Last week I had an interesting discussion with my sister about her daughter's school. My niece is attending a Classical Academy in Colorado Springs. It's a charter school and Colorado Springs seems to have a lot of them lately. My sister shared some of her frustrations with me about the school. One of those was the amount of homework given to her daughter, who is only in fifth grade. Now, my niece is a hard worker and is also intelligent. If she's struggling with the hours of homework, can you imagine what the average kid is dealing with on a daily basis? I was talking with a friend at church who is a public school teacher who also teaches fifth grade. She was telling me about the long hours some grade school kids put in every night doing homework. She, however, sounds like the exception, and doesn't give homework on the weekend. Now, I'm not saying homework is bad, but how much is needed for kids so young? I almost feel as if this is some kind of a response to all those Reader's Digest articles that talk about how dumb American kids are. I'm not saying we should lower our educational standards, but is piling on the homework the answer? Can't learning be accomplished without assigning three hours of homework? When do they have time to play or pursue other interests? When my sister, along with other parents, addressed the homework issue, one of the teachers said, "Yes, but how will they be ready for college?" I have a few responses for this. Number one, if you burden them too much now, isn't possible that they will want nothing to do with "higher education"? Again, I'm not saying that our children shouldn't be taught. I think it's important that they have a basic understanding in mathematics, English, science, etc. but it's just impossible for them to truly master all these areas. I also agree with the point my sister made, which is that not everyone is meant to be a scholar. We all have different gifts. I really don't think the guy at Jiffy Lube is a failure because he may not be able to quote Shakespeare. I hope he doesn't have a problem with me because I have a minimal understanding of how a car works. All this to say-ease off the homewok! So, maybe the Japanese kids do score better on test scores. They also have a higher suicide rate in their country.

"The fear of the Lord...That is wisdom." Job 28:28