Home is Home, School is School

For a few years now I have not assigned homework to my students.  I really did not have a reason why I decided to have this policy. It is a personal policy that just happened.  One thought I had was assigning homework was more of a pain for me. Constantly asking students for it, calling home talking to parents, staying in room for lunches to the students completed homework and the grades at the end of the month were still low.  I was working harder than my students.  In the last month I have realized that this selfish reason and learned the true reason why I do not assign homework.  School needs to remain at School, and Home should be Home.  

As teachers, we do not know everything that is going on in the students’ home.  Building relationships with the students is key, especially in Middle School but there is only so much our students will open up about.  I have recently learned about situations some of my students are in...from protecting younger brothers and sisters from an abusive parent to not knowing if they will have place to sleep at night.  For some students, when they get off the bus homework is furthest item from their minds. The next day at school the student has a teacher harping on him/her for not completing homework.  When does the student have time to be a kid? To catch a break? To just live?  It becomes a cycle.  How does this help the student learn, help their self-esteem or move forward?  Think about this:  The student did not get the homework done because he/she was busy distracting little brother and sister while mom and dad fight downstairs.  The next day the teacher gets upset with he/she because the homework is not done.  Said teacher calls home….What will happen when the student gets home?  Home is home.

The Middle Level age is also an essential time for building the relationships within the families.  Middle Level teachers hear a lot about building relationships with the students--it is just as important to have those bonds built at home.  Fighting over homework is not a strong way to build those relationships.  Spending time with family and having time to still be a kid is important to the middle level student.  How can we expect students to sit and work in the classroom, when we had them sitting at home all night working on homework?  Students need time to be kids. It doesn’t matter if the student is 5 or 18, time to just be a kid is essential.  Students need to be able to go home, play catch, ride their bikes, listen to music, hang out of with friends.  With less homework, the family can have time to be a family.  Family games can return (maybe not board games but video games too).  Maybe the “whole” family can go and cheer on siblings or cousins at the little league game. Dinner can return to the dinner table with a discussion of the day, not a fight over finishing homework on a table covered in textbooks. Home is home.

In the classroom setting, I am present to guide the students, to give the feedback and give suggestions, also there is a para that is equally reliable and a co-teacher for two of my blocks.  The students also have tablemates that can help and expand their thinking.  In the home situation, students may not have the same resources.  The parents may work, not be around, be unwilling to help with the homework or have inadequate schooling themselves. Chris Wejr stated in his blog (The Wejr Board), “If the student is not learning this at school, who do we expect to teach it?” School is school.

This past school year, I have begun using Google Docs in the classroom.  I have never once said to my student “This is homework,”  or “Complete this for homework.”  During the school day my students worked hard to complete the assignment in Google Drive but on Saturday when I went to my Google Drive, I got a surprise.  My students had been working...Friday Night and Saturday Day on their assignments.  They also had been working together, editing and giving feedback on each assignments.  I did NOT tell them to do this...it something that they just did.  The work was actually meaningful to them, they wanted to work on it, and it is helping them become lifelong learners.  School is school.  

I have strong belief in differentiation (I wish the teachers I had when I was a student did) and homework is a way to add differentiation.  Mark Clement (www.theedunators.com) does an excellent demonstration of differentiation in his presentation.  He has some of the attendees stand and try to get to the door from their seats, but they can only do it in 5 steps.  Of course not all of them can make it, some need more steps than others.  Homework should be used like the steps in Mark’s demonstration.  On a classroom assignment one student may take 10 minutes while another needs more time than the block allows.  The first question I ask is “Can you complete this at home?” If the answer is no, we work something out: come in for lunch, stay after school, come in before school.  

Many teachers I work with do not share my no homework thoughts so students are allowed to come into my room during lunch and work on assignments, to keep school in school.  I stay after school about 2-3 times to work with students who really do not have ability to complete assignments at home.  It is only an hour and I get so much of my work done too.  It is not homework help time, it is homework done time.

Homework is not an all or nothing situation.  Since using Google Drive, my students have chosen to give themselves homework. I love it!  Love to see the enthusiasm and engagement in the lesson.  In math courses, foreign language course and fine arts practice is something that the students need to do to keep growing and building.  There are several questions that need to asked here-Should the students be punished for not practicing? Which is more valuable to practice where the students can receive specific feedback or where there is no feedback?