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Speaker 1: Seven o two for weekend Breakfast and Parenting with Nicky.

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Speaker 2: Bush eleven minutes after eight o'clock ten for us to

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Speaker 2: talk parenting for this week and this week we are

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Speaker 2: talking about homework. Every now and again, there is a

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Speaker 2: discussion about the amount of homework parents often say many

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Speaker 2: parents saying there's too much homework for kids, particularly in

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Speaker 2: the lower grades, and why doesn't all the teaching happen

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Speaker 2: in school? So we are asking this question, so do

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Speaker 2: we need to rethink homework? We'd love to hear your

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Speaker 2: thoughts of course on on one one eight three oh

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Speaker 2: seven oh two. Yess is on A three one seven

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Speaker 2: oh two, and your WhatsApps on seven two seven two

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Speaker 2: one seven oh two. Joining us in pseudo this morning

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Speaker 2: is our resident human potential and parenting expert, Nikki Bush.

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Speaker 3: Nikki are very good morning to you.

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Speaker 4: Good morning gogs.

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Speaker 3: How are you?

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Speaker 4: I'm fine and how are you well?

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Speaker 3: Thank you? So did you like homework when you were

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Speaker 3: in school?

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Speaker 4: I don't know that anybody really liked homework.

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Speaker 5: I liked homework, but I'll tell you that homework gives

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Speaker 5: you the opportunity to prove that you understand what you learned,

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Speaker 5: and that in itself should make you feel good. So

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Speaker 5: if you're given ten practice sums and I have to say,

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Speaker 5: Maths was my achilles heell, so I hated Math's homework.

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Speaker 5: But if you're given ten practice sums to practice what

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Speaker 5: you learned in class during the day and you can

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Speaker 5: get them right, then you feel better. You feel like

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Speaker 5: you achieved something. I think what parents underestimate is that

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Speaker 5: a teacher has anything from twenty four children in a

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Speaker 5: class in a private school to forty to fifty children

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Speaker 5: in a class in a government school, and there is

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Speaker 5: absolutely no way in a thirty to forty five minute

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Speaker 5: class or period that you can teach a concept and

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Speaker 5: get children to practice the concept all in that period

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Speaker 5: of time, because the first minutes of every lesson are

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Speaker 5: spent calming the class down, especially if they have moved

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Speaker 5: from classroom to classroom, and then the last five minutes

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Speaker 5: are spent packing up, So you have fifteen minutes of

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Speaker 5: wasted time in every single lesson. And there are a

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Speaker 5: number of very good reasons why there is homework, even

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Speaker 5: though we really as parents would rather not have homework.

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Speaker 5: And I remember this, I've actually found something that I

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Speaker 5: wrote when I was in the middle of homework season

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Speaker 5: with my children. I wrote an article about homework hurdles,

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Speaker 5: and I said, there are days when homework is a

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Speaker 5: breeze and days when it's a ground. When it goes well,

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Speaker 5: I as the mother, feel fabulous, and when it doesn't,

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Speaker 5: the levels of frustration and despair can be overwhelming. Add

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Speaker 5: to this fact that we no longer live in an

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Speaker 5: ideal world in which we would get home at the

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Speaker 5: same time from school or extramarial activities every day, allowing

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Speaker 5: us to consistently do homework at the same time in

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Speaker 5: the same place. And this is also true specifically if

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Speaker 5: you have more than two children, more than one child.

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Speaker 5: Put it that way, because you might have one child

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Speaker 5: in a swimming pool having a swimming lesson at the

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Speaker 5: age of say nine or ten, and you might have

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Speaker 5: a four or five year old at your feet or

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Speaker 5: on your lap, and you've got to keep them entertained.

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Speaker 5: And then while when your child, the homework doing child,

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Speaker 5: gets out of the pool, they've also got to get

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Speaker 5: their homework done now, and you've got to motivate them

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Speaker 5: to get their head back into their books. So you

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Speaker 5: can see why parents don't like homework. Plus we work

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Speaker 5: so these days, you only have about three hours with

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Speaker 5: your children of a wake time, and now you must

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Speaker 5: spend some of those three hours doing homework with your children.

