SLO #4 – Panel: Homework – Good or Bad
EDUCATIONAL AWARENESS by knowing current discipline-based and general education issues and how these impact schools.
This assignment required me to take sides regarding the function of homework and how it should be taken into account when calculating students’ grades and achievement. The topic that
I defended was, “Homework is meant to be practice and not to demonstrate mastery of standards.
Therefore, it should not be incorporated into the academic grade.” I had struggled with this idea over the years. Many parents placed an overemphasis on homework, wanting their children to do more. Others felt that their children were being overloaded and nightly battles to complete assignments were affecting the harmony of their family life. I battled over how much homework to assign and the amount of emphasis that should be placed on take home assignments.
These days, students have numerous afterschool commitments that in their minds take priority over schoolwork. Students undergo a significant amount of stress as they try to balance the demands of homework with extracurricular activities and the need for family time. I’ve had students admit that they either do not have time to complete homework, or that they are too distracted by television, video games, and the Internet to get their assignments finished. I found that many students were finding ways to copy each other’s homework or putting little effort into the homework they did complete. Parents felt like it was their responsibility to make sure their children’s homework got done.
I had read so many conflicting reports on the effectiveness of homework versus the detrimental effect it could have on home life. Some teachers adamantly demanded that homework instilled a sense of responsibility in students and helped them learn how to budget their time. Others argued that they did not have time to grade homework and that the homework

being turned in was subpar. They were not convinced that homework was providing the academic benefits that it claimed to.
Some parents seem to figure that as long as their kids have lots of stuff to do every night, never mind what it is, then learning must be taking place. Others send mixed messages, such as objecting to the burden placed on their children but at the same time they are suspicious of teachers who do not give as many assignments. The emphasis put on homework might be related to our fear in falling behind other nations in academic rigor. Parents are afraid that their children will not perform well enough to get into the best colleges. Yet, I needed to examine the effects of homework on the quality of life in children’s homes, especially in parents’ relationships with their children.
Many schools have adopted homework policies specifying that children at a given grade level will be required to do a set number of minutes of some kind of schoolwork at home. It would be understandable if most teachers decided from time to time that a certain lesson ought to continue after school was over and therefore assign students work on those afternoons.
However, that is not what happens in most schools. Homework is not limited to those times when it seems appropriate and important. Rather, schools have decided ahead of time that children will have to do some type of homework assignment each night. Later on, teachers figure out what to make them do.
Like many teachers, I felt the pressure to pile on more and more homework. There was no coordination between the departments at my school, so I was assigning homework without knowing how much the other teachers were assigning. The last thing I ever wanted to do was extinguish my students’ curiosity to learn. I wanted to improve the quality of the homework that

I assigned and only give homework that was relevant. I noticed that when I reduced the amount of homework, students would come in and hand me articles about something we talked about in class. One student created a video on the 1994 Kobe quake in Japan and posted it on YouTube.
It seemed that when they were intrigued by a good lesson and given freedom from homework, they naturally sought out more knowledge.
I still struggle to find a balance between giving my students meaningful homework assignments without weighing them down needlessly. I aspire to see education as something less than how much content I can cover and more about how I can help the students discover. Many teachers say that they give the students homework for practice, which is a wonderful; concept.
However, does every student in the class need the same amount of practice? What about the students who have the concept down perfectly after the first item? Why does he or she have to do another thirty-nine problems? How about the student who practices all forty problem wrong?
What good did the homework assignment do him or her? I want my students to do their learning in my presence, so that I can immediately correct them, or push them further. I like to see how students are thinking. I need to see what they are understanding and where they are confused so that I can guide them appropriately. I find that this only works when they are in the classroom.