The HomeTalk Downloadable Guide
Schools and teachers need to move away from the model of nightly homework to a modern understanding of the school-to-home connection in the form of a term that I’ll call Hometalk. The problem with homework is that it’s not educationally beneficial for students or parents. What most often goes home for students to do in the form of homework is 1) practice, 2) busy work, or 3) lengthy assignments that require adult assistance. Each of these three forms of homework poses significant problems. Allow me to briefly explain why for each.
Practice
I’m sure that teachers send home additional practice for students because they believe that it’s needed. But how do teachers know how much practice is needed and who needs what? Traditionally, each student is given the same amount of practice regardless of need. This universal approach to the assignment of practice misses badly on the individualized needs-based approach that is needed for practice to be effective. Why would a student who has mastered a concept and one who is a novice need the same type and amount of practice? They don’t and it shouldn’t be assigned. Additionally, practice is best performed at school with those who are experts in determining if the practice is being done correctly or not. Incorrect practice is a waste of time and can be damaging. So in the name of keeping students safe and learning to practice the right things in the right ways, it’s best to avoid this outdated and potentially damaging approach.
If you’re still not convinced that practice is not a good idea to send home with students, consider who returns the practice and on what level when it comes back to school. You’ll find the students who do the best practice at home were the furthest ahead when they left the day before. This renders the practice ineffective for those who need it most.
Busy Work
Busy work assignments are those that take no thought. You can group word finds, selected response worksheets, and crossword puzzles into this category. Teachers assign busy work because they think learning is work and that students need to learn the routine of work. Some parents and students enjoy busy work because it makes them feel as though they are learning responsible habits for future schooling or the world of work. But the truth is that busy work isn’t needed to teach good work habits. We should never use learning to teach other types of lessons for fear that it will bring about the all-too-common negative associations with school and learning. If we want to instill good work habits in our children we should find good work-type things for them to do like chores, building projects, and summer jobs. Leave the learning at school and the training for work to families.
The Big Assignments
Schools and teachers often lean on home time for the completion of major assignments that they feel they just can’t get enough time for during the school day. You can think of research papers, group projects, and presentations for this category. If there’s not enough time in the school day to devote to an important assignment then it’s not important. These major assignments most often rely on the assistance of knowledgeable adults. The question to consider here is, what if the student doesn’t have that adult at home? These major assignments become a litmus test of home support rather than student performance and should be avoided by all teachers who want an equitable classroom experience for their students.
The simple rule is: If there’s not enough time in the school day for this it’s not important enough to assign.
So here’s a quick explanation of the three basic forms of traditional homework and why I believe they should all be avoided. If any of this makes you feel uncomfortable that’s just fine. Your discomfort may be stemming from the fact that you know that the classroom must be connected to home and you’re right. What follows is my vision of what homework should become as we transition from a traditional model of school as work to one where learning is honored, cherished, and meaningful and we begin to engage in nightly hometalk.
Hometalk
Picture a kitchen table where a fourth grader is working on math problems that came home as homework. The student is frustrated for multiple reasons including the fact that they don’t know how to do a problem and they already did an hour of math problems at school that day. A mother is in the kitchen getting dinner ready and trying her best to tend to the needs of her frustrated son. This scene can easily become a struggle where the child learns to hate math and the parent is equally frustrated.
I’m proposing a different way for schools to engage with home than to send frustrating practice home. A teacher should send home a daily hometalk guide. The hometalk guide is correspondence between the teacher and the family. It lets the family know what was done at school that day and what will be done in the future. This guide should also include some discussion starters for parents to use to meaningfully talk to their children about the days’ learning and some enrichment activities related to the learning if the family and child want to extend their learning together. The hometalk guide should include:
Recap of the learning from the day
Important topics covered
Important topics to come
Past topics that are essential to reinforce
Discussion starters related to past, present, and future topics
Enrichment activities
You can access my hometalk guide here to download for free and start using it with your students whenever you’re ready. This hometalk guide can be used daily or weekly. I wouldn’t recommend pushing it out past a week because you want the topics to be relevant and ever-evolving with the progress of your class.
Imagine how that dinner scene might change if the mother is able to read through the hometalk guide of the day and engage in some meaningful talk with her son. Instead of frustratingly slogging through practice that nobody at home understands there’s an opportunity for meaningful engagement that can enhance and enrich. I encourage you to give this approach a try and see if it has more of an impact for all of your students than homework. Here’s to hometalk and the ability of all teachers to teach students to love what they learn and how they do it!
School is Out! 