Even before I had kids, I would see the district homework package in the library and be disgusted. Who makes kids do summer homework? I never had summer homework, nor did Mama, and we both did just fine. I've read articles and studies that say that homework doesn't really affect the so-called "summer learning loss." Parents that encourage, cajole, no--force--their kids to do it are the same ones providing stimulating, even educational summers that result in less loss anyway. The ones who don't, aren't, and tend to have kids that lose a month of learning. Of course, these lines often fall along class lines (though, apparently, everyone loses math skills). So, at best, I'm indifferent to summer homework; at most, I'm actually hostile to it, believing it to infringe on summer "recess." And I'm not alone in being torn.
We've been putting it off all summer. Instead, the kiddos have gone to science museums and aquariums, written and illustrated books, played Star Wars and fairyland and Robin Hood, built forts and hideouts, baked cakes and made meatloaf, played on scooters and learned to ride bicycles, played with their grandparents and their neighbors, gone to camp and the beach and the park, had restaurant meals and ice cream and picnics outside, gone swimming and slip-n-sliding, danced to their favorite music and sung around the campfire, played board games and card games and pool games and yard games, and read and been read to almost everyday.
But they hadn't done their homework. Until this morning, when we sat down to write two short book reports on books they had read themselves. (Mind you, at their age, I don't think I could even read, much less write full sentences. I was wasting time playing instead.).
Flashback to a year's worth of weekly assignments, with whining and frustration, giving up and giving in. "Do we have to do both pages?" Bud wondered. Sis ended up in tears. They don't want summer to end. They don't want school to start. I'm not sure I do either, at least from a homework front. I think I dread that part of it as much as they do, especially because I'm the one who has to make them do it (until they're old enough to be responsible for it themselves--so maybe, shouldn't schools only assign homework when that's the case?)
And so we finished up as quickly as we could and then headed outside for a game of Robin Hood and a feast of fresh nectarines and cold cherries, later baking a cake with a layer of chocolate kisses and marshmallows in the middle for extra fun. There's time enough for homework in the nine months, and 12+ years to come.
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