Homework: Policy and Reality

In an effort to get more information about the amount of homework students do each night, at a recent SHS faculty meeting, Principal John Klemme asked teachers to evaluate the reasons they give homework and to what degree they believe homework is effective.  He gave them some homework of their own – literature to read about the purpose of homework to be discussed in groups.  Klemme also said he believed teachers should give 20-30 minutes of homework a night.

While it turns out that most teachers do assign 20-30 minutes a homework a night, there are some who easily give double the recommended amount every single night.  Usually it’s not busywork but reading with questions that amounts to over a half hour of work.  Some teachers claim the work shouldn’t take a half hour if a student is working hard and doing the assignment correctly.  Even further, some teachers say kids can stop after they have worked for true half hour without interruptions from Facebook or TV, but they will mark a homework incomplete if kids haven’t completed the assignment when they say they worked for a half hour.  Other teachers claim they didn’t realize the work would take a half hour, or they need to give the work in order to finish the material by the end of the year. 

However, most kids only get one or two teachers each year with such unreasonable homework policies.  Some teachers rarely give homework, while the majority stay in the 20-30 minute range.  One teacher said he didn’t give homework over the weekends and parents got upset, thinking he was too easy and feared that their kids weren’t learning enough.  It is an expectation among some parents that when their children get lots of homework it is a measure of the quality and rigor of their courses.

When Klemme brought up the issue, some teachers started asking us how much work we had each night without procrastinating, and they were appalled at our answers. We said around 2 ½ hours on a good night – note that a student taking 5 courses should have 2 ½ hours every night based on the half-hour principle.  They felt badly for us, and one teacher said she thought it was unfortunate that we didn’t seem to have the same high school experience she had because we’re always studying.  Ironically, in my opinions, the teachers who pile on the work, defeat the purpose of homework.  Homework is meant to make sure that students understand and/or practice the concepts learned that day in class.  When students have lots of homework assignments, plus long-term assignments, the quality of work decreases.  There are nights I do the bare minimum of work because I have a big test, or skip something I don’t understand when the purpose of homework is to have the time to figure out those difficult questions. I’m not improving or practicing my skills when I’m racing through the work, leaving a wrong answer because I know I don’t have time to find the right one. What is the right answer for the homework situation...one so massive and complicated I can barely fit the whole story here? There’s so much to say, so leave your comments below!