Hi,
So school. I'm in secondary school at the moment (year 8) and-after talking to my music teacher- just thought, isn't school the weirdest thing? OK, hear me out now. School is (effectively) a place where you are put in a class; not based on your capability or cleverness, but on the year you were born... Then, instead of moving classes based on how you are learning e.g a 10 year old working with 12 year olds because he/she is capable of it, you are put into sets that are with others of your age group depending on how clever you are compared to others in your year. Someone in that set, could be much cleverer than others but it doesn't matter because compared to everyone else, the less clever person is still clever. You see?!
Thinking of it like that, reader, makes it all seem pointless and odd doesn't it? I think it does anyway.
Now, the subject of... homework. Something I and others around me dread on a daily basis. The problem with homework for me is: it takes your free time and you can't do anything about it. I used to do 11 or 12 clubs a week, I loved always doing my favourite things; then I got to year 7. I quit many of my clubs because I just couldn't fit in the homework. The sad thing is, it takes up so much of my free time AND it's compulsory! There is no way you can get out of it- even if you go on holiday, when you return you're handed a stack of missed homeworks. Also, at the age of 11/12, suddenly, there are tsunamis of homework + pressure, hormones and it all = stress. The teachers put so much pressure on you to do it well, hand it in on time etc. I don't think they realise that all your other teachers give you work too, so it's hard to make it all work! Another thing, often, a teacher will set a research homework e.g an author; the homework is to research and make a poster on the author. Then they say, it should take you 1/2 an hour, because you have another 1/2 hour homework later this week. Fine... But really, if you DO spend 1/2 and hour on it, you will only be able to hand in a few scraps of info and some scribbled colour- in which case you'll probably be made to do it again. To get the standard they want, it takes more and more of your precious time. Right, so I've had a good old rant about this but a few days ago I was thinking and started wondering. A school can boast that students learn everything in one of their 'interesting, stimulating lessons with highly qualified teachers', but, if so, who needs homework? If a school is SO excellent then surely the students have already learnt what they need to know. If they need it consolidating or teachers need to check they ACTUALLY understand-which is what people say homework is for- then why not do it as a lesson in the curriculum? I mean, one lesson could be a test on everything they've learnt or even a private quiz asking if they need help. That way, kids would be encouraged to ask for help and if they needed it, they would say because it would be during school time not their own (this could also eliminate children making their parents do the work for them) but would the teachers want to spend their time doing that? Underneath it all, what I'm really trying to ask is, is homework a way for the teachers to shove off some of their work that they have to teach, onto the pupils they're teaching?
If you think about it, it works. Homework is just a way to get teachers out of having to teach other things; then again, most of the teachers I know genuinely want me to learn independently. So, to a teacher, homework could be a way to give more advanced children the opportunity to learn about a vast range of stuff and learn to do it independently.
It's up to you, is there a point to school and homework, or is there not?
