Recently I stumbled upon an article from the New Yorker called Louis Menand: The End of Homework. As a teacher, the philosophical battle over assigning homework versus not is continuously pumping through my veins. Most of us know the obvious however that worksheets and filler homework is a waste of everyone’s time. I agree with that for sure and I also agree that kids need to be kids and therefore have time to play and to relax.
That being said, I don’t know if abolishing all homework is the right answer either. In my opinion, the work that I assign students is purposeful and is used to review concepts or give them individual time to write without their classmates in the same room. Three items that I find valuable as homework are reading, math, and 20 minutes of writing. While I will raise my hand and admit guilt, that I do assign more homework than those three items, this article made me think twice about that avenue.
Each night I get an email saying a student forgot this at school or his or her computer would not work to do their blog post. If students had an hour in class to complete their work, then these questions would not arise. That said, with so much material to cover as a teacher, some times it seems impossible to give students that luxury.
But, would it be the worst thing to get through less in order to give students a break at home? Teaching is South Korea, I see first hand the stress that my 10 to 11 year olds are under due to the pressure from home and society. To allow students to take a break (not overload them with work), would be ideal.
Heading to break, I think that I will come back and try out sticking to my word about only have students practice math, reading and writing at home for a limited amount of time. Looking forward to posting about my success and failures in thinking through my own philosophy on homework.
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