This article was written by Cathy Cove and recently published in the Goderich Signal Star.  Reprinted with the author’s permission. See also two related columns on the TDSB decision; one by Janice Tibbetts in the Calgary Herald and the other by Tralee Pearce in the Globe and Mail.  

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Conventional thinking regarding homework considered that good schools with good teachers provided regular homework to students. Through practice, the students would hone their basic skills and acquire study habits that would see them through their learning for a lifetime.

Curriculum demanded it, parents insisted on it (for that competitive edge), overwhelmed educators provided it, and administrators supported it.

Some governments, school boards and local schools, in partnership with their school councils went even further and adopted standardized homework policies. 

At one time you couldn’t pick up a newsletter or school manual without reading about what the system expects regarding the doing of homework.

Last October, even provincial politicians got in on the homework act with one party proposing to abolish homework in primary grades, and the other party rejecting outright reducing the amount of homework.

In a dramatic shift of late, the whole philosophy of more homework equals smarter kids is being scrutinized thoroughly and practices rethought.
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What I am about to say is going to be controversial but in my opinion it needs to be said. While the media carefully report that the vaccine-autism debate is between the parents of children with autism and the scientific and medical communities, that is not telling it like it is. It is really about the medical and scientific community not believing and discounting what parents report, and in doing so, by failing to apportion any value in anecodotal evidence – which can be used to support statistical results.

Parents are not being unrealistic. I knew from the time my infant son came home from the hospital that there was something wrong with him because he cried constantly, would not allow anyone to hold him and his natural sucking instinct was not working. So, while I can assume my son did not acquire the symptoms of autism following vaccinations, I understand exactly what these parents are going through.

Forty two years ago, physicians would not believe what I was telling them either because all my son’s medical and laboratory tests came back negative. As a result, nothing I said was believed and rather than look for possible reasons, it was easier to say there was no problem.

However, without going into a lifetime of testing and treatment, the medical establishment in the late 1960’s were wrong, very wrong. They simply did not yet have the testing instruments available to make a correct determination when he was a toddler. Over his childhood and youth he would be diagnosed with ADHD, PDD and so on — and finally as a young adult with Aspergers.
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Rachel Sa’s recent Toronto Sun column was titled “Smarty pants — try a trade.” She tells the story of when her sister, who wanted to go into their family’s successful hair styling business had a discussion with a high school guidance counsellor: “Why would you go to hairstyling school?” the teacher asked. “You’re smart — you should go to university.”

Why the immediate prejudice against anything resembling a trade?  Why the assumption that you don’t need to be smart to go into the trades? Just think about Mike Holmes of Holmes on Homes and his “Make it Right” productions and you realize just how extremely important a smart, talented and honest tradesperson really is. In fact, as a society, we can’t do without them. Yet, in the Greater Toronto area alone, Sa says there is a projected shortage.  As she writes:

“In Tuesday’s [Ontario] provincial budget, the government has pledged $1.5 billion towards a new Skills to Jobs Action Plan designed to re-train workers for skilled jobs. There is a projected shortage of 354,000 skilled workers in Ontario by 2025. All those cranes that have mushroomed up around the GTA need people to operate them.”

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