Kindergarteners Shouldn't Receive Homework

Kindergarteners

Kindergarteners should not have homework; first graders should not have homework; fifth grade…maybe. In this fast-paced, super-information age, children are being given more and more homework at a younger and younger age. I imagine, sometime in the near future, pre-school students will bring home some sort of “Mommy, you have to help me with this or I’ll get a bad grade”, homework. Not to say that it isn’t good, or isn’t productive, but I say that it isn’t a good idea to give early grammar school students more than they can complete in class. First of all, school already takes up around seven hours of their day, seven hours per day learning grammar and general education; do they need an extra hour of work every day? Secondly, nowadays there are many single working-parent families and families in which both parents hold full time jobs; they may not have the time, ability, or willpower left after working, making meals, keeping house, and giving baths, to help their children with homework. Also, when children get out of school they want to play with their friends, pets, Lego’s, and do the things children like to do, they don’t want to go home and do more schoolwork, nor should they have to. A child is only a child once, and not for very long, let him play.

A school is an institution for learning, so I say let our kids learn in school. Let them learn to read and write, to add and subtract, to sit and listen. Seven hours a day, five days a week is a very sufficient amount of time to teach and learn these things, if it wasn’t, I’m sure we would extend the school day, or make our children attend kindergarten at three years old. I never had homework until I was in fifth grade. When I was a child we weren’t handed such “responsibilities,” those were adult things and we were kids. Sure, we had to get on the right school bus, but the teacher would even walk us there until the second month of the school year. Responsibility was something I learned at home, along with family values, religious studies, and why stacking the firewood under the shelter was so important. Let our kids learn basic education at the school, let them not be weighted with the responsibility of homework, let them be kids awhile, and not rush them to learn more than is adequate; seven hours adequate.