I know that practically every kid dreads homework. Maybe not every assignment but at some point, every child comes to a point when they want to be doing something else. In fact, I’m pretty sure that any kid would want to be doing something. Lately however, I have heard parents complaining about homework–and rightly so.
For those of you who have been with this blog for awhile, it may seem that I contradict myself in this post. Understand, I do not. I have never been fond of homework (either as a student or as a teacher) and believe that there is a place for worksheets and “dittos” but not to the extent that they are used today. This has always been my belief and I have not wavered from that. Recent comments regarding the homework load of some after school students I am priveleged to know brought this debate back to the surface.
First things first–if I could get away with sending absolutely NO homework home, that’s how it would be. I know though that parents expect some kind of “homework” though and my curriculum demands (some) homework (though I have devised a way of still completing EVERYTHING and minimizing the homework load). I find almost funny to me that people think that the more homework a child has, the better education they are getting. This is simply not so. In fact, careful observation of the homework coming from the schools around here suggest that it is only used for the purposes of preparing kids for the standardized tests. I know this because I assist many of these kids with homework on a regular basis in our afterschool program. They even come in with this pointless garbage ON A FRIDAY! Seriously!? Can’t kids be kids at least on the weekend? Besides that, many of the kids I see on weekday afternoons have soccer, football, and other activities to go to, just to name a few. These are all programs they SHOULD be in afterschool. Yet I’ve discovered that time after time kids aren’t getting the rest they need because they have homework assignment after homework assignment to finish after all their events.
And what response does the education system have? Education is important. Well yes, but these activities are equally as important and need to be taken into consideration when planning an education system. Even the first graders here are overloaded with page after page after page of worksheets and the regurgitation of the days lesson (most of which I have learned they tuned out after sometime). The common response is “The teacher didn’t teach us this.” Now this opens a few possibilities. Either this child was not listening in class or, the teacher really did send home a new concept before teaching it. The latter is quite unlikely as most homework assignments usually have a completed class assignment on the back side with the same concept.
Then again, perhaps the child was listening but was just unable to retain everything spewed out for that day. I repeat that I believe that there is a place and time for worksheets and writing assignments. There is a place for teacher instruction. But there is also too much of BOTH! And yet, nearly every curriculum calls for hours of instruction and the droning on of the teachers and piles of piles of worksheets to be completed. Do people really believe that this is good education?
My previous post has a picture of something I observed my first graders doing. They built a hopscotch game out of puzzle mats. No prompting. No instruction. Nobody telling them where to put the squares or how many there should be. The did it on their own and it came out great. Recently in my classroom, I acquired two sets of those marble run play sets. It was intriguing to watch them work as a team and develop a course that would take their marble through all the various twists and turns before depositing it in a collection piece at the bottom. One piece in particular allowed the Marble to jump from one tower to the next. The whole concept of measuring trajectory and figuring out how far away the two parts had to be was solely up to them. Nobody showed them how to set it up and they had disregarded the instructions within the 1st 5 minutes. This was something the conquered on their own*.
Now you may ask “what the education in that?” Well, one aspect of our current closed minded, scripted curriculum is to teach critical thinking. Our current system has already told them what to think (because there is only one right answer to the question). In the case of the Marble Run, there was not one right answer. They had to use problem-solving skills to make a marble jump and make it to the other part of the run.
Not to mention making in balance correctly so it wouldn’t fall over on the very unsteady carpeted floor. Sure, it would be easier if they built it on a table, but who’s allowed to climb on tables? This led them to devise a plan that would also support their structure if they expected to be effective at all. What can be learned from all of this? Well, let’s break it down.
First, geometry. While it’s not the typical triangle, square, circle curriculum, it definitely has geometry in it. They had to figure out how to put the pieces together so that the marble(s) hit every run. Place the wrong piece in the wrong place or direction, and the marbles would drop to the ground.
Secondly, math (and more specifically algebra). Granted, first graders aren’t solving equations in my class, but they still needed to know how many pieces it would take to get from point A to point B without having all the information. While they may not know it now, they were preparing THEMSELVES for algebra problems in the future. This would also develop their counting skills, addition, and subtraction as they needed to know how many pieces there were, how many it would take to build it, and how many pieces would be left when they were finished. To further the problem solving development, they also tried to figure out how to incorporate the leftover pieces in their completed structure all this working as a team (team building skills, social interaction, positive peer pressure, etc). And this was only about an hour of the day! How many other hours of the day are THAT productive.
For those of you squirming uncomfortably and about ready to shout “THAT’S NOT EDUCATION” give me another minute. All of the above happened AFTER are regular day of events (which actually could have been less than it was if I had known it was going to be that productive). This has led me to develop actually class time set aside for projects such as this while also making sure our core curriculum is finished.
No, it is not Caine learning. No, it is not unschooling. It is not traditional. It is simply a blend of the best ideas from everywhere! Perhaps there is no utopian form of education but I for one do want to find new and innovative ways to teach. Not just to teach, but to engage students in learning and develop their desire to want to learn more. After all, why should we just keep doing things the same way just because that’s how its been done for so long?
*I would like to note that while I did participate in some of the marble run activity, I was referring to a specific day and a specific set of events that I was NOT an active participant in–merely an observer*
