First graders overloaded with homework:

Post assessment survey of Grade One syllabus, a must

By Manjula Fernando

"Why has teacher to give me so much homework Amma?," Every time my five-year-old who is in Grade One asks me this question I fumble for a fitting answer.

For us in the good old days, Grade One meant having fun in school besides attempts to learn and write the Sinhala alphabet and numbers. And at home it was play, play, play, all day long. Most of our time in school was spent in the play area, where I got my first permanent scar, due to a deep cut on the leg while trying to ride a broken 'see-saw'. Even our formal learning mostly took place on the school ground.

Although much has been written about the GCE Ordinary Level and Advanced Level exams and syllabi, there is very little said and written about the primary education. There is no doubt that ours is one of the best in the world but are the parents satisfied?

Ground breaking education reforms were introduced after many years of research in 1998 and the syllabi was once again updated in 2007. But no amount of work will reap the best results if the implementation is faulty. It still remains a question whether the grade one and two syllabi put to practice in the classroom is actually consistent with the National Institute of Education (NIE) norms.

Grade one children are overloaded with homework. The first graders in state schools have to spend at least two hours a day, on average, doing homework. This is besides spending four and half hours or more in school, doing mostly 'desk work', a concern shared by every parent.

If homework involves hand work, such as making a playhouse, a kite, a yoghurt-spoon dynamo or a balloon doll, the stakes are that a full three hours will be needed, specially if the child is in a bad mood. Homework time turns out to be the worst time of the day for a child and an exasperating experience for the parent - with one trying her best to keep the teacher happy and the other trying to flee.

Even the handwork assignments seem too advanced for a five-year-old and often parents end up completing these 'take-home tasks'. At the end of an exhausting day they will be more than happy to get it over with and stop the child being punished. The last thing you think of is to complain of homework overload.

Then, what is the use of giving homework? Will they reach the competency levels stipulated in the teacher guidebook of NIE (revised in 2007). Is it compulsory for 'Grade one' students to have books and books full of home work? Is this what the revised syllabi expected? A teacher trainer says 'No'.

The guidebook stipulates that the teaching methodology for Grade one should consist of play and activity with minimum time allotted to desk work. The time has come to carry out a post assessment survey to take stock of the situation at ground level.

The trainer said the 1997 syllabi under the Education Reforms program was again revised in 2007 to simplify the Grade 1-2 syllabi to make it more child centred and child friendly.

"The objective is to minimise book based learning to activity based learning. But the teacher is central to making it actually work," she said.

But what does really happen in the classroom? Parents lament their children are burdened with desk work and homework. Some suggest along with the teacher guides and the syllabi, teachers' perceptions and attitudes need to undergo drastic changes for the children to reap real benefits from our primary education system.

Over-ambitiousness and competition among teachers, specially in leading and popular schools, too is a strain on primary students. At their tender age, it is of no consequence to the child if his class is ahead of the one next door. Their only struggle is to comprehend the basics of their immediate environment.

Parents face a dilemma - should they complain to the teacher of the burden on their child or just get into the bandwagon. Once when a parent actually tried to talk about it, the abrupt answer from a teacher had been, "if you feel there is too much homework I will give your child less, if it suits you". The parent recoiled fearing consequences on his child.

Home work for Grade one students consist of writing pages of Sinhala letters, writing two or three-letter words, drawing pictures for Religion or Environmental subjects, pasting small squares of varnished paper on a 'page-size' letter and filling a page with printed letters (to fill one page you need 15- 25 big letters and cut up an entire newspaper, think of the amount of paper going to waste). You are bound to get more than two of these assignments per day, five-days-a-week and more homework on Fridays.

A co-worker of mine said the most offensive request came when the class teacher asked all children to bring a bird's nest for the environment lesson the following day. It was more of a demand than a request. Since the teacher had a reputation of being harsh on those who disobey, almost all students turned up with different sizes and shapes of birds' nests, even a nest of a weaving bird.There was talk at the school gate that the birds' nests were on sale in book shops since it has been part of the syllabus for sometime. Does it teach our kids to protect the environment or rather become poachers?

A teacher trainer refuted it, saying that the syllabus does not compel students to bring such material to school but that is not the reality. May be the syllabus has been misinterpreted but no one has cared to correct it.

A grade one student is between five and six years of age and some of them can barely express themselves even in their mother tongue. It is an open secret that most schools still practice corporal punishment on the first graders as well.

A cane wielding teacher is still a common sight even in popular schools in Colombo. Why parents don't complain is a complex issue.

There are so many questions we need to answer. Why a child who can't wait to go to the 'big school' from Kindergarten, shows evaporated enthusiasm after just a few days of schooling; Why most grade one students enter school as if they are being taken to the dungeons; Why they dread incomplete homework?

Indeed there are many who give their heart and soul to educate the next generation to be worthwhile citizens. But yet the larger picture is not so rosy.

School has to be a happy place for every child. What should to be done to make it so?