'Let's hear it for the parents'

2009-05-04 09:08

Chris Moerdyk

Well, the elections have come and gone; the holidays are over. It's back to school and hands up anyone who liked homework? I thought so.

And, who agrees that sometimes schooldays are tougher on parents than their kids?

Frankly, I hated homework because it got in the way of rugby, cricket, soccer and girls.

Even my father hated homework. And he was a teacher. A very successful teacher who in all the years he taught matric, had an exemplary pass rate. And you know what? He never ever gave out homework in almost 50 years of teaching.

He worked on the basis that if you were a good enough teacher you could get everything done in the classroom. And that only teachers who couldn't get the job done had to get kids to do homework. He died when he was 91 but would probably have died when he was 50 if he had given out homework.

The other thing that annoys me is the end of the year school prize-giving. The kids get all the prizes and parents don't get a thing.

I reckon that whoever the new Minister of Education is going to be, the very first order of business should be to make it illegal for schools to discriminate against parents by not rewarding them for what is 12 years of very hard work. Kids have it easy by comparison.

Cash prizes

And I know, because not too long ago I finished 33 unbroken years of school lifts, homework, projects, sports days, serving on committees and heaven knows what else. And what do I have to show for it? Squat.

I've written before about prizes I think schools should give to parents for their contribution to the schools their children go to.

I'd like to add to that list a cash prize for the highest tuck shop turnover and a very big prize for single parents who have to continuously risk their jobs by taking time off from work to fetch sick kids from school, not to mention having to get up in the very early hours of the morning to get themselves and their kids ready.

Then there's that old bugbear of mine - prizes that kids get but which should actually go to their parents. I've seen some science prizes go to projects supposedly produced by a grade five boy but worthy of the best brains at the atomic energy board. Who is kidding whom with those projects? You can tell right away which kids have fathers who are engineers just by looking at their projects.

And how about a trophy for mothers who, despite being sick, tired, menopausal, divorced, working late, working weekends, working nights etc never ever missed getting kids to and from school?

I reckon its time parents got some sort of reward as well. Forget about that apple-for-the-teacher nonsense, let's hear it for the parents.

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