Homework
Recently the topic of homework has come up in conversations I have had with different people. It comes up regularly with people here at Desert and with my extended family who have children attending public schools around town. There has been a lot of discussion in print about this topic. It seems everyone has an opinion on it. So here is mine!
Homework is the academic work that children take home after school to finish and then hand in at school at some future time.
What is the purpose of homework? Why do teachers assign it? There are a variety of good reasons for its existence. Here are my ideas on the issue: Homework should enrich and expand a students’ knowledge of the ideas taught in class, or it can be an assignment that reveals the students mastery of a skill or idea being covered in class. At times it can be the work that was begun but not finished in class and is taken home to complete.
Homework should be supplementary. The work in class should be the focal point of the learning taking place at school. This is where I see the problem starts. Many schools and teachers use homework for other purposes than the ones listed above.
Homework can be used as a punishment; students are made to do more because of some disobedience or character issue. When you make work punishment you make a positive thing (learning) to be something bad and to be avoided. Work, by the way, is a creation ordinance (God ordained before the fall), something we are called to do so it is good. Other consequences should be used for discipline and correction, homework should not.
Some teachers use homework to fill up time or make it look like they are difficult teachers. The assigning of lots of work which most of the time is busy work is just mindless activity that is boring and repetitious and takes the fun out of learning. To require a person to keep showing their mastery of a topic after they have demonstrated proficiency is also discouraging and disheartening.
Some schools use the volume of their homework as a sign of their stated rigorous academic standards. Being busy for busy sake is disingenuous. Rigor is demonstrated in creative and original work by the student. The amount of homework is not the sign of rigor, creative thoughtful scholarship is a better measure of rigor.