Spencer, J. (2011, September 19). Ten Reasons to get rid of homework (and five alternatives). In Education Rethink. Retrieved March 11, 2013, from http://www.educationrethink.com/2011/09/ten-reasons-to-get-rid-of-homework-and.html
Summary/Analysis:
In his article, John Spencer writes why teachers should get
rid of homework. He gives 10 valid reasons of teachers should not
overwork
their students with homework. I agree with all 10, but there is 3
reasons that stocked out to me the most. The first reason is that young
children are busy.
Children get easily distracted and it is very hard for them to
concentrate for
a long period of time, especially in a something they are not interested
in. Second, older children are even more busy. As
children get older they have more in their plate like sports,
extracurricular actives,
jobs, babysitting their siblings etc, that they simply don’t have time
to sit
down for a 2 hours and do homework because all they want to do is relax.
And
finally homework teaches bad habits. It teaches students to do homework
because they have to, not because
they want to! It sucks the fun out of school because they feel like they
are
forced to do work. He goes on to say if adults want to teach children
good work
ethics have them set goals for themselves like learn to ride a bike,
read a
book on their own, make a puzzle, write
a poem anything that THEY decide to do, not something that is being
pushed on
them.
My own alternatives;
Homework= Home fun!
1.
Find something of your interest whether its
soccer, drawing, acting and look for a club in school that practices what you
are interested in. If there is no club, then you can simply start your own!
2.
Math is a subject that a lot of students have
difficulties with. One thing students can do is count how many minutes it takes
for them to walk home from school throughout the week. Average out their time
and see if they can beat their own pace each week.
3.
Write! Make a blog or journal/diary and write
down how your day was, what you had for lunch, your fears, etc. Writing this
down will not only help with your writing skills, but also let your emotions
out.
4.
Download games into your computer or phone that
teaches you a particular subject you are having difficulties in this will help
you with your school and helps you get good grades
5.
Have students (from ages 5-15) read a book with
their parent in their own language. For example my parents speak Spanish. So whenever
they took me to the library I would get a book for my reading club and they
would get one in Spanish. Something children can do is before going to bed they
can read a book in their own native language that way they will dominant both
English and Spanish or Chinese, or French!
Homework is good!
1.
Review Session- During my K-12 school year I enjoyed
homework because it was a way to review everything I had learned in the day. Also
if I wasn’t paying attention in math I would simply go to the chapter, read
over the objectives and review the examples that were given in the text this
made it my homework easier to do.
2.
Work ethic- Homework teaches students that there
are deadlines you have to meet and teaches responsibility.
3.
Creativity- Group projects or take home projects
led my imagination flow and taught me to be creative. Homework can be fun! Even
if it means you have to make a poster or power point on George Washington you
can make your poster or power point come to life and use different patterns and
colors to entertain your classmates.
4.
Confidence- I always loved getting my homework
back from my teacher and having a stamp or a sticker because this gave me
confidence in my work. It was also a way to motivate myself to work hard and
make my parents proud of my work.
5.
Reality check- If I was every having trouble
with homework it meant that I was probably not understanding the class or the
material. Therefore I would ask my teacher for help, pay more attention in
class, take very good notes and learn when I needed to ask for help.
