Guest Post: The Nightmare That is Homework

Let’s talk about the nightmare that is home work, shall we?

Maybe it’s not so much of a nightmare for other parents as it is for me and some of my friends. Yes, yes I agree times have changed, I mean it will be silly of me to expect my son to get the same amount of work I did when I was his age and in the same grade.

To be fair without filtering time into it, the amount of work that we did in grade three during the Bantu education was a little lighter and more manageable than what my son does today. Okay not really Bantu education, I’m not that old I don’t recall our curriculum having a name maybe it did but no one paid much attention to that.

I could count instances where my mom had to sit with me and be involved help with the whole homework situation. I must have been in grade four (standard two) and we had to do amaqhalo (idioms) for homework. Yes, one would have thought it easy given that we spoke the language on a daily basis, but no one talks like that, come on now! Anyway my mom with her standard eight (She could have easily been a teacher) helped me out, I recall one which stood out amongst many.

“Isisila senkukhu sibonwa mhla ligquthayo” which means ‘a person’s true character can be seen when they are angry’ loosely translated.

There I was in class all excited handed my work in, to which I got those infamous red pen comments, one of which read:

“If your mother wants to be a teacher tell her to keep you at home and teach you from there”

You bet my mom saw that and she was not about to leave it lying down like that. She responded but hers was all over the inside cover of my book, yes in red.

“Start teaching them properly in class; we send them there so they can be taught by you, for crying out loud how do you expect them to know work that we did in standard four when they are only in standard two?”

Now it’s 2015, imagine this:

You are a working mother. When I say working I am referring to a typical nine to five job. Which will mean that you leave home around 06:30 in the morning to drop off the little one, make your way to work and only make it back around 17:30 if you are lucky. Your child goes to after care which means that you stand a very good chance of being that parent who is forever late for the afternoon pick up. Not only will you be the talk of the assistant teachers, but you will also not be so popular with your little one.

“Mom were you stuck in traffic again? Was there an accident on the highway? I thought you had forgotten about me (as if you have a history of forgetting him in after care, it only happened once – can we move on?)

You blame it all on traffic while making your way home.You fix supper in less than an hour, the time is now 19:30 approaching bed time already. You start to panic thinking how will you get through everything (homework) in ninety minutes.You get on with it nonetheless- it has to be done.

When you perused through the homework in the school communicator during the day, you planned it in your head how you were going to tackle it and the plan looked great.

“Take out your Math book we are starting with Maths.”

” Err, mom, I think I might have accidentally left my math book at school.”

“Okay fine,” you say, and then you move onto English. However English is not complete without reading.You already know it’s going to be a mini war, with him telling you that he’s allergic to reading and he knows this because every time he has to read at home he starts itching. You pretend as if you did not hear that. To your surprise the passage loaded onto the school communicator is totally different from the Ereader on his laptop. What to do now?

You check the time, then you call the other single mom. She picks up, she is exasperated as her son had forgotten his laptop at school meaning there’s no way of checking with her.You scratch your head, slowly count to ten, then say: “Okay fine, let’s hang on to reading, let’s do Science.” All of a sudden his face lights up and in less than forty minutes Science is done. The time is now 21:20  and you are thinking to yourself ‘mmmhh maybe we can squeeze in ten minutes of bible time and maybe one or two chores from the chore chart to cover life skill’. He asks if he could go to the bathroom you agree, while he is in the loo you run his bath. Ten minutes elapses; no insignia of him, you call out, no answer, and you go to the toilet to check what could be taking him this long.

There he is on the floor fast asleep, feet covered with the bathroom mat…

You send an email to teacher explaining your predicament, she sends a quick sweet response in the morning

. “There is no need to worry we try and cover most of the work in class and he is getting it – you really have nothing to worry about”.

Your mind is at ease, until later in the afternoon when you pick him up from school. You ask the popular question ‘How was school today?’

“It was okay; actually Mama it was not okay I got a demerit for not completing my homework.”

…What now? This is a never ending nightmare…

This post was written by Andiswa Machanyana. She blogs at Torn Jeans and Corporate Suits.  Follow her on Twitter.