To have or not to have, that is the question? HOMEWORK

It is an age old question; one that is debated across the board from high achieving private prep-school, to the schools that are struggling to stay open, to the schools in my part of town where the first question in the morning should be did you eat breakfast instead of where is your homework.

I received an e-mail last week with a question from a teacher that was struggling with the “Home-work Dilemma” yet when I went to answer the e-mail today it was not there, so I will do my best to answer from my experiences and beliefs here.
The main question that I remember was, “Should students in poverty situations be given homework?”… “What about the fact that there usually is no one home to help them with their work if they get stuck.”

Living in the inner-city I see the good and the bad effects that HW has on the students living here. Setting poverty aside I believe that when a teacher is giving homework he/she must – know why it is being given and what is the expected outcome from the assignment. I have known many teachers that give homework because they feel they are supposed to yet it really is only busy work. Busy work does not count as an upstanding reason to have homework.
Homework should be used to assess the students grasp on a certain subject that was taught that day, not something to be “learned at home”. (If you want to student to do research at home, teach the how to do that first.) When assigning homework it should be an amount that truly gives the teacher an understanding of how the student in doing in a particular area of his/her studies. There is no reason to assign 25 Math problems all of the same skill when 10 would give an accurate reading of the student’s performance.

Is there a difference from middle and upper class kids to kids on a poverty level when it comes to HW? Yes! Sad but true. Parents of school age children on a poverty level are not as available to help or make sure that the HW is done. Most parents are single mothers working to keep food on the table and the lights turned on. Many of these parents do care about their children’s education yet have grown up in a cycle of apathy and the children catch on to this.

While there are times to assign HW I strongly encourage all teachers to think of the children. It is our jobs as teachers to teach our students well, to teach so that HW can be completed with a low amount of stress. Not to try to dominate the kids by loading them up with homework.

From one teacher to another, hope this helped a little.

Ways to Encourage kids in HW:
- Have a time during school that kids can choose to work on their HW. I did this at the end of each day for the last 20 min. Soon all of my students caught on, and would do the HW they thought was the hardest at school so that I was there to answer any questions.
- HW does NOT have to be BORING! Spice it up make it fun, so they look forward to it.
- Do not make typing a requirement unless you can provide a time and place during the school week for the assignment to be typed. (Make Typing worth extra credit! Most of the kids will start thinking creatively how they are going catch that bus and go to library to type it.)
- Make sure all HW is clearly explained and have students volunteer to explain it to the class at the end of each day. (Make sure you are all on the same page.)
- If HW is not necessary one day than don’t have it! J