Not only do we tell the parents that we see our children burdened by their homework every day, it is the WHO (World Health Organization) itself that has spoken on the issue and warns about the problem that Spain has with the excess of duties school children
According to a WHO survey on the health of school-age children, Spain takes another podium, a sad podium. Spanish children are among the most pressured by homework, occupying the top positions in the ranking of countries with the highest percentage of children affected by excessive duties.
WHO Source Infographic The World The survey includes 42 countries in the EU and North America, and Spain is at the top of the list, a position that in this case is not precisely to be proud of.
At 11, Spain occupies 9th place. 34% of boys and 25% of girls feel overwhelmed by the excess of duties. It is already a bad fact, but the thing gets worse as the age of the children increases. Only two years later, at 13, Spain climbs to 4th place, second only to Malta, Macedonia and Slovenia.
Here, in the first of ESO, in full puberty, girls are the most pressed. 55% of them and 53% of children say they feel overwhelmed by homework. More than half of the students, and almost 20 percentage points above the average. An atrocity!
And that's not all. Two years later, with 15 years, the percentage of boys who feel stressed by the excess of duties increases to 60% and that of girls, to 70%, when the average is 51% in girls and 39% in boys.
How does pressure for excess homework affect children?
Ken Robinson already said it in one of those that I consider the 7 best TED talks for parents: "school kills creativity", to which I would add: "and homework makes our children sick". Homework affects your health.
Because you don't realize to what extent homework is ending with your son until you see him at 11 at night making accounts with reddened eyes and mood for the floors. But what do six or seven hours at school do? You ask yourself. Every time I have it clearer, the duties are evidence of the failure of a precarious educational system.
According to the WHO, "School-related stress tends to be suffered by young people with high levels of school pressure and is characterized by an increase in behaviors that put health at risk, more frequent health problems (headache, abdominal pain, back pain and dizziness) and psychological symptoms, like feeling sad, tense or nervous. "High levels of school pressure are also associated with lower self-perception of health and worse satisfaction with life.
What can we do?
The OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) has already warned, and now the WHO. Apparently, we started to wake up, but what else can we do to make those who have decision power change this situation?
Some parents have already set in motion before the helplessness of seeing their children burdened by unnecessary duties through campaigns such as No Homework or a Change initiative for the rationalization of homework in the Spanish education system (which by the way, you can sign). Because if we start looking for, we find at least nine good reasons why children shouldn't have homework.
Each one, from his rightful place as a father, as a teacher, as a school principal and thus, to the extent possible, can put his little grain of sand to end the mockery of duties that children take home.
Does it seem normal to you that dad and mom take work home? No, right? The time to return home is time to enjoy the family, to rest, to be distracted, to play ... Well, for children, it is also, and even more so because it is their childhood. Your time to enjoy, learn playing and be happy.
