by Jennifer Searle

Created on: May 20, 2007   Last Updated: January 17, 2012

The act of having compulsory homework is damaging to students' desire to learn. Students in today's schools are forced to do meaningless homework; thus they acquire a negative attitude toward homework and education in general. We joke about the old "The dog ate my homework" excuse, but in truth children do not want to do the homework they are assigned to do, because they view it as busy work, not meaningful. And they think it is just something they are going to get punished for if they don't do everything right.

If we want homework to be useful to our students, we need to revise the whole educational system. The best system I have seen came from Dr. William Glasser in his book, "The Quality School: Managing Students Without Coercion". In it he describes how compulsory homework pits teachers against students and students against learning. In the system he describes, homework would be meaningful and useful to the students' comprehension of the subjects. He goes as far as to eliminate grades that fall below 'B', contending that using the grading system as punishment does not teach children anything. Students should continue to work on the assignments until they can produce something that is competent 'B' work or achieve a high understanding of the subject and receive up to an 'A+'.

All tests would be open-book, but would require competent answers and the ability to show how the work is completed. Homework would consist of work not finished during the school day or assignments they would like to redo to receive a higher grade on, tests that were not finished during the day, or extra assignments of the student's choice. Homework does not have deadlines and can be turned in as the child completes it. The environment of learning is increased when the use of external control psychology is eliminated. Teachers no longer use blaming, criticizing, threatening, demeaning, or punishment as tools to MAKE the children do what they want them to do. Teachers assist the children in learning the subjects until the children can reach a competent level. Until that level is reached, the child does not move on to other things.

Homework as it stands now is nothing more than busy work or assignments the teachers can't get to during classroom time. Homework does not apply to any real world skills, and most students learn to hate school as a result of the compulsory homework and teachers' use of external control psychology. If we want to make a change in our school systems we should all seriously consider bringing "The Quality School" theory to the attention of our school districts and politicians.

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