To Rethink...Or Not To Rethink...Not Even A Question.

            I had ideas about homework out of college. I knew that students did homework; I knew that teachers corrected homework; I knew that no one really enjoyed either side of it. I had assumptions that homework would be the easy part of the job. You, the teacher, assign it and they, the students, complete it. It did not take me long to realize that everything I had assumed, all my theories and ideas, were rather worthless. Homework is not easy. Homework is a time-consuming yet necessary mess.

            Cathy Vatterott made some excellent arguments in her book. I agree that it is essential to know what a student is going through outside of the classroom. There is no way I can expect a student working two part time jobs to pay rent to complete their homework or to complete it well. And if I ever meet one, I now know what to do to handle that situation.

            However, I do not agree with much of what Cathy said. While reading, I felt attacked as a teacher. Yes, I understand that if a student comes back unsure about the material, the homework may have been difficult. However, I do not agree that this action signifies that the teacher did not teach the material. If a student is going to not do their homework, why would the teacher want to keep repeating the same thing? To me, that makes no sense.

            I have come to the realization that homework is merely a piece of the teaching thing. Of course, there is no teacher I know that uses only homework to teach their content. Homework is a skill builder more than a responsibility teacher. Vatterott, in my opinion, focused only on the reasons we should abolish homework rather than pointing out the benefits of homework. Even for the student who has a limited amount of time, a small amount of homework can make that concept click. A little bit of homework may clench that concept for a student.

            I do not like homework to be a breaking point for students. Rather than grading everything based on accuracy, I grade it based on completion. I have a hard time believing that I should reteach a subject when clearly, it’s not that the student didn’t understand it, it’s that they didn’t do it. I want to know where the line is. It seems that, recently, society has been blaming teachers for the downhill slide of its students. Yes, sometimes a teacher needs to slow down. Yes, sometimes a teacher needs to reteach. But a lot of the time, we need to make sure our students are doing just as much work. I finished a paper with my students last week and, as homework, they needed to take their rough drafts, which I had looked at and commented on, and make the necessary changes. While grading, it is not hard to find those students who did not do that. Who’s responsibility does that become? I did my part of the job—the comments and feedback. It was the student who did not follow through. In Vatterott’s opinion, it would be me that failed them.

            I think, if anything, this book has taught me to be more open to students who are unable to complete their homework, but I believe now (more than ever) that we need homework. Of course, I do not believe in busy work or pointless assignments, but if I teach a lesson on symbolism and then give my students a worksheet identifying symbols, I find that relevant practice.