My Issues With Homework

Homework is one of those issues we see come up in educational debates on a fairly regular basis. There seems to be two camps where you either love it or hate it. For the most part, I sit in the later. Before going into my reasons behind that I need to be up front and honest. My students do occasionally have homework. This happens for a handful of students on rare occasions. If a student misses class they might have to do some additional work at home. Also, I do a great deal of group work and in class activities. There are times when students are not using their time as wisely as they can which requires them to finish up work in study hall or at home. I also do have students use time at home for additional prep work for assessments.

With all that being said, I rarely assign homework in the traditional sense. What I mean is that I do assign homework on the board daily. However, it is not what most would consider homework. For example, last Friday’s homework was to play outside and enjoy the long weekend. The day before that it was to pet a dog. Some of my students take these “assignments” seriously, while others see them for what they are, random acts of being a kid.

Here are a few of the reasons that I struggle with the idea of assigning students homework:

Haves and Have Nots

Many students have great supporting and resourceful families at home to assist them in finishing work and projects. However, not all do. Some parents can afford to take their kids to Hobby Lobby and drop a chunk of change to make sure their child’s landform project for Science class is top notch. Many kids don’t have that luxury and therefore their projects look “bad” next to their classmates. When students are assigned to build or create a project at home, it becomes apparent who has and who has not. The gap becomes more apparent and now the issue of “having” comes into my classroom where I try to support equality and fairness. Homework does the exact opposite.

Access and Support

Many students have internet access, home resources, and educated parents at home. However, not all do. Some students go home to empty homes and are charged with supporting and raising siblings, or keeping the home. In some cases parents are around but not highly educated and therefore not able to assist their child even if they wanted to. Not all kids have the same chance of success in doing homework at home and therefore how can we ask them to do the same work?

Overkill

How many times are students asked to do something 20 times when they have mastered the skill in the first 2 times? I remember being assigned 30-40 math problems a night even though I clearly understood who to do them while working them in class. If we do our jobs right in the classroom do we need to be sending home even more work?

Easy Way Out

Too often homework is an easy way out from actually teaching. It is much easier to send kids home with work than to actually teach them in the classroom. Yes, it would make my life easier to have students work through my curriculum at home, but then who is teaching them? Who is modeling for them? Who is guiding their practice?

Burn Out

Students sit in desk for 7 hours a day listening, reading and writing what teachers tell them to. Then when they get some respite and head home, they have more work to do. As with just about anything we do in life, the more we are told to do something, the more likely we are to burnout. We can make a safe assumption that a majority of kids do not find homework pleasurable. With that in mind, we will turn kids off to learning if we attempt to connect homework to learning. In my experience, homework does not instill a love of learning, it does quite the opposite.

Busy Work

Much of the work I see go home is simply busy work. How can a word search help a kid understand scientific terminology? Where is it written that we need to color maps in class to learn geography? Why are parents asked to go and buy poster board and glitter paint for a poster in English class? Is what you are asking your students do directly related to a learning outcome? If not, don’t ask them to do it. This goes for in and out of class work.  

Family Time

While this might be my weakest argument, it is important to me nonetheless. I have two children and enjoy every moment I am not at work and spending time with them. Our trips to the zoo, children’s museum, baseball games, family gatherings, and countless parks are moments I wouldn’t miss those moments for the world. When I am at home, I do my best to minimize the amount of school work I do while my kids are awake. I enjoy that time and wouldn’t want to deprive my students and their families of it either. Families need to play and learn together and sitting at the table doing math problems is not my idea of family time.

I am not naïve to think students will never have to do work at home. My goal is to inspire and instill a love for learning within each of my students. If I do that, they will want to learn outside of school without it being assigned. If as teachers we NEED to assign homework, we are failing as teachers.