My 10-year-old granddaughter was happy the day before yesterday because her mother took her and her friend to a park to celebrate Children's Day. For a whole day, the two girls played heartily—no homework, no extra-curricular (课外) skills training. The happy life lasted only for one day. Yesterday, everything returned to normal: doing homework till late at night and going over lessons learned at last weekend's English and "Olympic maths" courses.
Every time I went to my daughter's house in the evening, I saw her sitting by the small desk in the room doing her homework. On the wall behind the desk are some words she wrote. One sentence reads: "Why is the exercise endless?" Poor girl!
Although teachers have stopped giving after-school homework to primary school children, parents have been forcing their kids to attend different courses-learning English, painting, "Olympic maths" and so on, every Saturday and Sunday.
Are these extra-curricular courses really necessary in children's education? The answer is certainly "No". Take the so-called "Olympic maths" for example. These courses are very difficult for the children to understand. Often, they are difficult even for adults.
