The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-04-07


Most of us know that given a
must have time, place and peace to
do 1t in.
Yet we have habit, we parents,
of making the home work of chill
dren an incidental thing.
E Not that we intend to, quite the
contrary, for there goes up at
nightfall q chorus all over the land
of Get your lessons done, chill
dren." Most parents go through
the evening routine OF coaxing, re-
minding, and even threatening.
But the fact remains that we
treat the matter as incidental, or
secondary to a dozen other things.
There should be a quiet place
arranged for study, with good light
and clearance space for writing
and books, a desk or table with
the right "reach," notttoo high or
too low, because young bodies take
the pattern only too quickly of
wrong position.
Avoid Interruptions
There should be no Interruptions
once study has begun. The dis
fractions Of the radio should be
postponed. Errands or household
duties should be done either before
or afterward.
But above all there should be
at least little interest on the par
ents' part in what Jimmy is trying
to do. This does not mean that
Dad should do his problems or Big
Sister is history, but a real and
human interest in his work should
be the family attitude.
AS far as helping him is con-
cerned, no teacher on earth OBJ
jects to home explanations. There
is too little Of it done, in fact, and
the school program can usually
stand bit of supplementary
coaching.
I Home work is of two kinds.
Study, and the written recitation
of facts already known.
The idea of the recitation is to
fix facts in memory. To recite or
write something the child has read
fixes it to stay, otherwise the his
tory page, or the spelling lesson
may make little impression at all.
When he has studied a lesson,
some one can hear him recite it.
This is always a help, because
when he repeats it in schol next
day either orally or on paper, the
double impression is priceless.
AS rule arithmetic problems are
merely tsets of reason. Night work
Of this kind is often the only way
the teacher has of discovering how
much of the days explanation has
clicked. Therefore it is best to let
Jimmy do his own problems, But
there is certainly no objection to
helping him with the principle in
volved. AT least there hould not
be. I could never understand Sin
| terest" and discount, but I re-
member. My father took an entire
evening to make it plain.
Too Much Study Harmful
I don't like the idea of home
work, yet there are times when it
must be given. To load children
down with too much work is
wrong. Children cannot be con-
fined all day and all evening, too.
In spring why not get them up ar
hour earlier in the morning and
let them go to it. Their minds are
fresh and it will go twice as fast.
If schools were regarded and
children grouped in classes accord
ing to capacity rather than age;
much time would be saved. There
would be little need of home work
except for the few. There is a
great deal of daylight time lost
under the present system. Teach
ers, as rule, are driven and work
under the whip-lash of marks.
They are judged by their good re-
ports.
Some day it will be changed. In
the meantime we should make
night-work as easy and pleasant as
possible.