Something else that impresses me

Molly brought home homework for the weekend on Friday, and then all of us completely forgot about it until Sunday night.

I strongly disagree with homework for elementary schoolers: research indicates that there is absolutely zero connection between homework and achievement until at least junior high. However, one of the assignments was supposed to be brought in to be added to a booklet or something like that, and I thought she'd be sad if she didn't have anything to add, so she did that one before bed.

"Wasn't there another one?" she asked as she finished gluing down cut-out triangles.

"Yes," I said, and showed it to her. "But I'm not going to have you do it tonight. You can do it tomorrow after school. If you want to."

(The other assignment had pictures of pennies and nickles, and the object was to count the money, but you were also supposed to color in all the coins. Molly didn't need to be coloring in coins instead of sleeping.)

"What if I get up early tomorrow?"

"I want you to get a full night's sleep, Molly."

"But once I woke up ten minutes early and I wasn't tired."

"If you happen to wake up a little early, that's fine, but I do not want you setting your alarm to get you up early."

Molly's alarm normally goes off at 6:30. At 6:15, Molly got up, and she and Kiera went downstairs.

I have never been able to wake up on my own. Ever. I absolutely need an alarm clock, and I lack any sort of useful internal clock, even when I'm getting up at the same time every day. Having an internal alarm clock that can be adjusted at whim is in the realm of a superpower, as far as I'm concerned.

*

How to deal with homework when I profoundly disagree with its use at this age is a whole 'nother can of worms. Fortunately, she doesn't get it very often, and only ever on weekends. And usually it's something she finds fun. (This assignment would have been a lot of fun for her if I'd remembered it on Sunday afternoon, instead of bedtime.)

Current Mollyisms that are cracking me up

Molly currently really likes the word "contents" to mean "the stuff that was in here" but pronounces it "continents." "What did you do with the continents of my backpack?" "I would like more of the continents of the soup, please."

Also, she pronounces "poems" as "polems."

The thing about homework

I never had homework until sometime in middle school, and even then, I didn't have much until high school.

And you know, that was fine. I didn't develop the habit of doing homework, but my habits changed so radically between early childhood and adolescence, it's not as if anything would have carried over. I started taking piano lessons when I was five; I had to practice, more or less nightly, until I gave it up at 17. It wasn't as if I acquired a piano-practicing habit like a toothbrushing habit, which simply stuck with me. At each stage, with each transition, I had to work out (with some help from my parents, who weren't going to pay for lessons unless I practiced) time and arrangements to sit down and work. The same would have been true of homework.

I was a seriously overcommitted kid, because I had an abundance of interests. I remember hours of imaginative play with friends when I was young. I took piano from age five, dance of one kind or another from age six to age eleven, and voice lessons for a while in middle school. I had Hebrew school two afternoons every week. I acted in community theater productions. I read obsessively.

All of these things were far more conducive to turning me into a literate, thoughtful, educated person than worksheets would have been.

I started getting real homework in high school. By that time, I could stay up late enough that I could socialize with friends and do my math problems. (This is another thing about elementary school homework; little kids go to bed early.) I was old enough to have some self-motivation, and I was far enough along that the homework tended to be meaningful and interesting -- more so than grade school worksheets, anyway. Since I hadn't spent years doing stupid BS homework that was given for the sake of giving homework, I came to it with a reasonably fresh attitude, rather than assuming that it was pointless.

I still needed to upgrade my study skills when I got to college, but I think that's pretty common.

Molly's play is creative and mentally engaged. She makes up codes and writes messages in them. She writes and illustrates books. She and her friend Emily make up plays and perform them for me and Emily's mom; they draw maps to imagined treasure; they build forts out of pillows and blankets. Play is the work of childhood. This sort of thing is what kids should be doing (and what most kids will do, given free time, basic materials, and an absence of canned entertainment).

All the research indicates that homework before junior high is pointless. And really, you know, that's just as well, because if it did matter, how horrifyingly unfair would the piles of homework be to the disadvantaged kids? I can help Molly with her homework, remind her to do it, stand over her until she finishes it, etc. Not all of her classmates come from great family situations. There are also kids in the class whose parents don't speak English. Homework, if it worked, would be elitist. Since it doesn't, it's merely pointless.

And don't even get me started on the current obsession with testing.