Homework? Not on yer life

I've written a little before about my impressions of the education system here, including how much homework kids seem to get from a very young age. But what I wasn't prepared for really was that my own daughter, aged 3 years and 2 months, be sent back with homework! On friday when I went to pick Maya up, I was handed one of her many workbooks and told that she was required to do a few exercises over the weekend. I must have been looking dumbfounded because I think Paula (Maya's beloved teacher who is standing behind her in the photo) must have thought I didn't understand what she was saying and so got out her notebook and showed me the same request, this time written down. To be fair, it was only a matter of colouring in a picture (not of a tree or animal or anything but a computer - that's a sign of the times I suppose!) and also filling out three lines of marking in 'downward lines' in her exercise book...but still. I do feel that giving homework to three year olds is a tad silly. But Maya's only there for another week and I wasn't about to argue with the formidable Paula so I just took the book and off we went.

Over the weekend, an opportunity presented itself for Maya to do this 'homework' as we were sitting at the kitchen table with her book within easy reach. Ah well, I thought, perhaps she'll quite enjoy it since she does seem to love school and will be proud of the sense of achievement at the end of it and all the rest of it....We opened the book up and I explained to Maya what she had to do. She nodded thoughtfully and took up her pen whilst I went into the kitchen to make a drink, thinking that perhaps homework age three wasn't such a bad thing after all. But this is what had happened when I returned to Maya a few moments later:

She'd taken her pen up alright but instead of doing her 'downward lines' (which she does so beautifully at school - I've seen them - unless the teachers do them for her!), she had scribbled all over the page, and the one after that (which was probably meant for this week's homework). Oh, I said to Maya, that's a bit messy. And she just looked at me through her curls with that defiant, stubborn little stare of hers and closed the book in a very definite way. So much for that, I say. But she's off, homework and downward lines forgotten in an instant.