Less homework, more learning

My son had 42 pages of homework this weekend. 42.

He had 20 pages of math, 10 pages of Tamil and 12 pages of English (handwriting practise)

The 2 10-page Math exercise were on addition and subtraction, the Tamil was a mock exam and the English paper was an exercise on how to write neatly.

Surely Miss Algorithm, or whatever your name is, you should know by page 5 whether your students have mastered addition and subtraction. Especially when there is no variation to the sums at all.

Surely Miss Chalkdust, 5 reptitions of each word would have sufficed to train the kids. Do they need 12 repetitions? Given the limited fine motor skill abilities of most 7 year old, can you have a little sympathy for cramping fingers as they struggle to write "surprised" 12 times in perfect script?

The only homework that I thought was fair was the Tamil, because while it was 10 pages, it covered 60% of the methods and vocabulary that will be tested in the exam.

I do not want my son to be a drone, doing repetitions of boring, mundane work that means nothing. Repetition works for kids with IQs under 80, but surely those kids will be in schools that cater to that deficit.

If it takes 10 pages x 5 sums a page for you to determine if the student understands addition, then maybe you are not teaching him enough. Maybe you are expecting the parents to teach him, while you just grade the papers and do the boring mundane things that your employer expects you to do. Like classroom decoration to the Hari Raya theme.

But I don't want to spend 6 hours a weekend teaching my son. I want to enjoy him, do the things that we like, chill out and relax and worship God. In fact, and this may come as news, that's what most parents want to do on weekends. We send them to school to get the learning. At home, we want to do the loving. And the teaching that they don't get at school. Like social interaction, responsibility with chores, respect and love for parents, and why Aslan is a type of Christ etc etc.

Can we make no homework the default state? (Read this article to learn about this concept)

And can we prioritize learning? I know that's a tall order in the midst of compulsory testing and project work, but school used to be about that. Let's revisit it.