill up a litre container. He then had to record the depth of that litre of water in our kitchen bowl. In this way he saw the differences in volume between pints and litres and gained a real understanding of what a litre looked like. Not only this, his measurement and recording skills were enhanced.
His teachers had been taught the how, why, and what of homework and they evaluated the length of the assignment with care – They followed the rule that no more than 10 minutes per grade level should be assigned, e.g., 90 minutes for 9th graders).Throughout his schooling the homework policy of the school was a complement to his school work. Unlike many children he was not assigned homework with no clear purpose or value, or overloaded with work so that his time with family and friends was compromised. His homework was not a source of stress and fatigue and it left him plenty of time to pursue sports and other out of school activities.
He was happy doing homework and we looked forward to helping him. We were very proud when he came home and told us that his very first homework assignment had been put up on the classroom wall. On Parent’s Evening we made our way to the school. As we entered we were greeted with sly glances from the other parents and our son dragged us over to where his illustrated homework report was hanging on the wall. Next to the drawing of mum and dad he had written in language not suitable for a daily paper, ‘My mummy met my daddy at a party. My daddy said you look nice. My mummy said, “XXXX Off”!
