[Warning: A lengthy post]

When Spud started her new school term barely a month ago, she came home bearing a back-to-school welcome letter from her new Homeroom Teacher on her very first day at school that was addressed to us, parents.

In that letter, we were explicitly told that Spud would now be getting homework on a regular basis.

Spud is 4 years old, and is in K2. She is now going to school full time and doing a 7-hour day. She goes for gymnastic class once a week after school and that would inevitable stretch her hours in school to almost 9 hours, including travel time.

My eyebrows furrowed deep when I read that. My heart immediately bolted out in retaliation at the words “homework” and “regularly” spelt out in a single sentence. I was annoyed at the thought that not only a 4 year old is now expected to submit homework assignments, and that, we parents are “expected to co-operate” as we should; but also at the fact that neither Silver Bullet nor I would be able to be spend time with her on her assignments as we don’t usually get home till after 6.30 pm. To wait for us to come back will be ridiculous – Spud will be too exhausted, and it will be way past her bedtime!

Not wanting to over-react, I shrugged it aside, convincing myself that a little homework would do no harm and that “regularly” had meant only, perhaps, a couple  of times a week.  After all, she is only 4. I felt that they cannot be seriously pushing for academic excellence at this age.  I then enlisted the help of our Nanny to do the needful supervision when Spud gets home from school whenever she has a homework.

I have always make it a habit to check the kids’ school bags when I get home and I always look forward to read their teachers’ daily report as to what they have been up to during the day. Depending on the day’s happenings, those daily reports also give me a little conversation piece to chat about with the kids when I tuck them to bed.

It seemed that I had grossly underestimated the meaning of “regularly”, as day after day, after day since her second day of school, Spud has to complete a piece of paper of stuff to be submitted by the next day.  They were simple assignments of tracing, counting, colouring and writing, but by the fourth day of seeing yet another homework for 3 straight days, I was annoyed – but hopeful that perhaps there would be none on Friday.

On the Friday of her first week at school, however, she had to do 2 pieces of paper to be submitted on the following Monday. By now, I thought that the amount of homework Spud had to do was completely ridiculous. I was almost livid!

By the end of week #2, Spud has had homework EVERY.GODDAMN.DAY. My annoyance at such ludicrous practice escalated. They are only 4 year’s old for crying out loud! Don’t they get enough grilling during the SEVEN hours that they are in class already?!

While Spud did not show any signs that she hated school, and in fact told us she likes her new teacher and her classmates, we also noticed a stark shift in her behavior. We have had some really rough days with her. On one of the days when we dropped her off, she clung on to Silver Bullet and screamed her head off when we left – something which she has never done before.

If she was stressed, she couldn’t articulate it. Perhaps, if she was at all, she displayed it through her sheer defiance and generally being ultra-grumpy as well as being short-tempered all the time; which incidentally have been congruent to the period when she started her new term. Since then, we bear the brunt of her meltdowns as she becomes particularly challenging to deal with in the recent weeks.

While we speculated that her change in behavior could be triggered by the new environment and that her best friend has left town, my mother’s instinct gave out a different vibe. Not wanting to dismiss it, we spoke to one other teacher and a few friends to check if daily homework for 4 year olds is a norm in this country. And if so, it’s one of those norms we just cannot agree with!

I grew up hating homework (even though I never not turn them up), and perhaps I’m biased. However, I do not necessarily agree that kids that age need any homework and I firmly believe that any child below 10 or 11, should spend their time playing, goofing around, and focus their learning through play; not spend their time doing homework and repeating the same shit they drill into her at school in 10 other variations!

In fact, I feel that giving homework at such a young age might even back-fire for some kids who may very well associate such academic push to a learned negative experience instead of what should have been a fun-learning process to ask questions and grow. For fucks’ sake! Give those kids a break. Ask them to go identify bugs or something to share and talk about. Make it fun for them to learn outside their academic curriculum.

