I wonder how schools would react if pupils starting reporting to school with unwashed utensils given to them by their parents so they can wash them from school as part of their “schoolwork”. It would be bizarre, wouldn’t it? And yet somehow schools today have been allowed to send children back home with class work as “homework”.
What happened to doing the right thing, at the right time, in
the right place? Yes, schools have an obligation to train children academically,
but academic work is only a small part of what makes person’s life resourceful.
In fact, any society is better off with an illiterate but well-groomed person than
with an educated but not groomed person.
Schools should revert to doing things the way they were when people
like me were still in school. I do not recall ever going back home with schoolwork
(called “homework”). All school related engagements—including ample play time—were
done and completed at school giving us room to also be groomed in the other
ways of this life while at home. From primary through university, schools take
up an individual’s most productive time of the day; schools should make the
most of that time and not have school activities spill overs.
I, however, also know that many parents today are too lazy to
groom their [own] children. They literally dump them at school and run off to
chase after money or whatever they consider more important. Schools may
therefore still have a big role to play in ensuring holistic training of
children for the future.
Schools can retain their “homework” concept but make it about
work at home as a way to ensure that their pupils are getting all round
training. Homework can cover things like leading prayers at home, cleaning
utensils, washing clothes, community service (bulungi bwansi), saying kind
words, making the bed, helping mummy/daddy, etc. Parents can then be tasked
with monitoring how the pupils engage in these activities and then send a
report back to school on the same for the child’s development evaluation.
Schools shouldn’t be supervising parents’ grooming of their children but what
can we do? It’s lemons we have, let’s make lemonade.
Schools should be monitored so they keep within their time
boundaries while the schools monitor the parents to ensure that they are making
the most of the time they have with their children. It is very important that
parents groom their children in non-academic matters because scenarios in real-life
where one has to apply caught knowledge (common sense) out number, by far,
those where one’s class knowledge is needed.
