My thoughts on HOMEWORK
My entire academic life, I was enrolled in schools wherein homework was always there. As a child, I hated it. Why do you have to bring home something from school when home is supposed to be your free time? Why does it have to ruin your play time? Why does it take so much of my free time? Worse, I hardly have any me time left for myself because of homework. These are some of the questions I would often ask to myself about the damned homework that accompany me home.
Homework is boring. Homework is tiring. Homework is the devil's work.
Those 3 statements alone could tell you how I despised homework as a kid. But nevertheless, I had to do them. Every single one of them so that I could attain better marks in school.
As I grew older, I became smarter - a smart-ass that is. I knew that I had enough of homework and had to work around it. Instead of doing homework, I chose to wake up early and rush to school. Wait for the others to arrive and voila, I get to copy homework from my peers. There are even times where I wake up late and copy as hurriedly as I can before the teacher finds out that I copied all of them. Yes, it came to that point. Something a child generally feels when receiving the assignment, LAZY.
That was then, what about the now. Have my views on homework changed?
Matter of fact it did. Ever since I had our little Carlisle, my focus towards him and how he gets to know his environment has been very substantial. We have noticed how quick he is in picking up stuff from school, the house, or whatever resource that he has to deal with. He is quick to learn and very witty at that. And now, I am eager for him to learn more and more about the world around him.
As he will grow older, he will have plenty of opportunities to learn. One of those avenues is through homework.
Despite having said all of those sad things about homework, why should I support that for my kids?
After all those years and this sudden realization being a parent, I believe that the homework is an avenue with which we educate, not only the students, but as well as the parents to be able to work together harmoniously.
We have to let everyone realize the impact of homework as a family, as a learning process for the child. We have to let the parents understand that homework is a means where a child and parent can bond over, working hand in hand into completing the task.
The only question left would be HOW?
As a teacher, we normally allocate points or scores over the homework being done at home. That thought enables the parents to act on the homework on their own, securing points for their children, ultimately cheating a better score without the child learning. This totally defeats the purpose of homework right?
So... Homework should be done for the parents. As a parent, I find this hard to do, filling these in apart from the already busy schedule that we have. But after having become a parent, juggling work and kid, I've come to realize that our child needs more of our attention than any other. Would we rather have our kids stare at the television or play computer games all night long? Or should we rather bond with them over education, positive debates, or even incorporate them into recreational activities together as a family.
Homework is not as bad as we think...
Homework will definitely cut your child's fun time by a couple of minutes to an hour. But if we look at it on a different perspective, it actually gives you and your child some family time from a couple of minutes to an hour. Our kids will not be kids forever, and there will come a time where they will no longer care for your tutoring or your family time. While we still have this slight bit of moment to save every opportunity, memory and bond that we can share with our children, why can't we just cherish that?
So, I guess I'm PRO homework. What do you guys think?
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I don't think homework helps children. I say that from experience. I have had my children in Public school and home schooled them. The only reason they have homework is all the time wasted in Public School. If the children are given the time to do the work there is no home work.
Education is important but so is down time and play time. We overwhelm our children to pass a test and stress them out unnecessarily. When children have a more balanced life they are happy. That is actually the bigger issue in my book is that we are no longer teaching children how to learn, it is all about passing a test, not true learning. Ask a child to look something up they don't know, most can't do it. They don't know how to research because they have stop teaching children how to learn.
I really respect that. Thank you. You have widen my views on homework even further. I was actually looking at some of its benefits but regardless of the fact that it still has some, kids really do need their fair share of play at home.
I agree with @tecnosgirl, homework serves only to educate children to serve the economy, in my view children should be learning life skills for independent living, most when adults are ignorant of the skills needed for interaction with others. It should be a requirement for every child to travel the world (the government should fund this..ha!ha!.:) to broaden their perspective of life in general. I say this as a lecturer who use to teach in a London, UK college. Peace.
I have a feeling I am going to jump ship soon and head over to the Anti Homework campaign. Thank you for your thoughts. Peace.
That's certainly a very positive attitude to have to the institution of homework - although whether it's good or not is surely dependent on what the homework is?
Also - your approach might just exacerbate inequality - not all parents have the skills to leverage homework into a positive learning experience.
That was what I have in mind but failed to talk about it in the article. It really depends on what the homework is about.
And I come to realize that not all parents would be able to apply a positive learning experience, but I guess what I was looking at was the bond that the parents could have, working together. But yes, nevertheless, it will never be true for everyone.
I think I'm inclined to agree with you although I personally feel like we got too much homework when I grew up, so I'd prefer it being less for my child or at least rather assignments that involve him going outside doing research in a certain field and then writing about it or discussing it in class the next day. I was one of those kids that simply did not do my homework, always got into trouble, lol :)
Yeah, as a kid, I was really not a fan of homework. Younger years, I may have done them religiously but as I got older - copying was the best skill I developed to counter homework. It really boils down to what kind of homework we are dealing with. What I had in mind is something that could get our kids to go out of the house and discover something new. Rather than have them stuck in a gadget for a very long time. Something a parent could accompany them outside and grab the opportunity to play catch or tag. But that's just me :)
It seems to me that now no one is forcing anyone to do their homework. I always wanted to do assignments in between classes at school. Although now you can also easily find the best homework services. In the era of the Internet, finding someone who understands a problem better than you is quite simple, so if a student has difficulties, then this is solved literally in a short time.