I’m a dad with a 14-year-old daughter in second year at secondary school. She feels overwhelmed with the volume of homework she is getting from different teachers. There seems to be no system to allow teachers to co-ordinate assignments. Surely technology could allow this?
Why have teachers through the ages often given written homework with no awareness as to the cumulative amount of written work any given student ends up with at the end of each school day?
Part of the reason may be that parents often complain to school management that their children are not getting enough written work at night, and principals often pass on these complaints at teacher staff meetings.
This may lead teachers to give homework just to keep parents happy, so that their children are seen to be doing their homework for several hours each night.
There are many educationalists and many well-regarded teachers who question the whole rationale behind the concept of regular written homework.
After all, the biggest challenge for a teacher is to engage the interest of students in their subject, lead them in exploring new knowledge and understanding and applying the learning in their understanding of the world they are growing up.
Consolidation of both new knowledge, insights and understanding comes through reflection and application, which can take a myriad of forms, and not necessarily always through spending 40 minutes answering a series of written questions on the content of today’s class.
The spectre of the traditional Junior Cert and Leaving Cert written exams in June, which have been transformed by Covid-19 restrictions for the past two years, have driven this fear among parents that if little Johnny or Mary are not stuck with their heads in their books for hours each evening then they are doomed to fail to make the cut when it comes to securing those coveted college places.
Thankfully, even prior to the pandemic the junior cycle had been radically transformed towards the achievement of eight key skills: numeracy, literacy, self-management, staying well, managing information and thinking, being creative, working with others and communicating.
The reform of the Leaving Cert is well underway, and the latest set of proposals are currently being considered by Minister for Education Norma Foley.
I can think of a thousand creative ways in which students can enrich and deepen the fruits of their daily learning in the acquisition of the key skills that living fully in our 21st century world demands.
It certainly is not confined to ploughing, wearily, through hours of written homework each night, often given by teachers who feel obliged to do so, to keep parents, and through their requests for regular homework, school management happy. Yes, consolidation of learning is vital but how we achieve it goes beyond written homework.
