Homework- Renaissance in Elementary Education

by Kirti Hemlani

Homework is like democracy- of the people, for the people, by the people.
 

The homework debate has been raging for many decades, with no end in sight.  On one hand there are the proponents of homework who swear by its benefits and efficacy, and on the other hand we have the detractors who would like schools to end the practice of giving homework to students. Are you the parent or teacher, whose children don’t like homework? Do they despise the very word “HOMEWORK”?  Do you think its extra pressure for them and not really a learning aid? If so then, we both think homework needs to be redefine? Lets bring a change!! A renaissance.

According to research from the Brookings Institution and the Rand Survey data and anecdotal evidence show that some students spend hours nightly doing homework. Homework overload is the exception rather than the norm; (see the Brown Center 2003 below). Their researchers analyzed data from a variety of sources and concluded that the majority of U.S. students spend less than an hour a day on homework, regardless of grade level, and this has held true for most of the past 50 years. In the last 20 years, homework has increased only in the lower grade levels, and this increase is associated with neutral (and sometimes negative) effects on student achievement

The experts also agree over the disadvantages of homework. Researchers, such as Alfie Kohn and Timothy Naughton, state that there is little or no benefit to giving homework and that it does not really lead to improved academic performance.  Alfie Kohn, (2006), wrote “The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing.” Even the title is eloquent.

Sometimes, I feel as I have been doing homework my entire life. As a child growing up, I moved from worksheets, dioramas and book-reports to essays, major projects and term papers.  When I began teaching, I had lessons to prepare and my students’ homework became my homework for grading. When I became a mom, I had to help my children with homework, it disturbed family life and prevented me doing household chores in the evening. Eventually, I was frustrated.

According to me as a parent and a teacher, a balanced perspective most likely is the best response and not confined to paper. Time spent on homework should align with the student’s age, where there is social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development of a child. I do think that in our desperate quest to create successful kids, we are assuming the wrong moral burden. Just make little alterations especially in elementary school, a renaissance in homework. A virtuous goal for homework, imagine students smiling at the guard of the school and thanking him, where bus drivers and conductors are complimented, reaching out a lonely child, helping mom picking up trash, homework should be an outdoor activity where you need to observe and reflect on yourself and students need work on their areas of growth, happy notes to an elderly or a friend who is sick, where fraction can be done with pizza making, math is not confined to computation but real world problem (addition of a grocery bill)

Three things I would like to bring forward, to support my thinking-

1) Calculating the exact amount of paper that is used for homework each year in school is challenging to find out. Though there are rough figures of around 61,000,000 trees being used for high school students’ homework and around 26,000,000 trees for primary school students’ homework. Imagine how many trees we could save if we reduced or banned homework on paper!! Still not done yet. Think about all those burning light bulbs, imagine all the coal we must be using, and think about all those, imagine a world full of trees with a lot of oxygen, all that coal saved. 2) Homework causes anxiety, depression and causes frustration between parents and children. It hinders cognitive, social, physical and emotional growth. Students are staggering from classwork in school to homework at home. Once at home, parents help them to finish homework causing repercussion at home. Homework is harmful because so many hours have been spent at school concentrating on work and teachers, again that is followed at home. Also, school involves a lot of sitting down, when out of school it should be healthier for the body to be moving around, engaging in exercise and other things. Humans weren't designed to be sedentary. Do you know that children struggle and fear-monger as they need to get their homework done, so that they can get better grades or simply get smiley stickers. In this case students spend a long time of their evening getting their homework done and thus causes anxiety. Depression is when you feel sad, have low spirits, fear of facing your parent or teacher if you don’t finish homework. If you don’t finish homework in time, you start to think that you are a failure, and you start losing faith in yourself. It hurts you emotionally and cognitively. Have you noticed that the kids that spend long time doing homework, don’t get enough time to socialize or play an activity or sport with friends. Playing, or being physically active, can help you develop your instincts, reflexes, and other lifelong skills. Games help you learn leadership qualities or helps you learn to work as a team, helps you have patience as you wait for your turn, how to deal with triumph and defeat, understand reason behind rules, teaches you moral concerns as justice and fairness, self confidence, enhances children’s agility. Playing helps children to grow cognitively as they come up with creative strategy, improves thinking and intelligence, improves vocabulary as they invent, modify, and enforce rules, number relationships as they keep score and count, they feel safe and in control so promotes autonomy, decision making and organizational skills, helps to deal with egocentric, aesthetic awareness.

2)    What do you thing the world needs today? What does humanity yearns for??? I think this quote explains it well, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” – Maya Angelou  I think the world is in desperate need of acceptance, tolerance, love, peace, not only for you and me, but for everyone. To bring these things in this world, lets start from our children. Clear, rational and humanistic planning is needed and that change can be brought from childhood, from school and in a very simple way as HOMEWORK. Our modern education system is producing economically stable citizens but where are human values? We need to cultivate it in our children from today, we do teach values but we need to put it in practice. Regardless of what you consciously teach them but we need to see it happening. Parents and educators are the source from which children learn values but peers do influence them so lets put all these students together to bring it in action. I have strong evidence to prove it scientifically too. What drives our desire to behave morally? Neuroeconomist Paul Zak believes oxytocin (he calls it "the moral molecule") is responsible for trust, empathy and other feelings that help build a stable society. Oxytocin is a hormone that is made in the brain, in the hypothalamus, and it is transported to, and secreted by, the pituitary gland, which is located at the base of the brain. Technically, “emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to perceive and express emotion accurately and adaptively, the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge, the ability to use feelings to facilitate thought, and the ability to regulate emotions in oneself and in others” (Salovey & Pizarro, 2002).

Thus it proves, one of the most important attributes of the world is empathy. It’s the need of the hour.

Without a doubt, I am sure many of you would not agree that this kind of homework is feasible. It sounds good but is not feasible. In recent years, some schools have tried to add moral development to their curriculum. Homework helps to consolidate and clarify what is learned in class during school day and that can be done but not in a monotonous way, confine to a desk and on paper. Lets renew it. Homework should enjoy a renaissance. It looks challenging and initially would be difficult. But look at the bigger picture, together we can and we will make a difference. Some schools have tried bringing changes and initially it has been difficult but eventually its appreciated, encouraged and supported by educators, parents and children too as they enjoyed an outdoor sport where they need to reflect on themselves, help parents with house chores or run errands, or help in the neighborhood, or help an elderly, learn fractions with pizza, multiplication tables with songs and games, show respect, responsibility and empathy to society. Math would be doing a calculation of a restaurant bill or monthly expenses.

         Assessing this kind of homework becomes a pleasure for a teacher to start her day with, where parents send videos or pictures they captured or moments, which became lovely memories for them, where students share their moments in class. This kind of homework, after few years becomes a wonderful memory,for a child, parent and an educator.

So let’s escape the norms and let’s encourage students to bring a renaissance in the world today. Let’s make empathy a new identity and it will be pursued with joy.

Together we can work to cultivate understanding, learning, show compassion, empathy, be kind to each other, and brew the love of mankind but start from childhood and start with HOMEWORK.