Lots to cheer about if you’re a fan of lower standards and diminshed expectations.
One of Britain’s top grammar schools is slashing homework to no more than 40 minutes a night. The school’s headmaster more than that becomes “mechanical” and “repetitive.” His deputy adds that too much homework could be “depressing” and put pupils off learning. “We had boys doing three or four hours a night at the expense of sports, music practice or simply having fun,” he says.
In Toronto, the school board has passed a policy manadating a maximum of one hour of homework for 7th and 8th graders, while another in Barrie, Canada has banned it altogether. That earned an “atta boy!” from anti-homework scold Alfie Kohn. “The Toronto policy is a teeny first step,” he tells the Canadian website Parent Central. For parents who are concerned that homework keeps them in the loop about what their children are learning, Kohn sniffs, “We can solve that problem in five minutes. Teachers can send home annotated guides to the curriculum – here’s what we are teaching and why.” That will indeed take five minutes. To read.
Finally, what do you call 1+1=3? In Pittsburgh, it’s called half right. School officials in the Steel City are the latest to go for the no-grade-lower-than-50-percent strategy as a way to keep struggling students involved.
The majority of homework assignments at the elementary level are nothing but busywork. Instead of having little kids waste their time with busywork after school, why not require them to read for an hour per day? That would actually be likely to improve their academic achievement.
I’ve heard Alfie Kohn and others talk about how unnecessary homework is, but I confess I’m unpersuaded. I also don’t buy the “busywork” label. It’s possible to put as much care into planning homework as schoolday lessons. I’ll give you an example. I noticed that my 5th graders would quickly forget basic math skills if they didn’t have regular practice. I designed my homework sheets — 20 math problems each night, 30 on the weekend — to guarantee that once a concept was introduced, from simple multiplication to fractions and ratios, there was never a week that went by where they didn’t practice the skill for homework.
They also read for a half an hour each night, and practiced grammar.
What about the kids in your class who only need a handful of math problems for practice? Do you require them to complete all 20-30 problems? Or do you allow them the flexibility to do a few to show you they can get the right answer, then skip the rest so long as they maintain a high average (say >90%) on end-of-chapter tests?
If you don’t maintain such a policy in your class, then yes, you are, in fact, guilty of assigning busywork.
Friday morning was always math skills quiz time. Get 90% or better three weeks in a row and you’re exempt from math skills homework.
Robert,
Homework could be a great learning experience, but in practice it rarely is and ususally ends up being busywork and/or so overwhelming that parents have to jump in to organize and explain how to do it.
One of the best uses of homework that I have seen is using it to check what children really learned. That is: the teacher explictly tells parents not to help their children so that the teacher can monitor what a child learned or did not learn. The homework is used as a double check and a reinforcement on what was learned in class.
Unfortunately, that rarely happens in our classrooms today. It seems as if the really difficult instruction is fobbed off on students (read: parents) at home: writing assignments, projects and things that are too difficult and cumbersome to do at school. If it is worth doing, shouldn’t the teacher be involved?
One principal I knew stated that spelling words should never be practiced during class time and that kids should only do that at home. That was great for the kids that had parents that made them learn it. It was horrible for the few kids whose parents didn’t care/were too busy/or felt that it wasn’t their responsiblity. Those kids failed week after week, didn’t get better and cemented in their mind that they were horrible spellers. How does this contribute to a quality education?
So if kids do not have a parent driving their homework: what happens to them? Those children fall even further behind.
The piling on of homework appeals greatly to the American work ethic. It would be better if the vast majority of homework had a purpose and actually had some real contribution to education instead of just making parents/public feel as if the schools were being demanding.
Erin,
I see where you are coming from. Teaching at a high school level, homework has been asigned as projects and repetive work to make sure they are understanding the concept. It is hard for some of my students to just learn in a classroom setting and then go home to not have anything to help them retain the information. If that is the case, and the lesson is not graded to an extent, then students see the class as a waste of time. Math is full of procedures in which students are to understand/memorize. For example, I taught my students about the midpoint postulate. They are able to recite it, but to understand it, it needs to be demonstrated and then have them do a few for homwork to check for understanding. There are more procedures in Algebra.
I do agree with the “no homework” policy for english and history where students are able to learn about the past. (This is the highschool level.) They are able to make plays which allows the students to interact with what they are learning. It is more subjective rather the objective like Math. Perhaps, if we call it busy work, then it is busy work that will enforce learning, and students have a better understanding of the basics of math.
I am not saying to not give homework, nor am I saying to give large amounts of homework. I understand that some students are not prevledge to have parents who understand the importance of homework, but we, as teachers, can still provide support to those who need it. Study hall is a great way for a school to help students get their homework done so they would not have students going home with a 25 pound backpack (like I did).
I really am torn between no homework and every night homework. I agree that busy work is unnecessary. However, I teach history in middle school. Even though I try to have scenario’s, demonstrations, and other fun activities; there is also vocabulary, geography, and research that is required. When students do not power outline the sections, read their notes, or complete the research and other assignments, they are not prepared for class and the learning environment deteriorates. History is the one subject that is added to every day, and there is so much to learn that class work alone does not allow enough time to do a thorough job if the students do not have homework. I think homework should be the practice before the performance. It should enhance and support the learning. If we as educators and parents do not hold the students accountable, what is society going to look like when they are adults? I’d rather have students unhappy now and successful as adults.