Homework Blog

At first, this article was just as the name of the periodical implied: ornery. Orson Scott Card had a really whiney tone at the beginning, but by the end of the article, I sympathized with his opinions more. I've always thought that homework had meaningful influence on a child's grade, however, thinking back on my own experiences with homework in middle school and high school, I see that homework was more of a pain than a help. If I understood a concept in class and went home and did 30 problems of the same concept, I'd get quite annoyed with doing the same thing over and over. Sometimes I didn't understand the concept in class, so I'd go home and stare at my homework for hours. That can be a humiliating experience coming back to class the next day. A teacher obviously has to keep up with what the district needs him/her to teach, so students who don't understand something can be left further and further behind as time progresses. A teacher is expected to keep students on track to take a test at the end of the semester, but good teachers know how to personalize along the way. My idea of an excellent teacher is one who takes kids aside one on one to see what they know and don't know. If the student doesn't understand a concept, the teacher can explain it then to help the student understand. The teacher can then assign a few problems that deal with what is being taught in class. Having the problem explained clearly to them, the student can go home and work on ONLY 2 to 3 problems that will help them cement concepts. If a student already knows and is caught up with the concepts, NO homework. Of course, it's hard to have interview time with 150 students per semester, but they don't have to take a long time, and teachers can ask short questions to understand if a student grasps concepts.
I like the concept of no homework in elementary school. I don't remember doing homework that much in elementary school anyway. I agree with Card that students should only be assigned homework that has an objective purpose to what is being done in class and that students shouldn't need their parents' help to do homework. I do agree with a lot of points in the article, but I still think that homework is necessary to an extent. Teachers do need to be observant of what their students are already doing before they assign homework.