I don’t know who these kids are.

I tweeted about my seven year old’s homework the other day and how I felt he had too much. I said I thought seven year olds would be better served if they were told to draw, frolic, play football and/or wrestle with their siblings or friends at the park or in the garden. Then, many, many thousands of people — including but not limited to Gary Lineker — weighed in. I will summarize what are by far the most frequent sorts of responses below:

• Teachers, by a wide margin, agree. Study after study shows that homework for primary school students — OTHER THAN READING, both to and with them —yields no tangible results, other than frustrating kids and parents to the point of tears, potentially screwing up the rest of their education and lifelong perception of school.
• Scandinavian countries, with Finland being the strongest example, don’t give homework to primary school kids and they consistently rank in the top of global educational outcomes.
• You, the parent, have a lot of power. You can simply tell your kids’ teachers that in the service of your beloved child receiving the best possible education, they will be frolicking, drawing, playing dress-up, building Lego fortresses and tickling and being tickled by you instead of fighting over busy work when you both just want to connect and forge the immeasurably useful neural pathways you develop by playing, getting bored, and finding new adventures. Homework in UK primary schools…