Homework deemed unfair to students

Jan Olson, principal of Prince of Wales Public School, in Barrie, Ontario, has taken a firm stand on homework. He’s banned it outright. “We send these projects home, and we don’t know who’s done them. And we don’t know what the family life is like,” explains Olson. The inner-city school principal cited an example of a 12-year-old child who cared for her siblings after school because her mother was often passed out on the floor. The girl’s “job was to make sure the younger ones didn’t wake mom up. She had to feed them, she had to get them to bed—and the next day she’s in detention because she didn’t do her homework.” Olson questions the issue of fairness when it comes to home life—where’s the fairness in affluent families possessing computers and educationally stimulating resources when other families exist below the poverty line? “We have to accept the responsibility that we are perpetuating and extending the gap between the have and the have-nots,” he says.


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Homework deemed unfair to students