backpack weighed slightly less than a Volkswagen.
Julia pulled Harold’s assignment folder from amid the wreckage. It is said that history moves in cycles, and this is true when it comes to the philosophy of homework-folder organization. In some ages, the three-ring binder is in vogue. In others, the double-sided cardboard folder prevails. The world’s great educators debate the merits of each system, and their preferences seem to alternate according to some astrological cycle.
Julia found his assignment sheet, and realized with a sinking heart that the next sixty-five minutes would be spent completing the ten-minute assignment. The project’s requirements were minimal—Harold would merely need a shoebox, six colored markers, construction paper, a three-foot display board, linseed oil, ebony, the toenail of a three-toed sloth, and some glitter glue.
Julia dimly suspected, and research by Harris Cooper of Duke University confirms, that there is only a tenuous correlation between how much homework elementary students do and how well they do on tests of the material or with other measures of achievement. She also suspected that this nightly homework ordeal served other purposes—to convince parents that their kids are getting a suitably rigorous education; to introduce the children to their future lives as spiritually crushed drones; or, more positively, to introduce children to the study habits they would need later in life.
In any case, Julia, trapped in the overpressured parenting life that everybody in her social class ridicules but few renounce, girded herself for the bribery and cajolery that would follow. She would, over the next few minutes, present Harold with an ever more elaborate series of incentives—gold stars, small pieces of candy, BMWs—all to induce him to do his homework. When these failed, as they inevitably would, she would wheel out the disincentives—threats to cut off TV privileges, to take away all computer games and videos, to write him out of her will, to imprison him in a cardboard box with nothing to eat but bread and water.
Harold would be able to resist all threats and incentives, either because he was not yet capable of calculating long-term pain versus temporary inconvenience, or because he knew his mother had no intention of ever cutting off the TV privileges, and thus putting herself in the position of having to entertain him all week.
In any case, Julia sat Harold down with his homework assignment at the kitchen table. She turned her back to get a glass of water, and 7.82 seconds later Harold handed her a sheet of paper claiming his homework was done. Julia looked down at the homework sheet, which looked like it contained three or four indecipherable markings that seemed to be in early Sanskrit.
This would mark the beginning of the nightly redo phase of the homework, when Julia would explain it was necessary to do his work slowly and carefully and in English if possible. Harold went through his normal protests, fell into another of his cycles of misery and internal chaos, and Julia knew that it would be another fifteen minutes of turmoil and disorder before he was in any mental shape to do the homework. It was as if she and Harold had to endure a phase of internal riot and protest before Harold would capitulate and be in a state capable of steady work.
One modern view of this situation is that Harold’s freedom was being crushed by the absurd strictures of civilization. The innocence and creativity of childhood was being impinged and bound by the conformities of an overwrought society. Man is born free but is everywhere in chains.
But looking at her son, Julia didn’t really get the sense that the unsupervised Harold, the non-homework Harold, the uncontrolled Harold was really free. This Harold, which some philosophers celebrate as the epitome of innocence and delight, was really a prisoner of his impulses. Freedom without structure is its own slavery.
Harold wanted to
Julia pulled Harold’s assignment folder from amid the wreckage. It is said that history moves in cycles, and this is true when it comes to the philosophy of homework-folder organization. In some ages, the three-ring binder is in vogue. In others, the double-sided cardboard folder prevails. The world’s great educators debate the merits of each system, and their preferences seem to alternate according to some astrological cycle.
Julia found his assignment sheet, and realized with a sinking heart that the next sixty-five minutes would be spent completing the ten-minute assignment. The project’s requirements were minimal—Harold would merely need a shoebox, six colored markers, construction paper, a three-foot display board, linseed oil, ebony, the toenail of a three-toed sloth, and some glitter glue.
Julia dimly suspected, and research by Harris Cooper of Duke University confirms, that there is only a tenuous correlation between how much homework elementary students do and how well they do on tests of the material or with other measures of achievement. She also suspected that this nightly homework ordeal served other purposes—to convince parents that their kids are getting a suitably rigorous education; to introduce the children to their future lives as spiritually crushed drones; or, more positively, to introduce children to the study habits they would need later in life.
In any case, Julia, trapped in the overpressured parenting life that everybody in her social class ridicules but few renounce, girded herself for the bribery and cajolery that would follow. She would, over the next few minutes, present Harold with an ever more elaborate series of incentives—gold stars, small pieces of candy, BMWs—all to induce him to do his homework. When these failed, as they inevitably would, she would wheel out the disincentives—threats to cut off TV privileges, to take away all computer games and videos, to write him out of her will, to imprison him in a cardboard box with nothing to eat but bread and water.
Harold would be able to resist all threats and incentives, either because he was not yet capable of calculating long-term pain versus temporary inconvenience, or because he knew his mother had no intention of ever cutting off the TV privileges, and thus putting herself in the position of having to entertain him all week.
In any case, Julia sat Harold down with his homework assignment at the kitchen table. She turned her back to get a glass of water, and 7.82 seconds later Harold handed her a sheet of paper claiming his homework was done. Julia looked down at the homework sheet, which looked like it contained three or four indecipherable markings that seemed to be in early Sanskrit.
This would mark the beginning of the nightly redo phase of the homework, when Julia would explain it was necessary to do his work slowly and carefully and in English if possible. Harold went through his normal protests, fell into another of his cycles of misery and internal chaos, and Julia knew that it would be another fifteen minutes of turmoil and disorder before he was in any mental shape to do the homework. It was as if she and Harold had to endure a phase of internal riot and protest before Harold would capitulate and be in a state capable of steady work.
One modern view of this situation is that Harold’s freedom was being crushed by the absurd strictures of civilization. The innocence and creativity of childhood was being impinged and bound by the conformities of an overwrought society. Man is born free but is everywhere in chains.
But looking at her son, Julia didn’t really get the sense that the unsupervised Harold, the non-homework Harold, the uncontrolled Harold was really free. This Harold, which some philosophers celebrate as the epitome of innocence and delight, was really a prisoner of his impulses. Freedom without structure is its own slavery.
Harold wanted to
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