English

Abstract

On 25 October 2014, the China Daily ran an in-depth article “Homework seen as damaging to pupils in early years” (“Homework Seen”, 2014) in which researchers discussed why teachers should avoid giving homework to students until the last years of primary school. One of my focuses in this discussion is on how relationships between children and parents are compromised as a result of the change in roles when parents become co-teachers, as well as the lack of effective socializing. On 29 November 2014, the popular Australian newspaper, The Weekend Australian, ran a series of in-depth articles on education, leading with the front page article “Writing’s on the wall: Kids failing basic literacy” (Ferrari, 2014) followed by “National curriculum railroaded by utilitarian bias” (Donnelly, 2014). The front-page article had a focus on the drop in literacy rates and the mechanics of grammar and writing, while the second focused more on the need for contextual learning.