Handling the homework bogey

Manaswini Sridhar

Homework, schoolwork, project work, class work, holiday homework…overwork…overdose.

Almost every teacher wraps up the day’s lesson with the words, “And now for the homework….” Students groan, moan, grumble, and protest only because they feel that they cannot give in without a small fight, but deep in their hearts they know that they will either have to oblige by submitting the homework or else dodge the homework in a skillful way. Students are under the impression that this is a punishment that teachers willingly and lovingly dole out to them, deterring them from doing all the fun things that they could be doing within that period of time. What students don’t realize is that it is a double whammy for teachers…first, they need to come up with a piece of writing related to the lesson, and second they have to read and correct homework that has been unwillingly done, and consequently either has multiple errors or is totally off track. Teachers also have to find the appropriate words to wrangle with students who are invariably not turning in their homework…neither situation is agreeable for the teacher who already feels he/she is in quicksand, given the many demanding and explosive situations in the classroom. Over and above all this, are parents who want no homework given to their children either because they feel that the child needs to be doing other things outside of the school or because they are not comfortable dealing with a protesting child who point blank declines to do the homework. Then again, is the category of parents who thinks that the child has either to be in school, or at the desk, eternally doing his/her homework.

http://www.drkarenphillip.com/is-homework-a-dirty-word/ offers an insight into why it is important for some element of the child’s education to be done at home and not be solely confined to the school premises. The influence of the parents is rather profound on schools today and since education has become such a huge business, schools do not want to disregard the opinion of the primary investors…the parents. Some schools declare that they overburden students to a considerable degree because parents insist on it. This does not in any way signify that the parents are assisting the children at home with their education…the children are sent to tutors for the remaining part of the day. Although many educational boards have a specific percentage allotted for homework, teachers are at their wit’s end because the homework is never submitted. Many parents refuse to play any role in ensuring that the homework is done and taken to school. Teachers say that they sit the child in class during the recess and have the child do the homework so that it can be corrected; they are compelled to follow through this because marks need to be entered in the report card for this “skill” at the end of the year. The very purpose of assigning homework is defeated: that the students learn to respect learning and shoulder some of the responsibility themselves.

Perhaps the kind of homework that students are being given is not challenging enough. If a child has to write the same answers at least three times each, then it can become frustrating to those who are just not interested in scoring higher grades. Why not give homework that will compel students to read their textbook? When reading of the textbook takes place, the student develops reading skills, and secondly also understands the text. When this occurs, academic life becomes relatively painless both for the student and the teacher.

Let’s say the teacher is going through a unit on Air and its Uses. The chapter has numerous definitions and scientific facts. As the teacher reads through the chapter and explains, it would be a good idea to tell students to read the chapter again at home and then create a grid like the following, based on the alphabet, one for each letter.

a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
r
s
t
u
v
w
x
y
z

As homework, students read the lesson and jot down one or more pertinent words related to the lesson according to the alphabet. It is possible that sometimes there may be no words for a particular letter of the alphabet. Since the student needs to complete the chart as effectively as possible, he/she will read the text several times to double check that all the required words are listed. Students will also scrutinize the text more since he/she is scouting for words beginning with a particular letter. They will also turn to the section where the important words of the lesson are listed. This section will not only aid them in furnishing the words, but it will also help them understand how a lesson is laid out. Many a student will turn the lesson topsy-turvy in order to complete the task. Since they look at the text so many times, a lot of the information will sink in, and what they don’t understand, they will be able to ask the teacher with conviction.

Students may have something like the following filled in:
a atmosphere, acid fog
b burning of materials, breathe
c communication satellites, carbon dioxide
d deflated balloon
e exosphere
f fires
g gases
h heat, harmful gases
i ionosphere
j jar
k
l life, lungs
m mesosphere
n nitrogen
o ozone layer
p planes, photosynthesis
q
r radio waves
s stratosphere, solar energy
t troposphere
u UV rays
v vehicle tyres, volcanic eruption
w
x
y
z

Students undoubtedly will have had to read the lesson in order to spot the words. In doing this, they also learn the words that are vital to the lesson, the spellings and to a certain extent the definitions too. The work may be submitted as written work for the teacher to grade. Additionally, students may be divided into two teams, A and B. The members of team A are lined one behind the other facing the board. The members of team B are lined in a similar manner. The letters A-Z are written on the board in a grid; in fact, there are two sets of the grid, one for each team. At a given signal, a student from each team simultaneously writes one or more words for each letter of the alphabet. Once the student completes the task, he/she hands over the marker/chalk to the person behind him/her. The idea is to complete the grid in the quickest manner possible while ascertaining that each student has had a turn. Once the task is complete, students and teacher go through the list, awarding marks for the correct answers with the correct spellings. The team with the highest score is the winner. It begins to slowly dawn on students who do not take homework seriously that at some point the teacher is going to very skillfully weave it into class work, and the team may attribute its failure to him/her, thereby compelling such students to take their responsibilities more seriously.

Once this task is completed, the teacher can use these very same words to help explain to students or have the students explain to the rest of the class, and then have an oral quiz. Such tasks do not take more than 10 minutes. If you are worried about the noise level going up slowly, allot an extra mark for the team that operates quietly. You will soon have a relatively less noisy class!

Having done these activities, students will be in a better frame of mind to do the self-study at home, and thereby the answer scripts will be easier to grade since the answers will be up to the mark, and mood of the students as well as the teacher will be more optimistic, cheerful and productive.

Tip of the month

The best recipe for classroom management is 15 minutes of teaching followed by a 10 minute activity related to the lesson, and then ending the class with examples, explanation and the relevant home study or homework.

The author is a teacher educator and language trainer based in Hyderabad. She can be reached at manaswinisridhar@gmail.com.