How To Make Your Child Stupid

It is unnatural to expect children to sit for hours at a desk to complete worksheets. This is the reality faced by many children. Some of them start as young as 3 years old.

This is the best way to stupidify a child. 

The brain is a self-adjusting mechanism. It is quite capable of autonomic, automatic, half-conscious action. An excess of worksheet drills puts children's brains into a half-conscious state. They will complete the worksheet but they are learning nothing because they aren't really conscious nor thinking anymore.

Then, the parents give them EVEN MORE worksheets, which exacerbates the problem. These uninformed and overzealous parents stupidify their own kids. By the time they join me in Primary 3, these kids have formed the habit of half-consciousness whenever a worksheet appears. They complete work with half a brain (or even perhaps a quarter). They do their worksheets on autopilot. Their work is of extremely poor quality.

As a result, they learn very slowly. These kids can go 12 weeks doing weekly HW and learn nothing at all. I feel for these children. They could learn 3 times more whilst doing 3 times less work. Instead, they are just little sweatshop workers churning out worksheets dutifully and they still learn close to nothing after 12 weeks.

Here are instructions on how to stupidify your child...

(1) Just buy any assessment book without evaluating its quality... the thicker the book, the more exercises, the better.

(2) Schedule the worksheets to be completed at set times everyday (preferably in twice 3 hour stretches from 2pm to 5pm and then from 6pm to 9pm). You can rotate the different subjects for some variety.

(3) Ignore sloppy work.

(4) Prize completion of worksheets above all else.

(5) Never check work for work quality.

(6) Do not allow your child to exercise (nor run around playing catching) because cardio activity has been shown to improve focus, concentration, learning efficiency and retention. You don't want that. See screenshots below from The Smithsonian Magazine.

Screenshots taken from HERE. You really should click on this link and read the full Smithsonian article. There are 5 other neuroscientific ways you may wish to avoid if you wish to stupidify your children.

(7) If worksheets are poorly done, do not scold the child because the child has already worked hard at COMPLETING the worksheets. He/she tried his/her best already. Worksheet completion is of primary importance. Work quality ensures more learning per piece of work done. You definitely don't want that.

(8) Never get the child to explain things to you, because when the child explains, the child has to think. You must do all the explaining. This way, your child will not need to think.

(9) Leave your child to do all worksheets independently, without encouragement nor companionship. As long as the child has completed work, you should be satisfied.

(10) On Sundays, plan worksheets from 9am to noon and then from 2pm to 5pm. In the evenings the children can play computer games which will flood their brains with so much dopamine that it will destroy their ability to focus on anything like a worksheet or even an educational documentary.

(11) Never force a tired child to skip work because doing work while tired is a sign of a good work ethic.