I’m talking about those earnest, conscientious parents who do their kids’ homework. You know, the ones who are so ambitious for their precious progeny that they end up stunting the kids’ learning processes.
What’s the point, people? just what is your child learning from your labors? And how about you–do you really want to spend your valuable time photocopying pictures of fossils or making a chart of how a bill becomes a law?
I’ve been a librarian for more than 10 years, and I’ve heard all of the excuses. “My son has football practice.” “Brittany has a gymnastics class.” “It seems like an awful lot of work for a sixth grader.” (imagine a Japanese parent saying this.) Parents who offer these exemplary explanations seem to have an inkling that something is not quite kosher here, but they are still doing their kids’ work. Some are pretty unhappy about it, too, and often vent their wrath on the hapless library staff. They can even become vile when the needed materials have been checked out by other students (one hopes that’s who did it, anyway). Maybe they should just let their children take the F’s for putting off the assignment until the last minute. Now, that would be a real learning experience.
Then there are the ones who just do the work without complaint, apparently thinking it’s part of their jobs. Hey, it’s not up to me to make judgment calls, or to hint that I tend to think kids get more out of homework when they do it themselves. I’m just an underpaid public servant. But do I ever grit my teeth in frustration when an adult comes up to me and says, “My daughter has to do a paper on. . .”
Many of these parents don’t even have a clear idea of what the assignment involves. Librarians are presented with hastily scrawled class notes, or “reading lists” that often lack basic information like the author or an accurate title. Sometimes teachers assign topics so obscure that little information exists, never bothering to check in advance to see what resources are available (but that’s another story).
Equally annoying are the ventriloquists-those parents who accompany their children but refuse to allow the kids to do their own talking.
PARENT: He has to write something on a scientist.
LIBRARIAN (attempting to address the child): Can you tell me a little about your assignment? Which scientist interests you, and how much do you have to write? When is it due? Are you limited to certain kinds of sources?
PARENT: Oh, it isn’t a long assignment–just four pages. You, know, written out, not typed or anything. And it’s supposed to be about an American scientist, maybe someone who lived a long time ago. I can’t remember his name.
LIBRARIAN (still trying to talk to the child): Why don’t we go over to that section…
PARENT (walking up the librarian’s heels): And he needs at least five sources, and he’s not supposed to use encyclopedias.
See what I mean? This poor kid is probably too insecure to open his mouth, let alone discuss his project. Maybe someday he will venture into a library on his own, and then he might be as confused as the 17-year-old girl who complained to me that she couldn’t find anything about Joseph Stalin in the encyclopedia. It turned out she was looking in the “J” volume.
I’ve seen the end results of this parental over zealousness at the college level, too. Students walk into a large university library, and they’re overwhelmed by the vast array of resources. Academic librarians just don’t have time to spoon-feed all of the baffled freshmen who fine up at the reference desk. Some of these students have no idea how to use a traditional card catalog, let alone the sophisticated computerized information tools available to them. One wonders how they ever got to college without learning to use a library. And I wonder, sadly, if ignorance and intimidation will lead to avoidance. Will these students turn to the library for their future information needs? Will they ever know the thrill and satisfaction of “looking it up”–and finding it?
I recently attended a program at a professional conference that sought new ways for librarians to work with teachers. Some good ideas came out of the session. But although everyone expressed frustration (teachers even more than librarians) at parents doing school assignments for their children, nobody had any solutions to the problem.
Remember the Information Age? It’s one of the many labels slapped onto our era. Samuel Johnson must have foreseen the current information culture when he talked about the two kinds of knowledge: “We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.” That’s as true today–even more so–as it was in 1775. Since none of us knows everything, we need to know how to find it. Teaching people–like your kids–how to do that is a librarian’s job.
So let us do it. The information explosion continues unabated. There are cultural treasures and vital information and just fun reading experiences on library shelves. The need to know will never die. And the future will belong to the information literate.
