I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Ich Hasse Hausaufgaben (I Hate Homework) – Cringely on technology
by Scott Smith
We’re being told our kids lack critical thinking skills, yet this curriculum doesn’t seem to teach those skills, at least not that I have seen.
Worse still, most of the homework is busywork. It teaches nothing. Worst of all, our child-centric culture has parents digging-in with their kids to do that homework, wasting all of our time and ultimately pitting adult against adult as surrogates for their exhausted kids.
What’s wrong with this picture? Everything.
When I was Channing’s age, 50 years ago, my parents’ attitude was one of benign neglect. They were busy doing whatever parents did back then (drinking and smoking cigarettes, mainly), but it sure didn’t include helping me with my homework. Somehow my siblings and I survived just fine. Yet today we’re supposedly faced with plummeting test scores and surging dropout rates despite whole generations of parents slaving away every night on homework. What gives?
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