The Work Starts Now

The moment you realise that it’s not fun and games this year — when your son brings home a whole lot of homework to complete over the weekend.

It gave me a bit of a shock when I opened his assignment bag on Thursday and found that in addition to an English and a Chinese reader (which he brought back regularly last year), he had 2 pages of English penmanship homework, 1 page of Chinese writing, and 1 short exercise to complete based on the Chinese reader. In addition, I was also required to pen him a response in his Learning Log, a book which his father and I had to help him decorate the previous week. Yes, even the parents get homework.

“Argh, why do I have so much work to do!”

I guess they mean it when they say the serious work starts in K1. 

It isn’t difficult to complete, but it is always a challenge getting the restless boy to sit down to work through what needs to be done. Did I also mention that he now has pieces of homework from Berries to complete as well, and from music class?

When you think: “Poor Noey!”, do spare a thought for poor Mummy here as well, who has to make sure that the work is done!

A part of me wishes IHE didn’t have to do it. “He’s still young! Let him have his childhood!” goes the refrain. I agree, and for that reason, my kids have a lot of random miscellaneous play time around these parts. It’s not so much learning-through-play as it is playing-through-play that happens in our home. But there’s something else I also believe, and that is that learning isn’t always fun. It could be challenging, exciting, even satisfying when you have a breakthrough, but often, it is also hard work. And being able to sit down and work through a piece of work well, and derive satisfaction from a job well done, is a useful trait to cultivate.

Of course, I wonder if 4+ years is the right age for this lesson in life! And for quite so much writing. But our approach (both DD and I) is that the work has to be completed, and done well with the correct attitude. It doesn’t have to be perfect. We recognise his limits and know that he needs time for his motor skills to develop and his control to improve.   

Thankfully, this first week of having to complete his homework was relatively painless. There were complaints, attempts to run off, and he made a good pitch of trying to convince me that the four blank boxes at the bottom of his page of Chinese writing did not have to be filled in, but it was all completed fairly quickly. It was also a gratifying moment for me when his Chinese teacher commented that his “家庭作业写得非常好!” That was certainly my hard work!

Let’s hope he, and I, keep this up for the rest of the year.