by Felicia Arnold

Created on: January 23, 2009   Last Updated: February 13, 2009

Homework is important because it is an essential educational tool! Starting with the primary grades, we teach our students a sense of responsibility and independence from their very early years in school. Somehow as the years progress "homework" becomes a bad word and it shouldn't be.

When a student begins primary school they have to learn so many survival skills. It is up to them to collect the papers from their teachers and bring them home for their parents to read and respond to. These students must now return these papers to their teachers the following day. This is not always easy for many children and this might take years of continued attention for them to learn to be responsible with this task.

As they proceed to enter the third and fourth grades these children must now add several heavy textbooks, workbooks, and assorted study guides to their backpacks. There are some students who enjoy organizing their work space, and their backpacks and have a great sense of order. For those students who cannot do this continued attention is needed to guide them to a greater level of independence and responsibility. There were times when I have had to help a student pack their backpack. To ensure that the homework assignment made it to the house, I have had to sign the assignment pad and then the parents signed it as well when the homework was completed.

Reinforcement of these homework survival skills should come from home. Unfortunately, not all homes provide an environment that encourages good work habits and therefore, the teacher becomes the major mentor in helping these children. Whenever one of my students could not complete the assignments at home, I would provide a few minutes in the day for some homework to be completed in class.

Children need to have a strong foundation in behaving responsibly to help them as they continue their education. Their success at healthy independent decision making skills begins with this strong foundation. They have to budget their time wisely and not take on too many after school activities which would prevent them from completing their schoolwork.

A child's first experience with homework assignments has to do with the transporting of papers from school to home and back. It then involves completing assignments independently and then successfully preparing for exams. As the volume of assignments increases the students need to be more and more capable of completing their work on their own. Without this necessary foundation our students do not succeed as they go on to high school and college. It is our job to prepare them to be responsible students and citizens as well.

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