Wednesday, March 04, 2009

THIS KID IS MY HERO!



Ben Berrafato, crusader against homework. How many people think this kid is 10 times smarter than his principal?

5 comments:

Spongy Penguin said...

I actually laughed out loud when, afterward, they said
"So cute, that kid."
"Yeah, he's adorable."

I agree with you, Luke, that he's smarter than his principal. I also think it's great he's doing this. However, I would have liked the news to go a little more in-depth about the actual arguments instead of treating it like 'oh look, cute little kid getting people's attention with something he cares about.'

Luke Murphy said...

I completely agree with you Jesse.

That guy sounded 100% phony when he said "Yeah, he's adorable."

Dad said...

They should just abolish school.


I guarantee the kid is smarter than Katie Couric.

Mom said...

Here's the original op-ed in the New York Daily News. You have to wonder how much homework some of the commenters did . . .

Luke Murphy said...

I'm really impressed by this kid. I don't think he's trying to just get out of having to do work or anything. I think he really understands the absurdity of the amount of homework that kids have to do nowadays. Kids need to learn, at school, and then they need to go home and play, be with their families, read, run around outside, whatever. Not all of the kid's arguments are perfect, but he's 11, I'll forgive him.

Lisa VanDamme assigns ZERO homework to her younger students except for reading assignments. Actually, just read this:

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4858

I've also noticed that the amount of homework kids are doing increases every year. When I was little I don't think I had any until 3rd grade, but now I understand that it's normal for kindergartners to have homework. Actually if you look at the public ed. system over the last few decades I think you can notice a real pattern. Test scores get worse -> Schools don't know what to do -> They assign more homework -> They ask for and get more money -> They lower standards -> THEN they say "Look how high our tests scores are now!" Really, this repeats every 5 years or so. I think you can notice it pretty easily just by talking to people from different generations.