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Speaker 5: The younger the child, the more you have to help

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Speaker 5: them with their homework. The older the child, the less

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Speaker 5: you have to help them with their homework. And when

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Speaker 5: they're little, it's quite simple reading, which is essential. Don't

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Speaker 5: skip it because repetition, repetition, repetition, And it's usually some

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Speaker 5: form of writing or spelling and some form of basic numeracy.

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Speaker 5: And it's usually ten of this and ten of that,

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Speaker 5: and five of this and five of that. It actually

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Speaker 5: doesn't take long when you get to the upper grades,

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Speaker 5: where we are not learning to read, write and do maths,

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Speaker 5: but using reading to learn. Now we're into research. Now,

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Speaker 5: we're into project work. And these are the things that

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Speaker 5: send us over the edge. And when every subject teacher

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Speaker 5: actually needs us to study for tests in the same week.

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Speaker 5: So I would say, as an asside for educators, please

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Speaker 5: communicate with each other in the staff room and don't

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Speaker 5: all give a project in the same week. This is

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Speaker 5: the stuff parents freak out about when we have projects,

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Speaker 5: when we have tests all at the same time, because

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Speaker 5: these are outside the realm of ten of this and

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Speaker 5: ten of that, right, and these are the things that

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Speaker 5: really do break the camel's back.

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Speaker 2: We actually have a message about that, so MOUITERI says, here, Morning,

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Speaker 2: Gogs and Nikki. This past week, I was very frustrated

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Speaker 2: with my child's teacher, who asked the pupils to write

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Speaker 2: an essay of three pages, which was required the following day,

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Speaker 2: only to find out that she didn't take it on

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Speaker 2: the day. My son had two other homework pieces and

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Speaker 2: he slipped at three am. He was so tired, and

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Speaker 2: I wanted to reach out to the school about this,

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Speaker 2: but my son was not in agreement with that. So

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Speaker 2: to your point about perhaps, I mean, I imagine different

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Speaker 2: teachers teaching different classes aren't always going to have the

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Speaker 2: same kind of cadence or timing. But you know, it

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Speaker 2: can't be a science project, a history project, and an

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Speaker 2: English paper and a three page essay. Yeah, So here

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Speaker 2: we're talking about the later grades. So i'd like you say,

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Speaker 2: when they're younger, the focus is improving their literacy and

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Speaker 2: the numeracy, but as they get old that now you're

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Speaker 2: taking that literacy and numeracy and using it, applying it

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Speaker 2: applying it to writer and so yes, this idea a

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Speaker 2: frustrated parent of well, you know there was this essay

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Speaker 2: and they were other things.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and no child should be up at three o'clock

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Speaker 5: in the morning. So there are three good reasons why

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Speaker 5: we have homework. So let's talk about why homework is

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Speaker 5: actually necessary, right, because this is the case for homework.

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Speaker 5: The first is repetition, So practicing of concepts taught in

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Speaker 5: class leads to mastery. You cannot achieve mastery without repetition

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Speaker 5: and practice. So to create an ningram, a memory cell

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Speaker 5: in the brain, you have to practice something two hundred

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Speaker 5: to three hundred times to consolidate it so that it

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Speaker 5: is a well oiled in grease neurological pathway. This goes

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Speaker 5: for adults and for children. So if you're learning something

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Speaker 5: new around AI or tech or your phone or something,

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Speaker 5: if you don't do it many times, it's not going

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Speaker 5: to stick.

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Speaker 4: It doesn't stick.

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Speaker 5: So to create the sticky factor, repetition is required. So

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Speaker 5: two hundred to three hundred times. That's why your child

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Speaker 5: comes home with ten sums and ten words, et cetera.

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Speaker 5: We have to keep this in mind. This is how

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Speaker 5: the brain learns there is no teacher on this planet

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Speaker 5: who can get kids to do the repetition and enough

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Speaker 5: repetition during class time that is required, which is why

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Speaker 5: homework is necessary. Right, So that's the first really important

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Speaker 5: reason for the homework debate. The second is application, and

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Speaker 5: that's why children are given project work and group work

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Speaker 5: to extend the application of the learning and combining it

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Speaker 5: with additional research. So what are we learning with project work?

