Only two weeks after the first installation, here is the second part of my rant.
Gratuitous Fine Print: I am not a teacher, and I have not taken a single course on education. These rants are just that, ranting, based solely on my experience as a student, a friend of a student, and a friend of teachers.
My next Mostly Opinion-Based idea: Eliminate homework. Or at least change it's purpose, and the weight with which it's grade.
First, there's an important question to ask: What is the point of homework? Is it to help students review what they've gone over? Is it meant to introduce new concepts that will soon be covered in class? Is it showing how much a student is learning--or at least memorizing?
Ideally, I think, it should be a combination--help embed the information in child's mind (review), suggest how else the information could be used (introduction), and see how well the child is grasping the information (measurements). It should be used as a tool and nothing more.
Sadly, what it's currently used for is another thing to grade, another project for a kid to worry about, waste time on, or forget to do. I can name literally a dozen kids in high school whose marks went down the toilet based solely on their homework grade--and those are just the kids I knew.
My current boyfriend had to take a math class over again because he didn't do any of the homework the first time he took it. When he walked back in the second time, the math teacher looked at him and said "What are you doing here?" He spent that semester helping other kids learn the material, because he knew it forwards, backwards, and upside down. Read that again: he knew the material, but he was flunked because of homework.
You might ask "Why didn't he just do the homework and get a passing grade?" I ask back "Why should the homework matter so goddamned much that you can flunk a class based on it even as you ace every test?" (For the record, he has off-the-charts ADHD. This is merely an explanation, not an excuse, because he shouldn't need a bloody excuse.)
To repeat myself: homework should be a tool, and nothing else. If the kid doesn't want to do it--because they don't have the time, the attention span, the will, the need, whatever--it should not affect their overall grade. What they should be graded on is participation and projects/tests/papers--things that show that they thoroughly understand the material, and aren't just memorizing it long enough to get through the class and move on.
Currently, a lot of schools work as an assembly line. Send the kid through the grades, plugging in the required passing grades in all the required subjects: math, history, social studies, sciences, language, English, etc. Grades are what matter, not how well the student grasps the concepts; the importance is placed in the wrong area.
What this leads to is quite obvious if you take a look at our country. Abysmal rates in literacy, education levels, and basic knowledge.
To sum up: Take the emphasis off of tokens like homework, and put it back on understanding and comprehension.
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yup totally agree homework should be like a process which helps a child understand a concept.i use to always complete my homework just for heck of it.there was no learning i use to just scribble,my mind was always blank when i did my homework,not even a single word went in my head.there should be a learning of the concept, a learning that will help us in the future like general knowledge.we know about that concept coz we understood it.there should be no grading on homework and i think this whole grading process suxx!!keep writing!!you have some good valid points!!
ReplyDeleteI agree. I've worked as a tutor and seen kids stress out about homework. There's a lot that needs to be changed in the way education currently works, and homework is definitely one of those things.
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