My perspective on this is that I do not need my kids to be academically intellectual. I mean, what’s the point of being academic if you can’t even be a gracious person to fellow human kind? What good are all your academic successes if you are deceitful and/or manipulative who would resort to cheat, steal, lie and because of all that academic attainment, you are shaped to believe that  it is your every right to feel entitled?! What good is all that intellectual certification and glorification if you cannot distinguish what the right or inappropriate moral values are with sub-par personal ethics to speak of?!

For all those, I am strongly against that need for academic push just because society deems so. Being the rebel at heart, I refuse to whole-heartedly conform to beliefs I don’t necessarily agree with.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that I am refusing to allow Spud to do her homework. Do it she must, for I do not want to teach her that it is OK not to turn in your homework.  It is definitely NOT OK NOT to turn in your homework, but like everything else, giving homework needs to be done in moderation.

As parents, we just could not take it “for what it is” and so, questioned the need for daily assignment for a 4 year old. We then decided to voice our concerns of too much homework to Spud’s Homeroom teacher slightly before the 2 weeks mark. We wanted to know if this was going to be a more than a regular occurrence and that at 4 years old, Spud would have no respite from having to do homework on a daily basis. We wanted our thoughts to be heard and have no intention to judge, question or insult the teacher’s capability whatsoever. We wanted to discuss and get some insights, while hoping to establish an open discussion on the well-being of our child. In fact, we actually felt a little uneasy to even bring it up as, suddenly, we felt like we have turned into “one of those unreasonable, interfering parents”.

Not surprisingly, our concerns were not very well-received. We were told that this is the way it is and that we should expect that Spud will need to do more homework as she progresses into the next term in K2. (WTF?!!) We were (sort of) chided gently that kids these age need to be “trained” this way and that it is “up to us as parents to train them properly” (WTF!?!!). She stressed that it would be a good parent-child session to supervise the kids while they are doing their homework; to which we said that we are not able to because of our working hours. I then asked pointedly if she expected us to then do the homework with our child when we get home after 7 and delay their bedtime instead, to which she said yes. (WTF?!! Are you out of your mind?!) After several heated debate, we were then told that it is up to us to then allow our child to do the assignments that were given. (another WTF?! Of course, we would, but you are not listening to us on our main concern on the need for homework to be done DAILY for a FOUR YEAR OLD CHILD!).

Lots more were being said during our 15 minutes conversation and I found myself raising my voice several times as plumes of smokes came out of my ears. I then abruptly ended the session citing that I was late for work and that we may need to consider pulling Spud out and look for alternative. By then, I was getting too agitated to have any discussion objectively.

That very night, we wrote to the school requesting for Spud to be transferred to a different class. To our surprise, our request was acceded to quite quickly. Spud came home with a stack of papers from her former Homeroom Teacher on the day she was moved to a different class, bearing 2 weeks of homework and some of the assignments she had to do in school that seemed to be given when they have a little time before a break.  I counted and I flipped through every single sheet. There were altogether 36 pieces of paper. I could be wrong, but based on what I recognized from memory, most were her homework which she had brought home.

Not 3 days after the transfer, we noticed, ever so slightly, some positive changes to Spud’s behavior. In a matter of days, Spud seems a little happier and less irritable.

There also has been no homework given to her during the entire week. (Aha! Could it really be…)

While I can’t quite attribute it to anything directly related to the teaching style of her previous Homeroom Teacher or that she has been experiencing hidden stress which she can’t quite yet articulate, for me, it was something to think about.

It is still too early to deduce anything at this stage, given that the change has only been pretty recent. But, I would be lying if I say that there hasn’t been any improvement since then. In fact, the change in Spud’s demeanor has been quite promising and….dare I say that for us, it somehow felt like it has been some kind of a breakthrough.

I am positively hopeful and I’ll give it another full week to make anything out of it. After all, I have learned that there’s always something about a mother’s instinct. They are, almost always spot on.