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Speaker 5: How to research, how to quote sources, how to present,

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Speaker 5: how to present, how to package. You know, at the

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Speaker 5: end of the day, this is practice for the real world.

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Speaker 5: When you have your own business, when you are employed

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Speaker 5: by somebody, you have to pitch ideas constantly, for sponsorship,

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Speaker 5: for budget, to get work so that you actually get paid.

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Speaker 5: So everything we actually do in childhood is preparation for adulthood.

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Speaker 5: And being able to communicate one's ideas and present them

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Speaker 5: logically in writing and through words the spoken word is

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Speaker 5: an absolutely essential life skill. And then the third reason

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Speaker 5: for homework is preparation. Now, in some more advanced schools

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Speaker 5: who have changed the methodology of learning, there's the concept

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Speaker 5: of the flipped classroom. The flipped classroom is generally used

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Speaker 5: in high school and in university where the teacher will

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Speaker 5: send some source work, some preparation, usually these days a

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Speaker 5: video of some description or maybe a little bit of reading.

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Speaker 5: Go and read about this concept we are going to

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Speaker 5: unpack in the classroom tomorrow. So the teacher is getting

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Speaker 5: the learners to prep to start getting interested in what

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Speaker 5: she's going to teach them or what he's going to

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Speaker 5: teach them tomorrow in the classroom, and then they unpack

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Speaker 5: it and teach it the next day. And then there

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Speaker 5: is sometimes time for practice in the class because we've

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Speaker 5: done some of the pre work the night before. So

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Speaker 5: that's often termed the flipped classroom, usually only in the

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Speaker 5: higher grades, where reading is consolidated and they can go

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Speaker 5: and read for meaning and watch for meaning and extrapolate

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Speaker 5: and formulate questions for the teacher for the class tomorrow, etc.

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Speaker 5: So those are three very good reasons why homework is necessary.

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Speaker 5: Let alone the fact that at some point there are

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Speaker 5: going to be assessments, tests, exams which then help you

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Speaker 5: to or help your child or help the teachers to

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Speaker 5: compare children against benchmarks. I hate them personally. I think

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Speaker 5: that we need to have continuous assessments which includes tests, exams,

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Speaker 5: project work and assessing how children are coping generally, and

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Speaker 5: that's very hard to do when you have too many

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Speaker 5: children in a classroom, when you have overcrowded classrooms, there's

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Speaker 5: only one way to assess, and that's for children's through tests,

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Speaker 5: and it's only one way of assessing children. There are

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Speaker 5: many ways to assess children. So those are the reasons

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Speaker 5: for homework.

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Speaker 3: Could I add one more?

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Speaker 4: Yes?

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Speaker 2: What was quite interesting for me move from school to

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Speaker 2: varsity is just how much of reading for a degree?

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Speaker 2: And it got even worse at a because I did

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Speaker 2: my undergrad and then I did my honors. How much

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Speaker 2: of reading for a degree is a lot like homework.

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Speaker 2: In high school, you sit in a lecture and you

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Speaker 2: prepare for that lecture. You need to have done the

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Speaker 2: reading before getting to the lecture. The lecturer will go

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Speaker 2: through pretty high level stuff. They might explain some concepts.

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Speaker 2: Then you need to go read chapter six, nine, ten,

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Speaker 2: and eleven. And the only time really you might get

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Speaker 2: a little bit of sort of one to one attention

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Speaker 2: is in your tutorials, but the bulk of the stuff

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Speaker 2: you teach yourself. And that was so interesting to me

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Speaker 2: because it felt as if even in school where we

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Speaker 2: had a lot of homework. It felt like we were

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Speaker 2: babied a lot more. And then you suddenly get to

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Speaker 2: your to varsity and no one even cares if you

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Speaker 2: go to lectures.

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Speaker 3: It is all on you, all of it.

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Speaker 2: You read for that degree, you go to the line,

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Speaker 2: you go through the course outline, you find the books,

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Speaker 2: you photograph, the reading. All of that stuff is almost

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Speaker 2: all like independence, self driven.

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Speaker 3: And I feel.

