December 15, 1964
The sun shines again! Mr. W didn’t check our notebooks. By the way - it’s 12:00 PM. I have been doing my English homework. Tomorrow I’ll be ready for whatever comes - I hope! Well I’ve had a hard day today - Good night.
December 15, 2022
Finally, a partial page. Whatever else happened that day, it was eclipsed by my second chance at escaping the Wrath of W. So at midnight, having caught up on whatever busy work he had assigned, I was completely done in.
Here’s the thing about homework. Back in the day, we didn’t have real homework until fifth grade. Yes, we had spelling words to learn and times tables to memorize, but the proof of our having studied was in the results of spelling tests and math quizzes. In fifth grade, I got my first book bag (navy blue waterproof fabric with bright red trim) and my first real homework assignments. By that I mean exercises or problems to be completed at home and handed in the next day. At first, it was exciting! I was a big kid, with my book bag and my little spiral memo book.
It got old real fast. I don’t know what educational theorist decided that homework was a good thing, but with rare exceptions, it was not. It was boring and usually meaningless, except as an entry in the teacher’s grade book. (And as a teacher, I detested all that bean counting, so I stopped.)
By the time my own children were in school, homework had not only metastasized in the number and length of assignments, but had spread to first grade and even below. The reason I was given for my five-year-old daughter having worksheets to bring home in her tragically large backpack was that it would accustom her to homework. When I heard this, my immediate thought was “Bullshit!”. My biggest regret is that I didn’t say it out loud.