Lesson 67 on Non compliance
At Owen’s school there was no homework.
Reason number one was the “playing out” situation. After a day cooped up in school, pupils were itching to be free. It took all their teachers’ efforts to encourage them to last out till the end of the school day. Sitting still and paying attention did not come easily to them. Also many pupils stayed up late, so by home time they were restless and bad tempered.
Reason number two was that few pupils had any space to work at home where they could be quiet and uninterrupted.
Reason number three was that taking books or other materials home was problematic. Things tended not to come back.
Had the school insisted on homework against all the odds, every day would have started with aggravation and bad feeling. Relationships between pupils, parents and teachers would have been unavoidably soured. So the school organised its work to ensure that everything to be covered was done within the school day.
In the nursery and infant classes, the school had a story club to encourage mothers or carers to read with their children at home, and provided books for them to borrow. Parents who had been unsuccessful at school themselves needed their confidence boosting.
The school organised its work to meet the particular needs of the community it knew and served.
Seems straightforward and sensible, doesn’t it?
But being sensible was no longer the required priority. Owen’s school had to comply.
We live in censorious times.
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