More and more centers are beginning to eliminate duties. Lola told us a few days ago: on the one hand, they are not necessary to learn, on the other, they are increasing school inequality.
Even so, we are far from seeing how they are definitively eliminated and, meanwhile, children continue to come home with duties of various kinds. Sometimes they have to write something, sometimes they have to study and sometimes, if they are small, they have to Draw or make crafts.
Then comes the day when they must surrender and share and the children who have put all their desire and dedication realize, when they see the work of others, that theirs is real shit is not at the same height . Who makes them, children or parents?
The boy who didn't want to draw
It is clear that parents often do them, and children, then, paint a part or make a little detail, so they also collaborate in the craft or drawing. The problem? Well that, that when they do the children feel a huge frustration and what can surely happen happens: they stop wanting to do things.
AdvertisingI know because it happened to me with my children. I know, because it happened recently with the medium. From time to time, a folder with two stories comes home and during the week we have to read them with him. Once read, in a common notebook, the child draws a picture about the story he liked best.
Well, the last time the folder came home the booklet of drawings already had enough samples of "paternofilial" art. Come on, that on several of the pages there were drawings made by the parents, with the signature of the children who, as I say, probably had also painted a part.
The fact is that, after reading the stories, I had to be three days behind the boy to make his drawing. He was reminding him, "you have to do the drawing", "we have to deliver the folder and you have not done the drawing", and he didn't even pay attention. In the end, the day before the date I had to return the folder he told me "is that the other drawings are very beautiful, and I don't know how to draw so well"I explained that the safest thing is that the parents would have done it, I urged him to do it again, and in the face of his new refusal his page went blank.
The next day, when I handed in the file I explained why I had not done the drawing and the teacher answered a "nothing happens" with a grimace of "now, I understand."
For that, do not put homework
Perhaps the fault is that teachers should make it clear that it is the children who have to do things, better or worse, but they are them. A help from the parents? Yes, of course, to get the materials, to put the glue if we see that they are going to put everything lost, to trim some things if we think you can leave a finger ... things like that. But they come home with homework and we have to do the parents so that our children do not feel bad, well no. Because anyway, what does a child learn when he carries out a work at home? Nor has he done it, nor can he feel proud of something he has not done. Are we not teaching him to cheat, by signing something that is not his own?
And about the rest of duties and tasks, the same. I talked about it a year ago when I let go of the question, what is the point of the duties if we have to do the parents ?, and is that many times they are not able to do them themselves. Come on, to transfer the work of teaching and teaching parents, as if it were a reinforcement after class, as if they were passing the witness. It's not that I don't want to do it, nor that I can't be positive, eye, it's that you can't always do it and that it is not always the right exercise for the child (So hard to understand, sometimes, that many parents end up asking other parents what exactly they ask for). Come on, they either do them with us, or they go wrong badly, or they don't. And I understand that the afternoon work has to complement what they have already done in class. Come on, that in class they have to get enough tools to later, at home, get by themselves, if necessary.
It may seem that I am contrary to the duties. Well, my friend is not, but I am not totally contrary to them, because to spend the afternoon sitting in front of the TV or tablet, I almost prefer that they spend a while to learn something. However, homework must be well oriented, well thought out. You have to start by motivating children in school, explaining the subjects in a more modern way and taking advantage of their desire to learn so that, when they get home, they have even more desire to learn.
Then there is almost no need for homework, but simply to tell them where they can learn more about it (online, in an encyclopedia, in the library, etc.). But I suppose we are still a little far from that ideal model, we are still a little anchored in the "you have to do this for tomorrow" and in the meantime, parents will continue to do things for our children as if it were a competition between parents. Well, not all. Some of us prefer that our children do things.
Photos | Thinkstock
In Babies and more | "The education system is anachronistic," documentary by Eduard Punset, All that parents can teach their children by completing school, do children have free time?
