In the 1970s, "the
British disease" meant workers who took long tea-breaks
shortly before knocking off early. Workplaces these days are
characterised more often by excessive pressure and the belief
that putting in long hours is the route to success.
My generation grew up thinking that there is more to life
than working hard. Now that we have learned better, we are
preparing to teach our children to follow our lead. Funnily
enough the Japanese, in whose footsteps we tread, are
simultaneously trying to reverse their own society's disease:
workaholism.
We will rue the day when David Blunkett published
quantitative homework "guidelines" that pre-empt an ascending
portion of out-of-school time for children between the ages of
four and 16.
This is not because homework, for children of all ages, is
a bad idea. Of course it can teach children to be more
autonomous and take responsibility, at the same time as being
a tool of home-school contact.
But why can it not do so in small doses? The Blunkett
guidelines threaten to extend the school day to mimic the
long-hours drudgery suffered by working adults.
The threat is real for a combination of reasons. First,
because in our anxiety to improve education, we are in the
habit of getting unduly obsessed by the things we can see and
measure.
That is why standard assessment tasks (SATs) have turned
from a means of quietly monitoring children at risk of falling
behind, and increasingly have become an end in themselves.
(Kenneth Baker in 1988 would have vigorously denied that
within 10 years primary schools would routinely "teach to the
test" and parents rush out to buy guides on how to "pass"). In
the case of homework, schools will reassure anxious parents
with quantities of homework equal to or greater than national
guidelines.
The second reason for worry is the type of homework that is
likely to result. Obsession with quantity works well neither
for teachers, parents nor children.
Primary school teachers who have relatively little
non-contact time cannot be expected to set, let alone mark,
large quantities of imaginative exercises, so little wonder
there is already so much colouring-in, and worksheets of 20
identical sums when five or 10 would have been fine.
For pressured parents, supervision becomes the tension of
getting the child through these tasks rather than the joy of
taking time to study with their sons and daughters. For the
child it causes angst or becomes a chore. Surely for a
seven-year-old a couple of interesting 20-minute assignments a
week would be more useful than more than two hours of rather
tedious work?
Why are we doing this? Partly under the ridiculous pretext
of getting kids away from the television. Mr Blunkett's view
that children who watch TV for three hours a day can afford
instead to devote it to this other largely mindless activity
is incredibly defeatist.
It insults children who can find better things to do,
including participating in the huge number of out-of-school
activities on offer. It also assumes that it is too dangerous
to allow growing children the independence in organising their
time and developing their interests that most of us remember
and value from our own childhood.
But the main reason, I suspect, is a collective insecurity
about our children's futures. We imagine that the harder they
work the better off they will be, if not today, then tomorrow.
They have to learn to buckle down.
This view that "more means better" in education is
disturbing, not least when we look at other countries. Swedish
children are among the best readers in the world for their age
by the end of primary school, even though they do not start it
until seven. True, they often learn to read at home before
that age, but not because of central government diktats.
At the other extreme, the Japanese have long had an
education system based around hard work. Young children spend
evenings in crammers to prepare them over many years for
"examination hell" at ages 15 and 18. They do so in order to
get jobs with big companies, who have traditionally sought
employees who can demonstrate the key qualities of diligence
and dedication.
Now the Japanese are trying hard to change this ethos.
Companies fear that their workers are dedicated but lack
imagination or originality. They try to send out different
signals. The education ministry wants schools and children to
loosen up. But a workaholic culture is one of the hardest
addictions to kick.
Those who top their high school exams continue to go to
Tokyo University, the top firms still recruit them, and
parents continue to use crammers. Parents are also protesting
at a reform that is abolishing Saturday classes.
We have happily not reached this stage of addiction but we
are well on our way. In thinking about how we can stop this
folly, let us not forget what is at stake. It's a cliche, but
true: childhood - free of undue cares and pressures - is our
most precious possession.
Donald Hirsch is a parent and a consultant on international
education trends for the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development.
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