It's spring break, and today I just got around to emptying out my six-year-old's backpack. She is in kindergarten. She brought home with her two booklets of homework--one math and one reading. My 10-year-old, who is in fifth grade, also brought home two entire booklets of homework, which I guess didn't shock me as much but which I still regard as a pain in the ass. But the kindergarten assignments: this isn't a pain in the ass, baby, it's child labor.
It's also ridiculous. National Public Radio, as it happens, has an excellent series going on now on whether kids are getting too much homework, and I know what my answer is: absolutely. Not so much my fifth grader, who needs some reinforcement in math skills, and whose ADD gives her special challenges when it comes to any kind of writing assignment (unless she can dictate it, which isn't always possible). Even so, I think it's a shame that a 10-year-old kid can't take a week off during what, for some reason, her teachers call "spring break." When it comes to my six-year-old's homework assignments, though, these spring break assignments just take the cake.
Over the past school year, some things I could see. I could see drilling her on a short list of "sight" words, to help her get her reading jump-started. But anybody who knows anything about brain/child development will tell you that kids start to read when their eye muscles get coordinated with their brain, and not before, and all the homework in the world will not speed that process.
I thought about writing her teacher a letter explaining why my kid wasn't going to dutifully turn in her two homework packets, but then I thought that given my daughter's already clear talent for challenging authority, I'd be doing no one any favors (including myself) by encouraging her in this regard. So I'm just sending them back blank, and her teacher can make of it what she will.
But if her teacher asks me, here's what I'll say:
My child loves books; she gets read to every day; her math skills are excellent; she is on the cusp of reading and, believe me, is dying to master that skill. She is as motivated as they get. So I'm not worried. If her blank homework packets cause a problem, it'll be a problem for you and the educational bureaucracy. It will not signal a problem for her future academic development. And I am not losing a moment's sleep over it.