Education - Think Again?

This week we had difficult night getting our oldest to do his homework--he just could not get it done.  This was supremely aggravating to both of Shauna and me.  After much bribing, cajoling, harping and otherwise, he began his homework.  After a while of observing this play out, I came to the conclusion that he literally could not do it.  And here is why.

He does the same homework each week but with different words.  So he has been doing this same homework for 30 weeks!  He is bored!  I can't blame him.  We as humans are all about change.  We live on it and we thrive on it--if we don't get it then we start to get bored and naughty.  Just by chance I stumbled upon this TED talk by Ken Robinson regarding education and I found it enlightening and has opened up my mind about my children's education.  Is doing the same homework for 30 weeks an education?  Sure a child my learn some reading skill and what not, but is this an education?  Is he or she really developing their brain and bodily potential?  Not from where I sit.

Mr. Robinson also makes the point that we make mistakes the worst things in the entire world in our education system.  We mark questions wrong, give poor marks for wrong answers, etc.  Does this help our kids learn?  Yeah, learn to do whatever it takes to get the right answer rather than be wrong.  I have embedded the TED talk from Mr. Robinson here so when I look at this blog I will be reminded how to help my kids obtain a worthwhile education.