Dear Sixth Grade English Teacher,
I know you mean well. I even agree that giving my kid homework assignments that request antonyms for adjectives and adverbs seems pretty pedagogically sound.
However, demanding that students come up with antonyms for any given noun seems like a problem.
What, pray tell, do you expect students to identify as the antonym for "utensil"? Or for "cat"? Or for "mass"?
I would submit to you that these three nouns do not have clear opposites -- or even plausible opposites -- and that they are not unique in this regard.
But framing these vocabulary-builder assignments as if every word in the language must have an antonym, and putting the students on the hook to work out what they are, forces vulnerable children to engage in a category mistake as if it were not a mistake.
I will have you know that some of us, teaching adults, already spend altogether too much time trying to get them to step away from category mistakes. Creating more in the sixth grade vocabulary homework of future generations of college students is not helping.
Just stop it.
The younger Free-Ride offspring's mother