Ok it is finished, i am not taking any sides on the debate of whether homework is or is not nessecary (although it may help me on my spelling) it was just myself reflecting my own homework experiences.
and thejdw, can you please pm me the research done into that particular study of homwork fatalities?
Warning!
To reduce risk of serious injury, read safety & comfort guide provided with product and at www.compaq.com/ergo
I read upon my keyboards whilst sitting here in vain trying to overcome the ever ominous writers block. I begin to ask myself; what injury’s, pray, does one obtain from a keyboard? What risks am I taking in using this keyboard? How serious an injury can a keyboard inflict? and why, o why can I only reduce the risk of injury? Now I am starting to work myself into a bit off a fluster. How can I finish my homework with this ever eminent ‘risk of serious injury’? So I, being the ever cautious type, took into consideration the impending hazard and didn’t do any homework…
All through my life it has been the same old story, Teacher: “where’s your homework”? “Have you done your homework”? “Your homework is dreadfully overdue”! “Don’t even bother handing it in” “Failure Failure Failure”! Myself: “umm well actually…” and I will struggle to come up with that vital last minute excuse that will buy me enough time to rush it through during lunch break. A bird did eat my homework once, I had actually done it and left it on the table and the family cockatiel chewed through it, completely oblivious of the farcical excuse he had bestowed me with and maybe once I actually did get abducted? Is it not possible? How many reports do you read a year about the same thing? May it be highly likely that there is an entourage of little green men hell-bent on destroying the world and due to the fact they are only little and green the only practical way to do so is by beaming up school children and preventing them from doing homework, thus creating: the dumb generation.
Its not that I couldn’t do the homework, I just didn’t. Primary school was ok, oh in primary school to come home with homework was great, the whole family would gather round and see what you where doing and help was handed out like sausage rolls at a party. Then the years grew shorter and homework became ‘uncool’, it was the norm, everyone was doing it, or not doing it and the parents had lost that interest they once had, now it was simply a matter of: “Get in there and do your homework”. Talk about a punch in the face, one minute homework is honoured and a sure way to gain you attention, the next your shoved in the corner and kept there until your finished. That was the main problem, you had to finish it. The amount of times I would start of an assignment and compose the most brilliant first page, in fact a more brilliant first page may never have been as brilliant as the one’s I created with it to just fall in a hole and get pushed to the side.
Do we as children/teenagers need all this work? There is already six hours dedicated to every weekday in which we work, maybe we have other more recreational pursuits like hanging out the washing, cleaning up the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher, vacuuming the floor, cleaning my room and the list goes on. Now homework used to always come before the household chores until I began to use it as a scapegoat, I am going to lay out a role play. Mother: “Son 1 can you please hang out the washing?” Son 1: “but mother dearest I do have a dreadfully awful amount of homework to do” Mother: “that is ok dear, you run along and get that done, I will do the washing.” Half an hour of time goes by bringing with itself a musical interlude. Mother enters computer room, yelling: “I thought you were doing homework!” Son 1: “I am doing homework” Mother (still yelling): “that doesn’t look like homework to me!” Son 1… and this would go on for quite some time until mother realised that no I was not doing homework, but just using the concept in order to pull the wool over her wonderful eyes.
There was absolutely nothing that would motivate me to work, I would start all these assignments and then just leave them to marinate on the computer hard drive whilst I played myself some games or went out to a party, or behaved badly with friends as boys, or men are said to do. The question sheets where ok, I could simply read through and scribble down the answers taking the least amount of time possible then carry on with my life. But it was the Essays, the analytical responses, the reflective journals and the like. These things are real dynamite, if one does not have the concentration span of a Finish Powerball 3 in 1 dishwashing tablet one does not get it done. I was required to sit and type, giving something that I was not interested in my undivided attention for a longer period of time then I dedicate to eating dinner.
Ok some of the Homework I am set is fun and I do enjoy it, but I no longer feel attached to it. It goes to the teacher and all I get back is a letter followed by a maths symbol. Henry Ford may have coined the phrase alienation in relation to the workforce but I am applying it to homework. Although I do work on the whole product and submit it all as a complete work, I still feel alienated from it. It goes back to the question, why are we doing it? Yes I accept learning as an answer but I don’t think that is enough, the product that we as students construct is read by the teacher, marked and put aside. There is no other audience, no critics, now if I was given a task to write up and assignment to go in the school newsletter I would spend all my waking hours producing the most amazing assignment the world has ever seen, because having it published in the school newsletter has given it meaning, a reason and something to work towards. It is now a product which is intended to actually be read. Besides helping myself I have a purpose in doing it. I have a duty bestowed on me by the readers in order to give them something magic to read, to teach them something new and to entertain them.
……
“Well actually I have already completed this assignment but it was on my home computer and when I tried to send it through to school I sent the wrong one. Pardon? Yes I now the email isn’t there I deleted it of course, well actually it never really sent. I thought I had sent it from home but I didn’t have time to confirm it because the next door neighbour was at the door again complaining that my dog ate his homework and then when I came back to check the emai… yes I understand that you have probably heard this excuse a hundred times before but this is the truth, honest. Why would I lie about it, you saw the finished product that other lesson remember, you know the day when you were coming around everyone’s computer and checking what they had done. Ok I know that I showed you the other essay we had due but this one is nearly the same, I even used the same structure. Yes I know that I haven’t handed in that essay yet either but it is just in my car, I will go get it at lunch time and give it to you. What? Last time I said that you never got it? Oh yes don’t you remember remember, that was the day I locked my keys in the car, I told you that first thing the next day. Why didn’t I give it to you that day? Well you see I had it but it didn’t have a cover page but I would have showed you if you asked.”
Maybe we should be given homework in which one has to come up for an excuse as to why one did not do their homework and in that excuse they must include all the points that were supposed to be covered by the homework… Oh I would like that very much.
So the reality is the higher the level of your education, the more likely your parents “can’t” help rather than “won’t” help. I don’t think I will be excited to be reminded of how much I have forgotten by the time my daughters reach your age. 
Maybe I should do a yearly review to keep my skills sharp.
I am being sirous it can!