I was a bit miffed this week when my nine-year-old son dissed me. That's the word you young things use isn't it? He's got a project due in a few weeks, about indigenous Australians, looking at either Dreamtime stories or how Aborigines rely on, respect, and use the land. Within that there's a few more options - he can do a poster, a booklet, a diorama, or a Powerpoint presentation, he can even write and illustrate his own Dreamtime story.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
We started with a discussion about what he should do. He wanted to do a diorama. Any parent who's ever been involved in making a diorama knows that it's never a good thing. All that paint and sticks and sand and dirt and clay dragged all through the house. I gave him the old, ''Are you sure you could do that all by yourself because you know I'm not allowed to help you?'' line. And he fell for it.
Which makes my miffed-ness - that's a word I'm going to use - about him dissing me rather hypocritical. You see I had this great idea about a Dreamtime story he could write and illustrate. Canberra comes from ''Kambera'', meaning ''meeting place'' in the old Ngunnawal language of the local Ngabri people. According to Wikipedia, there were six groups of indigenous people in the region, the Ngunnawal, Ngarigo, Wandandian, Walgulu, Gandangara and Wiradjuri. There are five mountains in the immediate surrounds, Mt Majura, Mt Ainslie, Mt Mugga Mugga and Black Mountain. I had this idea about how the largest group, the Ngunnawal, called this meeting to get all the other groups together because everyone was disrespecting the land. But at the meeting all the other groups couldn't sort it out so they were turned into mountains so they had to stay together for time eternal as some sort of reminder that you can't mess with Mother Nature. With all reverence to the idea of Dreamtime stories, I thought my idea was pretty good. He likes drawing, there were some good themes there. Sweet.
''That's a hopeless idea, Mum,'' he said.
I know it's wrong to think bad things about your children but buddy, up yours.
So he settled on a Powerpoint presentation on how the Aborigines rely and respect the land, looking at weapons - typical boy, he's big on weapons - fishing, shelter, bush tucker … who knows what else, I lost interest somewhere. Good thing is I have no idea how to use Powerpoint so his 11-year-old sister will have to help him. Anyway, remember, I'm not allowed to.
The whole point of this is the subject of homework. I can't honestly remember my parents ever helping me with a project. Believe it or not I was an industrious child who loved doing a good project. My area of speciality was ancient history. I was quite well versed in Egyptian, Greek and Roman gods, hieroglyphics, the pyramids. Back then, all you needed to do was head to your local newsagent and pick up one of those project packs for about $2.95 and a project book - you know, the ones with lines on one page and blank on the other - stick in a few pictures you'd cut out, copy a few facts and done.
I was thinking I hadn't seen a project pack for ages but, Googling, it seems publishers Five Mile Press still do them, there's even one on ancient Egypt. The 16-page booklet is ''jam-packed'' with facts and fun ideas and also contains a removable A4 stencil sheet, a huge wall poster and stickers. What more could any budding project doer ask for?
Well, quite a lot it seems now, in this new high-fangled technical age (see last week's column). How does one insert video into a Powerpoint presentation, or music? It might be easier, for me at least, to use a few connections and get Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu to come to class and sing.
Oh, that's right. I'm not allowed to help.
Are you, too, bamboozled by homework? We, as parents, put our minds to all sorts of intelligent things in the course of a day. Whether it be international relations, what life-saving medicines to give people, what money needs to be spent where, who might win The Voice. We're not stupid people. But faced with primary school homework, it's a different story.
There was another occasion last year when my daughter, then in Year 4, had a geometry problem and she had a shape which, with only two cuts, had to turn into another shape. It stumped everyone at home so I took it to a hockey game, thinking that I do play for a university club, full of intelligent people. And there we were after our game, sitting by the side of the field trying to work out this geometry problem. To our credit, we did solve it, but it took half a dozen university educated women to come up with the right answer. Year 4.
Some people believe homework should be banned altogether. Earlier in the year a group of parents and teachers in France called for a two-week boycott of homework, saying it was ''useless, tiring and reinforces inequalities between children''. They said homework pushed the responsibility for learning on to parents and caused fights between parents and their children. Homework has been officially banned in French primary schools since 1956 but more and more teachers are ignoring this edict.
In Australia, research has revealed that in primary school homework offers no real benefit. Associate professor Richard Walker, of Sydney University's Education Faculty, said in an interview earlier in the year that ''only senior students in Years 11 and 12 benefit from after-school work''.
''What the research shows is that, in countries where they spend more time on homework, the achievement results are lower,'' Dr Walker said. ''The amount of homework is a really critical issue for kids. If they are overloaded they are not going to be happy and not going to enjoy it. There are other things kids want to do that are very valuable things for them to be doing.''
I wonder what the research says about parents.
Twitter: @karenhardyCT
