José M. Sánchez Galán is a teacher with experience in primary and secondary schools, since his blog 'Pedagogical News' offers a comforting vision of a respectful education based on the role of students as a learning center.
A year ago, and coinciding with CEAPA's complaint about the overload of duties that children take home, he wrote an entry called '10 truths about homework (or 10 reasons to stop sending homework) '.
I think you already know my position on this issue, and the role that parents should take, so I am going to limit myself to summarizing José M.'s post, and take you to him in case you want to give him the pleasure of reading it completely.
Apparently, the debate on the tasks is not new since it began at the beginning of the 20th century, although during the last two decades, the educational authorities achieved a global consensus emphasizing the value of the duties. However, in recent years, parents, teachers and other experts in the field have been increasing 'against' investigations. This reflection is intended analyze some of the misconceptions that have been acquired about the duties to clarify the issues that are most debated.
1.- Duties do not develop positive aspects of character such as self-discipline or responsibility. "As Kohn (2006b) points out, homework only teaches you to do what others tell you to do." Commitment or self-will would be better developed through other types of tasks that were of interest to the student.
2.- The impact on the academic result of homework is small in secondary and minimal or nonexistent in primary. Positive relationships have only been found in high school when the tests are made by teachers.
Another current of study focuses on analyzing the duration of homework in relation to the welfare of students.
Galloway and Pope show that the large amount of time spent doing homework favors the abandonment of (perhaps) motivating activities for students
3.- Most students avoid doing homework that is sent from school. If we ask the children, how many of them are happy to do homework? How many see them as a positive activity? How many would prefer to devote themselves to their hobbies or simply to play?
Students of a study conducted by Crain in 2007, perceive a low utility of the tasks assigned to them, and in addition, they show greater stress and mental fatigue when the perceived utility is lower.
If the tasks were useful, the children would engage in learning and enjoy greater emotional well-being..
4.- Homework takes students away from their families. The author of the original article refers to the fact that many times parents become supervisors of tasks that they do not send. The interactions established in this context become tense and frustrating because they reduce family leisure time.
Schools should encourage an involvement of families in other ways than by simply forcing them to help their children to perform tasks that they cannot do alone.
5.- The more time devoted to homework, there is less quality time in class. For two reasons: after the effort at home, students cannot be at their best in the classroom (especially those who stay in the dining room, extracurricular activities, evening school, etc.); The other reason is that the time to correct homework is subtracted from class hours.
According to Ellsasser (2007), what determines success is not the time they spend at home, but the amount of quality time for learning that is used in class
6.- They are discriminatory. Currently, families where both parents work or single-parent families are at a disadvantage compared to those who have a family context similar to the one in which they were designed. On the other hand, homework is mandated, in most cases, without teachers taking into account the personal life of students.
The most worrying thing is that the negative consequences of not doing homework usually fall on students without taking into account that they are not responsible for their own circumstances.
7.- The positive effects of the duties are less than the negative effects. Among the negative effects of homework, a review by Kohn (2006a) of homework research shows that students get frustration, lack of time for other activities, loss of interest in learning or damage in family relationships.
8.- Most learning does not depend on the amount of time spent. There are enough cases in which more time does not lead to better learning, especially when understanding and creativity are involved.
Both in comprehensive reading and in mathematical tasks related to problem solving, results have been found that demonstrate that the practice time is not decisive
9.- Traditional duties do not arouse the interest of children. Kohn (2007) proposes as a solution to this problem to use the duties to involve students in the decision-making process, since he believes that the best way they can learn is to make decisions instead of following guidelines.
10.- There are other types of activities that the student can do at home in the afternoon or during free time. Home activities should help children develop good health habits, positive attitude towards school, improve the taste for reading and science, and favor the idea that learning is not only something that is done in school (Marzano & Pickering, 2007).
The tasks that could be proposed to do at home or during leisure time would have more to do with the development of creativity, rest, physical activity, socialization, etc. and that start from the will and interest of the child
The post of José M. Sanchez Galán, gives to think, and although I start from the basis that not everyone has to agree, it is important that we do not lose sight of the welfare of children, and that we see them as people who They not only play the facet of students.
I would not believe that anyone attended an unfair situation for a child regarding the completion of duties. I have already commented sometimes that I have managed to ensure that my children are not saturated, and even the great one can enjoy most of the afternoon off any day of the week, but not long ago I had a friend at home, and they could not play because He needed two and a half hours to finish his homework! How can a nine-year-old child be allowed to waste such an important time for his development in that way?
Let's see if my child will be right when he says that homework prevents friendship: since he can only play with children his age or older from Friday to Saturday. The rest of the days they are all too busy with homework or in extracurricular ones.
Images | Tony Crider, apdk, nlnnet, San José Library More information | Pedagogical News On Peques and More | Should parents force their children to do their homework? Parents' associations of schools disagree about the duty strike