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Speaker 2: Homework almost mimics that and prepares kids, I think in

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Speaker 2: a better way. Maybe your kid does want to go

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Speaker 2: to a varsiti, I feel like homework mimics it in

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Speaker 2: a way it almost better prepares you and not having

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Speaker 2: to upset.

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Speaker 5: And actually I remember very very clearly having a conversation

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Speaker 5: with a psychologist and my son had had an assessment.

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Speaker 5: This was mid high school. He was having going he'd

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Speaker 5: gone from a's in maths to getting c's, and it

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Speaker 5: was all about the teacher. And he just looked my

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Speaker 5: son in the eyes and said, just you wait till

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Speaker 5: you get to university.

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Speaker 4: The teaching is shocking.

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Speaker 5: You are going to have to teach yourself just about

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Speaker 5: everything because lecturers don't know how to teach. Academics don't

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Speaker 5: know how to teach, and to your point, you're going

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Speaker 5: to have to do a lot of reading when you

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Speaker 5: get university, a lot of prep because they go very fast.

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Speaker 5: And so we see issues in first year university with

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Speaker 5: children who haven't consolidated, particularly maths concepts. They fall behind

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Speaker 5: incredibly quickly in that first year. So I think homework

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Speaker 5: definitely has its place. If it's extreme, you need to

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Speaker 5: be chatting to teachers and finding out why your child

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Speaker 5: is getting so much homework or why they are taking

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Speaker 5: so long to do their homework. Maybe they need some

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Speaker 5: remedial intervention to help them consolidate concepts, maybe they've fallen behind.

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Speaker 5: I found maths very difficult at school because I learned

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Speaker 5: maths much slower than I learned any language. So that

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Speaker 5: wasn't my strong suit, and that's the subject. I had

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Speaker 5: years and years of extra lessons, and I think that

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Speaker 5: my parents I actually did the sums at one stage.

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Speaker 5: I went to a good old government school that cost

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Speaker 5: twelve round a year at the time, and my parents

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Speaker 5: paid out thousands and thousands over three years in maths

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Speaker 5: extra maths lessons. They paid far more for my extra

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Speaker 5: maths than they did for my education. But it was

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Speaker 5: highly necessary. So if your child is battling to get

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Speaker 5: their head in the game when it comes to doing

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Speaker 5: their homework, let's talk about a few hints and tips

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Speaker 5: that can help parents have an easier time of it.

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Speaker 5: So some children, in fact, many children are tired when

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Speaker 5: they get back from school or get back from extramurals.

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Speaker 5: So maybe having a little rest is a good idea.

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Speaker 5: But what happens with many children is they flop down

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Speaker 5: in front of television for half an hour. And I

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Speaker 5: have to tell you that television SAPs your energy. It

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Speaker 5: doesn't energize you. It drains you. We think it energizes

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Speaker 5: you because you're doing nothing, but it actually leaches your energy.

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Speaker 5: So recharging your batteries would be a power and app

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Speaker 5: Or it would be play a little game with your

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Speaker 5: children if they're young, have a quick game, official snap,

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Speaker 5: a card game, or it could be going out into

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Speaker 5: the driveway or the street or the garden and throwing

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Speaker 5: balls to each other for ten minutes. That will wake

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Speaker 5: up your child's reflexes and their brain. Plus you are

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Speaker 5: filling their emotional cup because you are with them, interacting

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Speaker 5: with them. They've been away from you all day and

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Speaker 5: actually they need to fill themselves up on your voice,

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Speaker 5: on your presence, on your energy. And I know if

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Speaker 5: you work, this is hard at the end of the day,

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Speaker 5: but it is worth the effort. Then a little bit

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Speaker 5: of creativity in primary school. There is some work that

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Speaker 5: does not have to be handed in. It just has

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Speaker 5: to be done. Practice sums, the practice spelling, the practice

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Speaker 5: multiplication tables that your children can do in a different medium.

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Speaker 5: Change the medium and you will raise the excitement level

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Speaker 5: about homework. So you can do multiplication and spelling in

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Speaker 5: flour on the kitchen counter or on a tray. You

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Speaker 5: can use whiteboard markers on your windows or on ceramic

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Speaker 5: sealed tiles or on mirrors. That's fun for children. And

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Speaker 5: please remember you are actually the helper, not the doer.

