What happened to childhood?

My seven and a half year old daughter is in the final stages of year two in Primary School. She’s just reached the point where they give her homework and I’m shocked.

I was sitting down in the kitchen to eat dinner, it had been a really long day and I was pretty tired. So when my daughter asked for help with her homework I told her to stop being silly and to just get on with it.

Not a particularly helpful response to a child, especially as she seemed to be trying her best. She’s normally a top of the class straight A student – that’s why I sort of just told her to get on with it.

But my wife convinced me to turn my iPod off (I was listening to TWiT) and give her a hand.

That’s where the shock came in. At first I just saw the question and answer paper and was amazed at the work she was being asked to do – I swear I didn’t do this sort of thing until secondary school.

Don’t take my word for it though – here are the questions:

1. Name the largest River in America?

2. When one stream meets another stream it’s called a?

3. How would you travel through the rapids?

4. What animals would you find in the River Valley?

5. Describe what a meander is?

6. Birds like to hide and nest in the marshes, can you name any?

7. What animals do we find in the swamp/wetlands?

OK so the questions are phrased in a much more simple way than those given to a secondary school child – but it’s the time of questions that I’m shocked at.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been amazed at the type of work my seven year old daughter is doing either. The other day she had a maths sheet with sums like ½ + ½ = and even more complicated ½ – ½ =!

But back to the rivers.

What I realised after getting over the initial shock and after re-reading it properly was that the question paper wasn’t actually about rivers but more about research and reading.

The paper came with a book and the idea was that she used the book to find the answers to questions and once I’d given her a crash course in finding information from a source – she found it a breeze.

This is the sort of information and skills I wish I knew when I was at school – the transition to writing proposals, articles, blog posts and even essays would be a LOT easier if I had them before getting to secondary school.

The final question on the paper gave the point away.

8. Look in the glossary and find out the meanings of these following words:
Annual:
Crustaceans:
Wetlands:
Boulder:

When I’d shown her how simple it is to find the information – just read through the headlines to pages until you find something relevant (it was a simple book and the questions were designed around it) – then when you find the relevant section – read through for the word or words you need.

At this stage all she has to do is provide one or two word answers but it is a useful first step towards actually writing essays – something I’m sure is coming soon.

In fact she’s already doing it in her spare time. She keeps writing little features about the famous people she is learning about in school – like Florence Knightingale.