I think my kid may have the coolest teach alive this year.  Halee is a fourth grader here in Edmond and I absolutely love herteacherteacher’s ideas about homework.  She says home time is for family.  She wants to guard her time with her family and so then she should guard the family time of her students.  Also, when she does give something to be given at home, it has a minimum of a 48 hour deadline.  No more late nights because of surprise large homework tasks when we had family plans.  How cool is that?

She’s totally into learning through activities and games, not just busy work.  That’s great!  Rather than treating school like a punishment, the kids love to come in and learn new stuff.  She makes it very clear that she’s in charge while still grabbing their undivided attention and showing them how fun it is to learn new stuff.

Back to homework for a minute.  I’ve always wondered what the big deal was with homework anyway.  Is it a power thing?  Is it just what teachers do, so they continue to do so?  Or, is there a real fundamental fact that backs up loading a kid with 2 or 3 hours of work every evening?  I can see some things being sent home.  Such as book reports and long term projects, but, why does a kid need to do 50 math problems at home?  The kid either has it by the time they do the first 5 or 10 in class, or they don’t and will do all of them wrong at home with no teacher there to ask.