While we sat in the Ft Lauderdale Airport waiting to board our flight, we were seated next to a woman and her son.  She had several workbooks open and was instructing him on which pages he needed to complete.  At first I thought maybe he'd missed some school and was catching up on lessons but it's very possible he was homeschooled.  I can't say either way as I didn't ask her.

I watched this pair for about twenty minutes and couldn't believe what I saw.  She was doing most of the work for him.  If she wasn't holding his hand and helping him write (so he'd do it faster), she was literally doing it for him while he looked around at other passengers.  “Oh at least write your name on here and then I'll do the rest”, she'd say.  “Tell me what color and then I'll color it for you if you don't want to.”  I sat there shocked.

I know a lot of homeschoolers are “anti-worksheets” and I'm fine with that, you have your reasons.  We do use them as I personally like to have a guide to go by.  We aren't married to them though, in that I have no problem skipping unnecessary busy work.  I guess I don't see any point to worksheets that the child doesn't do themselves whether you homeschool or not.  To me, the only thing that child learned was that if he “doesn't feel like it” mom will do it for him.  I'll give you that he was bored with it.  She had about twenty sheets for him to do while sitting in an airport.  If you've got boys you know that sitting still for any length of time is a miracle but put them in an exciting environment that they are itching to explore and you'll be lucky to at least keep them quiet while they look at everything around them.

This kid didn't want to do that school work and he realized very quickly that he didn't have to.  “Can I play game boy”, he asked at one point.  “Not till we finish this,” she'd say.  He sighed and handed her another crayon to color a picture of a pumpkin.

I've helped my kids but I don't agree with doing it for them.  If the work is important enough to be done in the first place, it should be done by the person who will be getting credit for it.  Otherwise, isn't that cheating?  That's what it was called when I was growing up.  Are we teaching our kids integrity even in the things that seem unimportant?  Maybe that kid, his mom, Erik and I (and now anyone who reads this) will be the only ones who ever know that little Joseph didn't do his own lessons in the airport that day.  Maybe it will appear that it really doesn't matter.  It does though; Joseph is learning that if he doesn't feel like it, someone else might do it for him.  What he should be learning is, “this is required for some reason and while I don't enjoy it, I'll work hard to get it completed because that's the right thing to do”.  Can you imagine what our world would be like if everyone had that kind of work ethic?

I do believe that busy work is pointless but if for some reason it's required, cheating isn't the best way to handle it.