Sunday, September 19, 2010

Let's Go Soft

The Philippine Daily Inquirer highlighted today that our esteemed Department of Education has banned teachers in public schools from giving any homework to be done during the weekend. The thought is that homework prevents kids from spending "quality time" with their families. The order would also ensure that elementary children would not be robbed of more "enjoyable" activities, as if homework is such a terrible thing.

Why don't we hobble ourselves even more, have us fall further behind our Asian neighbors. We already have one of the shortest school calendars. Let's make sure our children spend less time with their books and more time malling...

MANILA, Philippines—It’s TGIF (Thank God, it’s Friday) for public elementary students as the Department of Education (DepEd) has prohibited their teachers from giving homework during the weekend.

DepEd Memorandum No. 392, issued on Sept. 16, ordered teachers to avoid giving assignments to students over the weekend so they could bond with their families.

“No homework/assignments shall be given during weekends [so] pupils can enjoy their childhood and spend quality time with their parents without being burdened by the thought of doing homework,” said Education Secretary Armin Luistro in his memo.

The order was addressed to DepEd bureau directors, regional directors, school division and city superintendents and heads of public elementary schools nationwide. The memo covers more than 12.5 million students attending some 37,600 public elementary schools

across the country.

Noting the amount of effort that goes into making assignments, Luistro’s memo said teachers should give a “reasonable” amount of work to be done at home “to give their pupils ample time to rest and relax at home for the rest of the day.”

No more quality time

“Common homework/assignments may include a period of reading to be done and writing to be completed, problems to be solved and projects to be worked on, among others. The purpose of which is for pupils to increase their knowledge and improve their abilities and skills,” Luistro said.

“However, it has been observed that parents complain [that pupils] have too much homework/assignments, which rob them and their children of quality time to be together in more enjoyable activities,” the memo added.

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