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Speaker 5: You don't need to pass Grade six for the second time.

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Speaker 5: If you're doing too much helping or doing, you need

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Speaker 5: to raise this with the teacher. And please encourage the process,

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Speaker 5: not just the end point. So you need to be

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Speaker 5: a cheerleader. And then four rules for doing homework. After

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Speaker 5: extra murals comes homework, and only after homework comes TV

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Speaker 5: and gaming. Right, Okay, you see children are coming home

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Speaker 5: and wanting entertainment. Homework is not entertaining, and there's so

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Speaker 5: much at their disposal that is entertaining that they want

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Speaker 5: to get to the entertainment. Well, the middle piece the

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Speaker 5: bridge is the homework. Then rule number two is that

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Speaker 5: they might have to learn to get little bits of

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Speaker 5: homework done on the run. So you might get your

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Speaker 5: reading homework done in the car on their way home

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Speaker 5: from school, so reading is done by the time you

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Speaker 5: get home, so you can tick some stuff off the list.

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Speaker 5: They may have to do bits of homework while you're

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Speaker 5: in a therapy room waiting for one child to have

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Speaker 5: therapy while the other child is sitting at your feet

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Speaker 5: doing some homework. Rule number three is encourage the effort.

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Speaker 5: It is a daily reality of their life and you

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Speaker 5: have to reinforce what was done.

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Speaker 4: In class, So encourage them.

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Speaker 5: And rule number four is that if you're at home,

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Speaker 5: try and get homework done in the same place. So

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Speaker 5: there's a homework spot, whether it's the kitchen counter, whether

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Speaker 5: it's a desk in their room, whether it is the

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Speaker 5: dining room. It's kind of like an anchor. When we

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Speaker 5: sit here, we do the homework, right. So those are

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Speaker 5: the full rules. Try and keep your children as focused

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Speaker 5: and organized as possible, and you need to take a

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Speaker 5: disciplined and structured approach to how to get this daily

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Speaker 5: homework done. So it's not all bad news about homework.

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Speaker 5: There really are good reasons why homework exists. But hopefully

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Speaker 5: it does not lead to burnout. It leads to some

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Speaker 5: kind of discipline that is going to serve your child

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Speaker 5: once they get to tertiary education.

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Speaker 2: One day, speaking of discipline or what's up, message here

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Speaker 2: says good morning dogs and Nikki, it's Hojoser from Atredgeville.

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Speaker 2: As a parent who's actively involved in my daughter's schoolwork,

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Speaker 2: I think homework is good for kids. It teaches children discipline,

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Speaker 2: how to prioritize, and time management.

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Speaker 5: Oh and time management such an important point that's been

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Speaker 5: raised there. Time management is actually one of the skills

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Speaker 5: that most people fall down on. So how much time

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Speaker 5: do you allocate to what? And that's part of a

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Speaker 5: parent's role is looking at the homework load and going right,

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Speaker 5: this is probably going to take you fifteen minutes, that's

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Speaker 5: going to take you twenty minutes, that's going to take

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Speaker 5: you half an hour. We've only got an hour for

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Speaker 5: homework or an hour and a half. How are we

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Speaker 5: going to divvy up this homework? And using a timer

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Speaker 5: is actually a good thing. A little old fashioned sand

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Speaker 5: timer or an old fashioned clock if you want to

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Speaker 5: keep cell phones away, can work wonders. Even this morning,

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Speaker 5: when I was prepping to get here in studio, I

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Speaker 5: put a timer on for myself of five minutes to

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Speaker 5: blow dry my hair because I needed to get out

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Speaker 5: on time. So we all have to do time management.

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Speaker 5: It's a fact of life. I also think kids should

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Speaker 5: use analog tools tool.

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Speaker 2: Ceasingly young people can't read a clock because they don't

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Speaker 2: have to. They read the time on a digital interface

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Speaker 2: with their cell phone, an iPad, a smart watch. So

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Speaker 2: you I mean, I think I learned how to tell

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Speaker 2: the time in school. It's one of the things you

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Speaker 2: learn you do, and that is no longer. But it's

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Speaker 2: such a good you know, the good clock, especially a clock.

