-
[MUSIC]
-
Right now I think homework
is in the news and
-
probably there are two reasons for that.
-
The school in Jonquière, Quebec,
that has decided to ban homework,
-
or mostly ban homework for
a year, raises up the issue.
-
But also, we're all coming back to school.
-
So often when we hear to word homework,
we hear and
-
see reactions that may be based in
some misconceptions about homework.
-
I feel it's misguided to see homework
as all negative or all positive.
-
We know that many people feel
that homework is a great way for
-
children to finish up what they didn't
get done in class during the day, or that
-
a lot of drill and practice consolidates
the learning for young children.
-
On the other side, we have people who say
there is no value at all in homework.
-
It just takes family time,
it interferes, it doesn't build.
-
And I think somewhere in the middle
is not a compromised position,
-
it's a different position.
-
The purpose that we have in mind in
our school when we assign homework and
-
design homework is twofold,
based on research.
-
When we're doing a unit of inquiry about
something, for the child to take their
-
curiosity and go home and with their
family ask more questions, go more deeply,
-
bring facts back, bringing artifacts
of what they've been thinking about,
-
these are vital pieces of connection.
-
The other research that we deeply believe
in is the one about time-management.
-
With the parent,
we encourage the child to sit down and
-
fill in across the days of that week
when are they going to do homework.
-
How much time do they have?
-
Come back to the school and
talk to us about your time.
-
We can help the family to do that vital
-
teaching of time management that
the child's going to need soon as they
-
become more independent in
a child development sense.
-
Homework has a place and
it has a purpose, but
-
homework is just one part of
becoming an educated human being.
