Posts Tagged ‘homework’
The Best Article About Homework I’ve Ever Read
The best article about homework that I’ve ever read, and probably the best one ever written, is in the December 17, 2012 issue of The New Yorker, written by Louis Menand.
It begins:
Here is something you probably didn’t know about France: its President has the power to abolish homework.
Nice, right?
And lest you think that le President de la France is doing this to appease the parents who proclaim homework to be history’s greatest education monster:
[French President] M. Hollande, however, is not a progressive educator. He is a socialist. His reason for exercising his powers in this area is to address an inequity. He thinks that homework gives children whose parents are able to help them with it—more educated and affluent parents, presumably—an advantage over children whose parents are not. The President wants to give everyone an equal chance.
Sounds reasonable. If nothing else it’s a different perspective on the so-called homework wars.
As with most education issues, it’s not that simple. Read the whole article, it’s worth it.
Louis Menand: The End of Homework? : The New Yorker