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Speaker 5: A clock is like doing fractions, yes, because you can

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Speaker 5: have fifteen minutes, you know, there's four quarters in an hour,

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Speaker 5: or how many sets of ten minutes are there in

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Speaker 5: an hour? And get your children to do sprints, homework sprints.

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Speaker 5: You know, if you're involved in the digital side of business,

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Speaker 5: if you're building tech back ends. They talk about sprints

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Speaker 5: where they literally allocate a period of time for you

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Speaker 5: to build a piece of the back end, and it's

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Speaker 5: called a sprint. So we should be using sporting analogies

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Speaker 5: with our children. You know, you've got a five minute

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Speaker 5: sprint here, get it done. Then we've got a ten

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Speaker 5: minute sprint. Then there's another five minutes. Then you're going

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Speaker 5: to do a physical sprint. You're going to run to

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Speaker 5: the gate and back to wake your brain, and you're

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Speaker 5: going to do ten star jumps, and then we're going to.

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Speaker 4: Get back to your spelling. Be creative. Yeah, you can

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Speaker 4: get this done, parents, you really can.

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Speaker 2: Before I let you go, received a whattape voice notas

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Speaker 2: on seventy seven one seven o two.

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Speaker 1: I remember seeing a documentary where, I think at the

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Speaker 1: time of the northern European countries and probably most of

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Speaker 1: them Norway or whatever, they got the highest their kids

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Speaker 1: rate the highest in education in the world for schools

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Speaker 1: and whatever, and they did away with homework completely, and

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Speaker 1: then the shortened the school days. You got four or

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Speaker 1: five hours. They said kids must play and their kids

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Speaker 1: are best in the world. So, yeah, it's deficult. One

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Speaker 1: I suppose they haven't got classes of forty or fifty kids.

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Speaker 1: But you know, this homic thing is ridiculous. My my

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Speaker 1: kids primarem in primary school. They had a project but

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Speaker 1: they kept the omic right back. I'm not sure what

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Speaker 1: the outcome was, but yeah, at least they were trying

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Speaker 1: to be progressive.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much for that message, Gary, And it's

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Speaker 2: interesting that he mentioned Norway. Norway is one of the

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Speaker 2: lowest student to teacher ratio is actually nine one teacher teachers.

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Speaker 5: Nine, okay, but now one teacher to nine children can

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Speaker 5: get through a lot of work and she knows that

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Speaker 5: every child understands the concept. That's why you can cut

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Speaker 5: down on homework because you can get through more. To

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Speaker 5: my point when I started, you cannot get through everything

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Speaker 5: when you've got twenty four to fifty children in a

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Speaker 5: class with a different level of understanding throughout that class.

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Speaker 5: So where there are progress, where there are progressive education practices,

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Speaker 5: you can cut down on homework.

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Speaker 4: We are way behind the curve.

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Speaker 2: And also to your point, where have a great deal

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Speaker 2: of inequality, right, so you have kids coming in with

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Speaker 2: different levels of literacy and numeracy. Whereas countries like Norway,

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Speaker 2: the Nordic countries for the most part, are fairly sort of.

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Speaker 2: They have the same kind of class.

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Speaker 5: They come in school ready number one, and they are literate, yes,

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Speaker 5: number two, so a teacher can take them anywhere.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you're not teaching a kid how to read.

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Speaker 5: Two weeks ago we were talking about the literacy crisis

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Speaker 5: here and that is plays a massive role in what

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Speaker 5: we're talking about today.

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Speaker 2: NICKI has always it's great to chattoo. Thank you so

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Speaker 2: much for your time this morning. Thank you, girks, it's

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Speaker 2: always a pleasure having you. That's our resident yum and

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Speaker 2: potential and parenting expert Nikki Bosch. Coming up, we speak

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Speaker 2: to internationally acclam South African choreographer Gregory Marcorma. He has

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Speaker 2: a new production in Gregory on Stage is always such

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Speaker 2: a treat. This latest one is called Genesis. We'll speak

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Speaker 2: to Gregory about it. But first, a very busy weekend,

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Speaker 2: so let's check in with your latest. I Witness New

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Speaker 2: Sport with Anthony Schader