If you stop and think for a moment, nearly every conscionable action that you make is a choice, from little things such as what to eat or what cloths to wear. Some may even say this choice system is so imbedded in our minds that we even make these choices even at a subconscious level with altering our dreams and following our instincts. Choices are all around us and affect nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Choices can be more difficult when emotions get involved though; choosing to be content instead of mad, choosing to be hopeful instead of despair. I often tell my students, “You want to have a good day, than have a good day. You want to have a bad day, than have a bad day. Either way, it is your day and how do you want it?”
I like to think of choices as a little personal competitive game of Clue, where I am playing against my past, present and future.
Choices can be very powerful, trivial, and even cruel, but regardless we as humans strive for choices. We as humans are hungry for the pursuit of choices, and when we make the wrong choice it eats us up inside, which is normal because it is our natural ability of creating self-reflection upon a lesson learned. I like to think of choices as a little personal competitive game of Clue, where I am playing against my past, present and future. Whereas I am sifting through scenarios and possible outcomes of the choices I can control seeking the choice that will better me, my family, and/or my students.
Imagine for a moment you are a 7th grader that is in the middle of a whirlwind of changes (anatomically, chemically, and emotionally). You are taking seven classes, and five of them are your core classes were homework is a requirement for each class, and each class homework totals an average time of about 30-45 minutes each; roughly3-3 ½ hours of homework per night. But there is more. Say now you are a student-athlete, now add this time to it, roughly 1 ½ hours of practice, and roughly 2 hours of games. That equates to multiple days of adding up to about 5 hours of school activities outside of school. These are the givens in the data, but there are so many more instances that are not measurable; family dynamics, social dynamics, socio-economic dynamics.
There are numerous students out there that have to choose to spend time with their parents or do their homework; choose time with their friends or do homework; choose time with their chores or do homework; choose time with their separated parents or do homework; choose time between school or not school. I would not be surprised if a vast amount of students would choose the later simply because they literally just spent the day doing school, why would they choose more school? For the ones that do, what are they really gaining? There is no correlation that they will live a better life if they choose work over family; if they choose work over friends; if they choose orders over personal mindfulness. What society will we have if we set the precedent that children need to be more focused on school than anything else? A short answer is a society of children that will hate school, children that will not know how to choose happiness in social dynamics, or even children that will be more catered to please the higher-ups than to please themselves.
The one thing we can change is homework.
What if we had a choice to alter this self-inflecting reality that we have continually built on for over a century? Of course as educators we do not have the power (nor should we) or ability (nor should we) to alter many of these variables that affect our students, but there is one thing we can change. There is one thing we can change that can create a domino effect on many of the other variables from family time, social time, and even mindfulness. The one thing we can change is homework.
Some little things that can, and should change for homework should include:
- Communication and planning between teachers of what homework is assigned so that students are not bombarded with homework every night.
- Homework should not be work that the students don’t understand in class.
- Students should not be punished for not doing their homework, instead, rewarded to the students that do it.
Some major things that can, and should change for homework should include:
- Homework should be project-based and be skillfully worked on as an on-going project that is developed and re-developed to increase students meta-cognitive capability.
- Homework should be offered with choice selections whereas the students choose what homework to do, what format, what interest/skill level, how to present it, and when to do check-ins on the given homework.
- Homework should provide the opportunity for failure, reflection, and research opportunities.
- Homework should welcome opportunities where community and/or family involvement, collaboration among peers, and opportunities for students to feel free to create a learning environment outside of the school.
- Homework should have clear expectations set from the students in partnership with the teacher.
Homework can and does help students, but not when it is the garbage we are forced to send out in the form of dittos, book work, and packets. Homework needs to be original, authentic and unique for the students. Homework needs to be the opportunity for students to apply their knowledge in a real-world setting, as they will need to be active participants in this world when they grow up. We should take this opportunity to have our students develop their self-efficacy, develop their cognitive and meta-cognitive capabilities, and create their own expectations.
We all have a choice in what we do and it may be difficult for many of us to choose something that is different. It is scary to choose something that is unfamiliar, but I ask you this, are we doing what we are doing because we are told to, or are we doing what we are doing because we think it is the right thing to do?
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