What Is The Value Of Homework?

One of the things I remember about high school was having all these hardcover textbooks that I would trudge home with in my school bag. And more often than not, when I would drop my bag on the hallway floor with this loud reverberating thump, my mom would ask me why on earth was my bag so heavy. My answer to her query was always the same – I needed those heavy books to finish all the homework assignments handed out to me that day.

I’m sure this is a memory most of you have as well from the rites of passage through the hallowed halls of the high school education system and beyond. And yet, looking back on it now, I can’t help but wonder if our parents worried or obsessed over homework to the degree that parents do these days. To wit, at the school board meeting held this past week, a rather intense discussion was held among the various school representatives over a survey we were asked to fill out regarding the value of homework at the elementary school level. Although the overall issue of our children’s education is sadly one that rarely stirs up any collective emotion or drive to continually examine the system’s current efficacy, one aspect that does draw parents in like bees to a field of flowers is the subject of homework – specifically how much is enough.

Of course, the key factor to addressing this issue is to answer the question of what we expect the goal of homework to be, of what we hope our children will gain from the process of doing homework. Obviously, the first expectation behind homework is that it’s to be used to build on the lessons or ideas taught in class. But there are other benefits to be gained from the exercise of homework including the development and nurturing of time management skills, and in this age of the Internet, information management. Without question, the net has become a vast resource of information and sometimes it can be overwhelming trying to navigate through all the content to find the relevant information. So the ability of our children to take in large sums of information and then filter it down to the most essential points is key for their future success in this ever-growing drive toward an information technology-based society.

So how does this answer the question regarding the value of homework? Well, perhaps it’s our measurement of that value which needs to be re-evaluated in that it’s not so much the quantity but the quality of homework and what it instills in our children which should be measured. Indeed, looking at some of the assignments given to my own kids, there are times where I was confused as to what was the point of the exercise, of what the teacher expected the students to learn from doing that particular work assignment. Fortunately though, those tended to be the exceptions rather than the rule. Nonetheless, I’ve heard parents complaining about their kids getting too much homework and even some complaining of there being too little. But I think what’s needed here is for parents to sit down and look at what kind of work their children are bringing home and from there, ask the question of what benefits their children are gaining from completing these exercises.

With the exponential growth in technology, and with it an evolution in how we work and interact, it’s impossible for any of us to truly know what the workforce will be like when our children reach the point of entering it. However, there can be no question regarding the timeless nature of certain skill sets that will undoubtedly continue to serve and benefit our societies. From my vantage point, homework should not just be about building on the lessons taught in the class; it should also be about the development of skills and traits our children will need to succeed, not only as they continue further in the education system, but also when they migrate out to join the workforce. As parents, it’s our job to work with our society’s educators to make sure our children are being adequately prepared for such a move in their respective futures.

Some other posts you may enjoy:

1. Our Children’s Education – It’s About Time
2. Staples, You Got Back to School All Wrong
3. Unravelling The Myths of Multitasking and Time Management – Part 2
4. Absurd Names For Children – Should We Intervene?
5. And Yet Another Summer Comes To An End
6. Saying Goodbye To The Ones We Love

posted on March 12th, 2009 | 2 Comments » | Tags: Culture, education, homework, parents, school, teaching |