It’s Sunday, which means it’s homework day around our house. Every Sunday night we make the same resolution that it will be done on Friday, and every Sunday night we’re standing over Thing 1 with a whip, making sure the forgotten paper or book gets done. Not this Sunday, however.
It’s Thing 1’s turn to design for the time-honored Egg Drop project (in which each student designs a container that will safely carry an egg from the top of the school roof or bleachers to the ground below), With hardly any egging on from us (sorry, couldn’t resist), my seventh grade sit-in enthusiast has been designing, and dropping and redesigning his entry. The excitement on his face has is well-worth the cost of an egg (or two), and all weekend, I’ve been wondering why all homework can’t be like this.
I know some of it is to prepare them for the drudgery of independent learning in the “real” world called college. But, today, watching him be a scientist makes me wonder if there is a way to breathe some new life in to other assignments so that they can be historians, or writers, or creators for a weekend. And mostly so they can see on a daily basis what we mean when we say learning is exciting.