Ricardo Morales returns to the subject of what homework is actually for…
It’s a Friday afternoon and the clock on the wall seems to be ticking even slower than usual. Thirty pairs of eyes are nervously set on the hand counting the last seconds to two o’clock, the magic moment when the school bell would announce that weekend has officially started. We are in countdown mode: 9… 8… 7… 5… (some of us are still struggling with numbers) 4… 3… 2… ONE!
Silence. No glorious bells ringing. Someone at the principal’s office must have forgotten to push the little white button on the wall, leaving a bunch of pupils with contained screams. Earlier that day, we had all been wishing that Mrs. Tavares, our 3rd grade teacher, would forget to give us homework. Miraculously, we were already so close to having our wish granted; but now the delay? Come on!
At 2:01, we are still in class, not daring to move. We are just waiting for the bell to ring at any moment, when all of a sudden the fatal words come in the form of a giggling teacher:
“Oh, I almost forgot! For your homework, do pages 20 to 40 in your green book, and pages 68 to 91 in your red book. Have a happy weekend!”
There is not a drop of sarcasm in her voice, but who can have a happy weekend with an assignment of nearly 45 or… 70 pages (remember, we are still struggling with numbers)?
Traditional education has created a negative aura around homework. The word itself is doomed to denote the burden every pupil must carry inside their school bag and functions as a synonym for a fun crasher. But does it have to be like this? Should we hold on to this standard and carry on with the role of “party poopers”?
As teachers, we might be punishing ourselves when we assign a homework that will have to be checked, marked and sometimes corrected for a large number of students. Would it not be great to have someone or something that could painstakingly help us check homework? I would love to hire an assistant that would work solely on my pupils’ homework and would tell me every Monday morning: “Here is the report from class: 80% of students turned in their homework; here is the list of those who did not. Of the ones who turned it in, 10 failed to complete it, here are their names. Of those who completed the homework, 60% were graded “A”, 20% were graded “B” and the rest were graded “D”. The latter group of students needs to work more on the following: Present simple, word order and subject-verb agreement. The suggested activities for those who need more support are the following…” For now, sadly, this remains a daydream.
How can we turn homework a productive, engaging and above all: painless task? Is it possible to have homework that is both informative and productive?