I have already written and I believe that the young today are short-changed. I want to widen that to include the way they are, and we were, taught. This business of homework, which I believe to be totally unnecessary, and taking up valuable time of the children and the parents, who are obviously struggling because the parents have forgotten or never needed to know what the children are doing, and the children are not so well taught that they have to do more at home at night. It is my experience that those destined for university, unless they are particularly brilliant, will go into first year where all the things they learned at the school, and require for the degree is revised in much more detail and breadth than they ever got at school. Homework is often a waste of time because the child is totally befuddled and the parents can’t help him so both are frustrated, and put under pressure. These children are sitting at home when they should be having fun and exercise on some playing field, either under supervision in this wicked world, or as we were, free as a bird. Children and university students are taught more than they may ever need in subsequent life. How is it that other form of teaching such as technical schools, universities, and work experience-type instruction doesn’t seem to need homework is a necessity, rather than choice? Yet many children are required to have additional teaching by a private tutor, to reach the standards that are required. This shows a lack of supervision of the standard of teaching, yet most children can tell you which are the good teachers, the poor teachers, and those totally incompetent.
In the real world, what we in the dark ages learned at school broadened our outlook in many ways, but little of it affected what we would require once we were in a job. It was at that point that the real education started. I believe that the education that I received gave me a more interesting take on the world about me, and I worry that these tight educational selections that the children have to make and are so influential, not only on their job prospects, but on their appreciation of the world they live in, when in fact it has reduced the breadth of vision, and I suspect in most cases taught them to a standard that is not required other than as a yardstick of their ability.