The Challenge Of Loaded Homework

 A typical school day for a pupil in Nigeria starts by 7am. Between this time and 2pm, the child receives nothing less than five lessons on five subjects, with each lasting for about 35/45minutes. At break time, children get to play for about 30mins, and in some schools, break time is used to replace ‘table lesson.’Table lesson is designed for pupils who still need one-on-one lesson with the teacher. Pupils who have table lesson are engaged throughout the school day. To such pupils, break time is a luxury. At the end of the day, they are given homework. But their day may not end like that; they also attend after-school lesson which starts at 2pm and ends at 4pm. They are still given homework. That makes two sets of homework which have to be submitted the next day. For some children, getting home at 4:30 or 5pm doesn’t mean time for rest, they still have to sit down in front of another teacher to receive ‘home lesson.’ These home lesson teachers, who want to impress the parents of the pupils and justify the money they receive for the home service, will give them another set of homework. Five-year-old Dare (not real name), who attends a private school in Lagos, said the homework he gets from school prevents him from having an early night rest. “When I get home from school, I will eat and rest for some minutes. Then, I will start my homework. I usually have five different homework but I don’t enjoy doing them,” he said. Dare’s mum, Titi Isaac, said her son brings at least four homework on a daily basis.

“At that age, such a young child shouldn’t be bombarded with too much homework. Even when I complained to his teacher, she said there was nothing wrong and that this would make my son understand his subjects better, but I noticed the reverse was happening.”She said it was worse that the child would still have to wake early despite sleeping late so as not miss the school bus.Happiness Ogunkoya, 13, is in JSS3 at Pinnacle International School, Lagos. She said, “The homework I get in school is too much. In a day, I have about 13 homework because I do 13 subjects daily and all my subject teachers give me homework. I don’t go to bed earlier than 10pm and I still have to wake up by 6am.” An SSS1 pupil of The Pledge School, Chisom Okeke, said she usually had between three and four different homework in a day. “With just three homework, I have time to read my books and I get to sleep on time. I usually feel pity for my friends who complain about their homework. Sometimes, they have about 10 different homework to do,” she said. Another SSS1 pupil from Fagba Junior Grammar School, Rita George, said it wasn’t good for a child to have too much homework.“By the time we return from school, we are so tired. Our brain is tired too. We force ourselves to do our homework just because we don’t want to get punished by our teachers,” she said.

Some parents, who spoke, lamented that their children were being stressed out with too much homework. They called on teachers to reduce the work load given to children. Mrs. Esther Nwachukwu, a mother of three, said her children weren’t the only ones being stressed out with homework, she was too. She said, “Every day, my children come home with loads of homework, it is so stressful for everyone. Immediately I finish cooking, let’s say around 7pm, I would begin attending to my children’s homework. Sometimes, we would be on their homework till 10pm. The next day, my children will be dozing off in class, I am not happy at all.”Mrs. Christy Ajieh, also agreed that too much homework was stressful for children. She urged teachers to make amendments. “According to the teachers, this helps the child think, but I disagree. A child shouldn’t be given too much homework; the maximum time a child should spend on homework should be 30 minutes,” she said. A mother of three, Mrs. Titi Aladegboungbe, said in her time they weren’t given too much homework, yet they did well in their academics.“One of my children gets nothing less than seven assignments and this excludes homework from after-school lesson and home lesson. This holiday, I refused to register any of them in summer school because I wanted them to relax and play,” Aladegboungbe said.However, some teachers believe that when children are given too much free time, they tend to misbehave and neglect their books. To avoid this, they argue that children should be given ‘enough’ homework to keep them busy.

The Registrar, Beacon College, Ifo, Ogun State, Mr. Emmanuel Effiong, said keeping children busy with homework would prevent them from getting involved with unpleasant things. “The homework helps them do better in exams. Some of these children are overtaken with fear or may fall sick during exams, so it’s the little they retained while doing their homework that they rely on.“However, this is not to say that children don’t need rest, they do and shouldn’t be overworked. Too much work will make the child slow in retaining information,” he said. A study conducted by a group of researchers in Australia in July 2013 stated that piling homework for children would not make them advance in school; in fact it could have a reverse effect. Despite these complaints from parents and children, the Australian researchers acknowledged that there was no advocacy for abolishing homework, but they requested that the amount and quality of homework be reexamined. Acknowledging that too much homework causes stress in children, Dr. Adeboye Ayinde of the Department of Psychology, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, said it had been scientifically proven that when children are subjected to too much homework, they could develop stress.

He said, “Children, unlike adults, shouldn’t be subjected to too much mental work because their brain isn’t mature enough to handle it. As the adage goes, ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ A child should be given enough time to read and play as well. It shouldn’t be reading all through.“When a child is given too much homework, he will become stressed, but because they don’t know the terminology to describe their condition, they endure it and this triggers other conditions. That is why you find a parent complaining that the child is always having malaria or cold.“Parents may think bombarding their child with so much homework is the best way to make the child excel, but in the long run, this child grows up with an inability to relax. They have been groomed to always work, so when they eventually want to relax, their body may shut-down or develop stroke.”A clinical psychologist at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Dr. Leonard Okonkwo, also said too much homework is stressful for children. “Our education system is structured in a way that there is time for everything – time to read, rest and play. But lately, everything is giving way for academics. Life can’t be all about books. These children have to be given time to relax their brains. Teachers think they are helping their pupils when they bombard them with so much homework, but they are not. A child tends to get lower grades when he or she is being forced to work and work academically,” Okonkwo said.

He lamented that despite the work load children receive at work, the nation’s education system was still poor and candidates were still doing poorly in exams. “There has been little improvement in the results of external examinations, despite the huge work load children receive. This shows we are doing something wrong,” Okonkwo said.Speaking to, the founder of a non-governmental organisation, Resource Sharing Network, an education outfit, Mrs. Tosin Olowoyeye-Taiwo, said some parents prefer the numerous homework children get because it would give them time to focus on their career. She said, “All that homework is load of work for children. It is so saddening that we are losing it gradually. And children are made to suffer for it. To me, lesson work, class work and homework are only meant to keep children preoccupied because parents don’t have adequate time anymore to occupy their kids. It is not about how much input, but the quality.“They start school at an early age — 1, 2, 3 years and are made to face all the hurdles and challenges of life. It is really stressful coupled with the fact that they always wake up very early and get back home late. Parents need to wake up to their responsibilities.”

Source: http://www.punchng.com