On Teaching Styles and Homework:

            When talking to my fellow teachers about my opinions on homework and education I tend to compare teaching to magic.  There are many types of teachers and magicians; the same can be said for the styles employed by both.  Some of these styles involve the issuing, revising, and consideration of homework.

            Personally, I don’t believe in homework.  I have a few reasons to defend, what seems at times, like an indefensible position.  I currently teach in a country that measures a teachers effectiveness by the amount of homework that they issue, as artifacts of work that took place in the classroom.

            I like for all of the teaching and learning to take place up close and in my hands.  I know what the student sees, what they hear, and I can monitor their responses.  Students need to interact with education and learning to question and understand complexities.  Up-close magic is always more impactful, especially as we age.

            After I have done a little magic in the classroom, I am expected to give homework, I give each child a deck of magic cards… then expect them to go home and reproduce the same results they had while working with me.  This will have three predominant outcomes.
1) The student goes home, opens up the deck of cards, and reproduces the trick without fault.  The student feels good about themselves being able to reproduce the trick.

2) The student goes home, opens up the deck of cards, and fails to reproduce the trick.  The student has negative feelings associated with the inability to do it on their own.

3) The student goes home, opens up the deck of cards, and thinks they have reproduced the trick properly when they really haven’t.  This will cause the student to do it incorrectly for the rest of their natural born life, and while they temporarily have good feelings they are contrasted heavily with the negative feelings that follow.

            When teachers assign homework, they need to then check for mastery.  Classroom time is already stunted and the checking can range from going over the work with a yey or nay to full on explanations of the mistake.  However, incorrectly answered questions are evidence of compromised learning and needs to be addressed.  The most common way for this dichotomy to work is to teach half a lesson because the other half is spent re-teaching.  Those who don’t want to sacrifice the time simply forge ahead leaving other students behind.

            The most common argument for this is that by teaching them perfectly the first time causes all students to succeed equally well and move on at the desired instructional pace.  However, anyone who says that don’t understand the nature of people… much less children.  So, what solution do I propose?  Honestly, I have none.  For every stakeholder in education there are a  dozen critics.  However, if giving homework is your method, it is important to be clear that it follows a guided practice and students are as well-equipped as possible before trying to independently apply knowledge.  Should you not have the resources to properly address the proper monitoring of acquired knowledge then as an educator, you should perhaps find a better method of assessment and repair.