I hate homework.  There, I said it.  When I was a student, I did as little as I could to get by.  When I was a 3rd grade teacher, I was the teacher who didn't assign as much homework as the rest, and I was always willing and ready to modify the assignment for those kids who struggled through it.  Now I'm a parent of a 3rd grader and a kindergartner, and I am once again questioning the amount of homework that is being dished out.

Nevermind that homework is not particularly beneficial, every year teachers are assigning more and more of it.  I mean, homework in kindergarten?  Get real.  I feel like I give my kids to the school for 8 hours a day.  If you can't accomplish what you need to accomplish in 8 hours, something else oughtta give.  Perhaps those superfluous assemblies and social programs should take a backseat to reading, math, and science.  There's an idea.  What if all schools did was teach, and let the parents take care of the rest?  Novel.

My son is the apple that didn't fall far from the tree.  Neither his dad nor I were particularly diligent students until we discovered a topic that piqued our interest.  We are also not the types of parents that check our kids' bookbags every night and sit with them while they do their homework.  So it is not surprising that we have received several emails from my son's teacher informing us of forgotten assignments. 

Of course I will support his teacher.  I am glad she is letting us know when my son is shirking his responsibilities.  As long as the school assigns homework, we believe it is our duty as parents to support that so we take appropriate actions (i.e. restricting video games) when we find out assignments weren't turned in.

But I would like to suggest that the homework policies in schools be seriously revamped.  I'd love to see an experiment where homework, particularly in the lower grades, is eliminated for a few years.  I wonder if the students' performance would suffer or not.  I'm guessing not.