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February
/ March 2006 Contest Results |
Homework Bound
By
Joel Schwartzberg, New Jersey
Last week, my 6
year-old son’s homework assignment was to tell a personal story like
early Native Americans did -- by drawing primitive
symbols on animal skin. Fortunately for neighborhood cats and squirrels,
we substituted
a torn paper bag for the skin and created our own symbols for crucial
life tools like "car," "fork," and "TiVo."
Watching Evan
work on this project reminded me of when I did homework of my own -– or,
more accurately, didn’t do it. I learned to put off homework until it
was way too late, a pathetic cycle that I blamed on the homework, not
myself. Even now as a full-time executive, I sometimes look at my piling
workload and think "yeah, well, at least I don’t have homework."
Then I surf the
web for a while, make a few personal phone calls, and rationalize coming
home early.
Fortunately,
Evan’s homework associations are mostly positive. This fascinates me
given the bombardment of television shows, books, movies, video games,
and commercials telling kids that, among other things, homework stinks,
school blows, toys rule, and pizza is best enjoyed in the presence of
arcade games and creepy, life-sized mouse robots named Chucky.
According to
movies I’ve seen, kids in the 1950s ran around with one or two
schoolbooks under their arms, strapped with some kind of belt. Nowadays,
school backpacks are enormous, and come with multiple zippered pockets,
water bottle holders, reinforced bottoms, and wheels. Are we sending our
kids to school or to Costa Rica?
According to the
American Society of Orthopedics, a child's backpack should be 20
percent of his body weight. The American Physical Therapy Association
recommends a backpack should be 10 to 15 percent of a child's weight. My
brother, a pediatrician at Jersey Shore Medical Center, agrees, adding,
"Mom thinks you should call her more often."
Doctors and
nosy-bodies point to loose or uneven straps on a backpack as a cause of
school-related injury among young kids, followed closely by locker room
towelsnaps and human pyramid mishaps. If you notice your kid hunched
forward while walking to school, it may mean a poorly balanced backpack
is hurting his shoulders or ankles. Either that or he’s trying to
disguise the fact you’re still waving goodbye long after you’ve dropped
him off.
I honestly don’t
know how much homework is enough or too much. But my local Board of
Education does, and talks about homework in the policy manual of its
website. Among the more useful things I learned:
• Homework
should be reviewed and returned by the teacher in a time frame no longer
than one school week... or the next homework’s on them.
• Homework shall
never be used as a punitive measure. I believe this is also part of the
Geneva Convention, although some say Secretary Rumsfeld condones the use
of Calculus and Advanced Russian Literature homework as coercive
measures against Guantanamo detainees.
• Homework due
after the Thanksgiving, Winter, February and Spring Break vacations
shall not be assigned less than one week before these vacations, and
shall not be due less than one week after school resumes. In freshman
algebra terms, if Timmy is assigned homework X number of days before
vacation, is expected to turn it in Y number of days after vacation, and
X+Y<14, then Timmy gets a slacker-go-free card and more time to give
himself a decent nickname.
Evan, who still
thinks AP is something he needs to raise his hand before making, happily
completed his Thanksgiving homework with slight help from Mom –- and a
crack team of University-trained epigraphists. I hear it may even be
displayed on the school walls. So the next time you find yourself
wandering aimlessly through the halls of Clinton Elementary School in
Maplewood, New Jersey, check out some of this amazing homemade homework.
Minutes later,
as you’re spotted, reported as an intruder, and being wrestled to the
ground by school security, consider the innocent joy and authentic
interest with which this homework was completed.
And how long we
can possibly make it last.
http://www.jesttokill.com
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