Why this teacher assigned unconventional homework

When Shawn Carr’s daughter, Madison, was growing up, she was a smart kid, who spent plenty of time skiing and camping with her family. But during a parent-teacher interview in elementary school, Carr brought up Madison’s self-esteem. Was she happy at school? Was she fitting in?

Yes, said her then-teacher, Sue Moleski, who used to teach Grade 5 at Banff Elementary School. She wasn’t concerned at all about Madison’s academic performance.

But Moleski was concerned that the young girl couldn’t throw a ball.

“She needed to learn how to catch and throw. That was her homework,” recalled Moleski with a laugh. “Learning is not just about spelling and math facts.”

At that time, the news came as a bit of a shock to Carr. From his perspective, his family was pretty active. He was embarrassed to think that Madison didn’t have all the skills she needed to be confident in gym class.

“I was a little pink in the face, I guess,” said the Banff, AB dad. “I mean, we would go cross-country skiing. We went downhill skiing a lot. We went camping all the time.”

But they didn’t typically do sports that require good hand-eye coordination.

“She loved phys ed, but she was feeling a little delicate about tossing a ball back and forth,” Carr recalled. “Her hand-eye coordination just wasn’t there.”

Carr set out to change the situation. He put a big box of gear by the front door and every time they went somewhere, balls went with them — “baseballs, gloves, Frisbees, footballs, soccer balls. We did those things to pass the time in the afternoon at the campground,” he said.

“We just started by throwing a ball or kicking a ball, maybe throwing a Frisbee.” Before long, it was a natural part of their family gatherings, just like skiing and cycling.

Soon after that, he also added badminton rackets to their collection, and one summer, he installed a basketball hoop out front of their home.

After the changes, Madison did great at school, and her academic performance was better than ever. “She was smart and lovely and organized and nice,” said Moleski.

And now she can throw a ball, too.

“As teachers, we also pay attention to life skills,” Moleski said.

“When she’s 40 years old, she might want to play slo-pitch. And even if she doesn’t, she will want to catch the ball if someone throws one at her.”

As for Carr, he said his conversation with Moleski was an important lesson for him as a dad to remember the simple things. “Just the simplicity of tossing a ball around. You see fathers and sons throwing a baseball back and forth, or throwing a football all the time in movies and on TV, wherever. But it should be done with a father and daughter as well at that early age. Don’t wait for it to happen in junior high or later.”

And a bonus? Carr said his entire family had a good time with it. “You forget as you get older just how much fun it is to throw a ball around.”

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in September 2015.