Teaching Tips & Tricks, Uncategorized | Jan 4, 2012
Why I don’t believe that school is a child’s most important job
By Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
Why I don’t believe that school is a child’s most important job
By Angela Watson
I used to think school was more important than anything else. In fact, I remember sharing that truism many times in those serious, heart-to-heart conversations with kiddos who were slacking off. I’d put on a disappointed face and use my calm, serious tone: “You didn’t do your project because you were playing? Homework is more important than playing. School is a child’s most important job. Being a good student should be your top priority. It has to come first.”
Who knows where I got that idea–from another teacher, I think, or maybe even a parent. Every adult I said that in front of would nod in solemn agreement. It was a conventional piece of wisdom that we all believed and were trying desperately to persuade the kids to buy into when sports and video games and playing with friends became their focus.
My feelings have changed over the years. Slowly I have come to believe that kids have a right to their own time outside of school, and that we as teachers have no more right to control their evenings and weekends than our bosses should have to control ours. Kids need time to be kids and enjoy their childhood. Now I believe that a child’s most important job is not school, but learning. And these two things are not one and the same.
Learning takes place through play and exploration. Learning comes from following one’s passions and developing one’s interests and hobbies. Learning happens when we talk, wonder, question, daydream, and experiment. Sometimes it comes through worksheets and research projects. But not always. And the things learned through schooling are not necessarily more important than the skills developed apart from school.
I’m not opposed to homework altogether. And I want students to take school seriously. It’s critically important that kids give their schoolwork 100% during the hours of 8 and 3. But school is not the most important thing in their lives. Even if learning is a student’s most important job, children are more than just students, and life is about more than our jobs. Life is about relationships: family, friends, and a connection to God and spirituality. The beauty of life is experienced through play and rest, movement and relaxation. I want to help students create a work/life balance from a young age so that they grow up knowing how to enjoy and appreciate every moment they are given. And that is why I want my interactions with students to demonstrate a shift in perspective. I want my own priorities to reflect that school is not–and never has been–anyone’s most important job.
Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
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I would become very upset when parents would take their children out to go on a cruise or something.Thanks for sharing this awesome article…
WOWSERS! I wish I could have articulated these fine ideas at my last report card conferences. AND I wish my school district’s guidelines, after school care givers, and my student’s parents didn’t insist on the homework to keep them busy after school. I know practicing newly acquired skills is the purpose of homework, and this helps me know how to reteach the concept, I really want to be relieved of the task. I guess that is the part of me that is selfish. Isn’t reading a good trade book for 20 minutes with a parent listening as they cook dinner, enough?
I had a boy taken out of school the first week of December to go to Florida for Pop Warner football championships. His dad said to me when I told him he needed principal approval, “No, I don’t”. I provided a few things in a packet for him to do during his ‘tutoring’ time and hoped they had a wonderful time.
This is a wonderful note supporting a wonderful idea which I would love to read more as folks respond to your blog.
‘No, I don’t.’ Love it!!! Damn right. We as parents have more say than we believe we do, and need to emphasize that.
I couldn’t agree with you more! I have had this conversation with parents who wish for me to occupy their children with busy work after school. I tell them that reading is the best homework for any child and they look at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Thankfully, my school board’s homework guidelines are very well laid out and I can used them to back me up if a parent gets bent out of shape. I resent when teachers take up my family time with useless homework. So why should I do that to my students? They have a right to go home and mellow out. To spend time with their parents and siblings. To play and explore. To take up hobbies and learn new skills. I don’t have a right to get in the way of their lives. Life will soon place many responsibilities on their shoulders, let children enjoy their precious childhoods.
Well said, Adela!
I have told many parents who complain that their child doesn’t bring home enough homework that I firmly believe children should have time to just be a kid. That doesn’t seem to assuage their worries or gripes. It leaves me feeling pressured to give the homework. Then, when I turn around, I’m conferencing with the parents who are upset by the homework given. It’s difficult to find a happy medium.
I actually feel ashamed now after speaking with a colleague today. We were distraught that a parent is taking OUR student out of school for the next month for a medical procedure we felt could wait until summer. After all, why should the family vacation be more important than school and the test scores that may suffer due to the extended absence? Loss of perspective. Thanks for setting me straight!
Hi, Erica! I, too, have had parents request additional homework. I would rather have that happen than force the entire class to do more work because I’m afraid a handful of parents will think I’m too “easy.” If they really insist, I try to give them higher-level thinking activities and creative projects, like self-selected book activities. Some have insisted on workbooks (mostly parents who don’t speak much English and therefore feel like they can’t help with much other than math fact practice-type things) and I have accommodated them. It’s their child, after all.
I would become very upset when parents would take their children out to go on a cruise or something. This is a very interesting post..Like it ..
Celeste, that was my pet peeve! How dare a family take their own child out of school to enjoy life when they SHOULD be forcing their child to sit and pay attention to me! Hah!