Please see below the excerpts from a letter of my friend. He and his wife visit almost every year their grand children living with their parents in the Bay Area, San Francisco.
.
What is the educational purpose of giving home works from school to students? It should be some kind of a repetition of the class work of the day for the purpose of "drilling"(to use the educational term). If there can be some thing to go beyond what was taught, it must be to t.est the originality and resourcefulness of the student---------Well and good! It can never be something that turns the home into a school of 1 to 3hours duration, requiring the parents to get transformed into teachers of sorts, taxing on their nerves after a strenuous days work for earning bread.. The very idea of home work is abhorred for children in the beginning classes of the primary education. The success of the school and teachers lies in making the child feel at HOME even when the child is at school. Instead this heavy home work assignments to children even of Pre-First standard, make these tiny tots feel that the school never ends.
And the irony is that this sort of utterly anti-child-psychology/learning process is prevalent in the US which, you remember, we undergoing Teachers' training, considered as the haven of child-oriented education. Of course, I am talking from my limited experience of a few cases in the Bay-Area, San Francisco.
Now friends in the US, especially those living in the Bay Area, San Francisco!! Would you mind expressing your opinion and experience in this matter?
Raghunathan, Kadangode. .
Close
Reply | | Report Abuse
Reply | | Report Abuse
It is very true that children are over burdened with school work that is true inIndia
Reply | | Report Abuse
I think there is something very sinister in this situation..........May be I am trying to understand an NRI situation, situating myself in India. Obviously, it has its limitations.
Most of our people who left India to work and live in the U.S are in a totally different work atmosphere. They work hard for 10 to 18 hours per day. Either because of the feeling of responsibility or anxiety about job security, they take it as part of the parcel of the life in the U.S. Formerly, before the 1990s, listening to NRIs, I used to get the feeling that though the parents have to be toiling workaholics, their children, the next generation, is getting a very healthy educational atmosphere. Now it seems the children also are subjected to the dictum in Samskrit " Adhikasya adhikam balam" (The more makes more sure) and not another "Ati sarvatra varjayet" (Never over do).
Reply | | Report Abuse
I have been in the Bay area several times in the past ten years. I had opportunity to note the system of education in the Private Lower Primary Schools. Children are given a lot of home work even when they are in the Pre- First Grade Classes. Children being so young are unable to get motivated. Either of the parents will have to sit with the child to push him/her to do the home work. I have seen that some parents don't have the patience to teach their children.
Even in the Preparatory classes of five year olds big words come in the exercises. Though complete addition tables are not committed to be memorized, addition doubles like" nine plus nine: eighteen" are to be studied by-heart.
I feel that the children are over burdened. Most of them will find their life as students an undeserved punishment.
Is the over ambitious parents encouraging the private schools to have more and more of study-matter? Are the schools competing among themselves to make study harder and harder? Is there any social/legal control or guide lining by the county/state/central administrative authorities?
It is said that "Bala sapam (curse from children) is unredeemable. What can be done?!
Reply | | Report Abuse
Hallo! Mrs.rronnynn: I was just wondering why no body seemed bothered to respond. Perhaps it might be my inability to present the case properly in an advantageous time. Week-ends weaken discussions, or what?!...........The more I think about the rat race to which the younger generation is subjected, the more worried I become. In India still that practice is prevalent: The School that is teaching multiplication tables rote up to 20 is considered as having "better standard" than the one dealing up to 16 or 12 or 10. Most of the parents are worried and tense. I thought that it is the curse that populous "poor" countries like India has to put up with. It is part of the insecurity-syndrome, we may say. But what about the U.S? The land of psychological and play-way methods! Actually I am waiting for enlightenment still.
Raghunathan, Kadangode.
Reply | | Report Abuse
Fantastic opening Blog Mr. Kadangode, My wife was with me when we read this one and she was so moved by your blog that she wrote this response for you:
"A Doubt on the Educational System". Most people couldn't agree with you more. Especially parents who have first hand experience on the impact the educational system has on their children, and also surprisingly teachers who follow educational regiments they would rather not enforce in their classrooms.
Frankly speaking, school systems in theUS
Ask any teacher you know and he or she would probably cringe when you ask them what they think about the added amount of work required of their students. They know first hand what these kids are going through. My good friend is a Kindergarten teacher and is increasingly stupefied each year at the teaching schedule she receives. Four and five year olds reading? Required to stay at school for seven hours? What happened to coloring and playing with blocks? Isn't kindergarten about being a child, learning to socialize and becoming part of society? Or are those lessons no longer of any importance?
The question we have to start asking is: Is our educational system bordering on ridiculous? In a society where our children are growing up faster than past generations what is the hurry to make them into adults? One thing we all know is that we can never get our childhood back...so why don't we let these kids enjoy it?
With regards
Ronny
Reply | | Report Abuse