Homework and the schools system...

Homework is something I didn't always pay the needed attention to when I was a child so when I find myself reprimanding my kids for leaving their books at school “by accident” for the umpteenth time or nagging them to remember how important this all is I find myself feeling quite hypocritical not only that but often I get busy and I may get into the habit of forgetting to check everything and then I miss something and all and sundry flies out the cot when things aren’t done, the only thing I am diligent with is orals which I detest with so much passion it is not even funny but I always make sure those are done correctly because my kids are great with speaking and I shall exploit that gift to their full advantage as far as school goes… math homework on the other hand…sigh.

I really do not envy my kids or the teachers who have to do the homework with them at aftercare or in my eldest sons case his nana, I seriously do not recall having this much work to do when I was a child and it becomes even more frustrating when you have kids that have the attention span of a goldfish like mine and so many others I can imagine, because well the kids have already had six hours of school, they want to run and play and now you need to get them to sit still for another hour to do homework… not an easy feat.

When you look at the 30 per cent pass mark for high school or the fact that  there is a significantly large amount of children dropping out in or before high school in order to work or help support their families it honestly makes you wonder whether the government is trying to cram in as much as possible into the younger years in order to ensure that those who do drop out have some means of basic education to leave with, it is incredibly heartbreaking to look at the statistics, I personally think our primary education is thorough and excellent my mom even had to keep my brother back a year when we returned from Canada as our educational standard was a year ahead, obviously I cannot say whether this is the case in other countries or if it is even still the case in Canada as this was several years ago but for the most part I don’t feel that our kids get a bad education up until high school level anyway (I cannot speak for current high school education I am only speaking from statistical level), I just feel that they are put under so much pressure for being so young and I wish they could play more, it was one of the reasons I looked at home schooling at one stage but my kids need a structure and routine I do not feel I could properly provide at home and so we decided against it besides that I do need to work to earn an income.

Anyhoo I really am trying hard to get my act together as a mom and check every thing every day, I have been told that from grade 4 it gets really crazy and that I will be sitting with the boys until all hours and over weekends to complete the tasks and work which is scary and crazy but we will take it a term at a time as always….

How do you feel about our education system are you happy or unhappy, are your kids home schooled or maybe in a private school, how do you keep up with it all?