Teens and Homework

How much homework is too much? Many teenagers are expected to complete as much as three hours every evening, leaving little time for exercise, socializing and rest. Some people are blaming the teachers; others blame parents equally, for expecting teachers to set homework in the first place.

Homework is a complex issue, and asking teachers to limit the homework is too simple. As always, the problem runs deeper than that. Excess homework is a symptom of an education system that isn't working as well as it should be.

One thing that concerned me in the classroom was how much of a day at school is wasted. Although teenagers spend almost a full working day in school, much of that time is spent traipsing from classroom to classroom, lining up, chatting with friends, waiting for individual, and waiting for the teacher to attain silence before speaking. On top of this, school must accommodate mass vaccinations, assemblies, guest speakers, sports tournaments, blood donations, careers expos, balls, and a long, long list of other activities which, for better or worse, are part of school life. Sometimes when I was teaching I wondered if we had gone too far in allowing these extra-curricular events to interfere with learning. In schools, no two weeks are the same. No doubt teachers are their own worst enemies; while promoting these activities, they're the first to complain about them.

Another trend I have noticed in schools is the promotion of 'group work'. (There are other fancy names for this.) Of course students must learn to cooperate with each other, as in a work force, but in a typical office environment there is a balance between working with others and working independently. In the enthusiasm over student-centered learning environments, I think teachers may have lost sight of balance. Some teachers never achieve, or aim for, a quiet classroom. All students have their own learning styles, but I am definitely one of those learners who needs a non-stimulating environment to get my 'traditional' learning done. By traditional, I mean working through maths exercises, rote-learning of vocabulary (in foreign language), formulating a comprehensible argument (in essay writing) and mulling over a new idea before I'm expected to form my own opinion. It is this kind of learning that is now dished out as homework, in the hope that at home, if not in the classroom, a bit of silent thinking time is allowed.

The huge problem with this is that teenagers often do not have such a learning environment at home. This is more true of students from low-socio economic backgrounds, who may be sharing a bedroom with numerous other siblings, or looking after them while the parents work shifts. It is only the students from privileged backgrounds who have their own bedrooms in which to study, with a desk, good lighting, heating and so on. But fewer of these privileged have parents with the foresight to limit their use of the internet and mobile phones during necessary thinking time. If schools can't provide the quiet learning time that traditional learning requires, it's certainly not going to be made up at home in the vast majority of cases. I have noticed that the students who do best at school do most of their real learning in their own time.

I don't mean to chastise schools. Schools are a wonderful environment in which to play sports, learn social skills and practical subjects such as cooking. What schools do not achieve well these days is the provision of a learning environment suited to subjects such as mathematics and languages. Not surprisingly, students of foreign languages are dropping in numbers. And in the traditional subjects which cannot be dropped, such as maths and English, standards are slipping. In school hours, in most schools, more time is allocated to administration and behavior management than to real learning.

Teachers have a tough time now. It is harder than ever before to teach teenagers who are used to the highly stimulating and ever-changing world of computer games and television. On top of this, some schools allow mobile phone use during class, and some groups of students will not listen to a teacher who speaks for more than five minutes at a time. The attention span of these students has never been challenged. I doubt that future employers are looking for a workforce reliant on constant peer support and the attention span of a gnat. I also doubt they're looking for workers who refuse to listen to people who know better, simply because they don't feel stimulated unless they're engaged in three things at once, all half-heartedly.

If each high school teacher gives just twenty minutes of homework a night, this easily adds up to three hours. If students work can work efficiently in class, amidst much noise and social interaction, they can complete their learning in school with little need for homework. Unfortunately this is not the case for most students, and especially not the case for most boys. Before schools can make policies against setting homework, they must create learning environments more conducive to real learning and thinking.