8.05.2011

Homework!

I have a question to all the parents and teachers out there. What would you consider to be too much homework for a 7th grader?
The teacher inside of me is restraining herself before talking to Ricky's (my stepson) teachers about the 3 1/2 hours of homework he has a night.
Since I am an educator I have pretty strong opinions about homework. I believe it is a good practice to give students a small amount of homework for a few reasons. The first reason would be to review and solidify learning to ensure the student understood and can retain the information that was presented in class. For this reason I only assign a few review problems along with a critical thinking problem or two to stretch the learning. I DON'T believe in "drill and kill" assignments, which are tedious and often counterproductive. A teacher should  be able to assess a student's understanding by looking over a few problems the student completed. There is no need to assign pages of the same type of problem. Not only will it frustrate the student and probably turn them off to whatever it is they are doing, but if they don't know how to do the work they will be practicing incorrectly.
The second reason I believe in a small amount of homework is that I think kids should be well rounded and have well rounded schedules. Of course there is time in the day for studies but there should also be time in a 12 year-old's day for play and activity.
Last night when I went in Ricky's room to check in on how his homework was going, my tired-eyed 7th grader was up trying to finish a word search! It was VERY hard for me not to take it out of his hands and throw it out. I of course don't want him to think I am against his teachers or undermine them but WORD SEARCHES, come on!!!
So, please help me. What do you think I should do???

1 comment:

  1. Wow that is frustrating! I would talk to the teacher in the nicest way possible to voice your concerns. That's our job as parents, right? To advocate for our children. And even if she is a little defensive, maybe she will begin to think about homework in a different way...Good luck!

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