Why Traditional Homework Fails and What Works Instead
This is a publication based on the suggested topic proposed in the Hive Learners community through their discord, which on this occasion is "NO MORE HOMEWORK".
"The goal of education is not to increase the amount of knowledge but to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover."
<< Maria Montessori >>
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Welcome my habitual and new readers to my blog.
Today the topic to discuss is about if children should have more homework or not for their homes and this is a very interesting point because I am going to talk to you from my experience.
First of all, I want to tell you that I am not a university graduate, I do not have any university degree, I am not a teacher, I never studied teaching or any other profession at the university level.
My knowledge of one of my areas in which I am specialized is computing.
Computing has always been my passion for many years, and I have been concerned with being self-taught and learning different things on my own, but I think this is part of the publication of today because I was always focused in my life on learning what I like.
I did not need to be sent tasks for me to learn to develop my computer skills, but I simply dedicated myself to my own initiative to find out, investigate and in my free time read computer magazines that I remember buying weekly, the magazine Wired and other magazines in Spanish that had many articles on the subject and I began to read about it on my own.
Although it is clear that in many opportunities I asked my parents to pay me for courses for me to learn on my own initiative as well and yes, I did several computer and technical courses, but never at a professional level, let's say the only semi-professional course I did was that of a programmer analyst that lasted about a year and it was not in a university institution, but one of these academies recognized for being of good quality and there I taught my knowledge as a programmer analyst, but I always went on my own learning.
I think that my experiences at the level of the studies were quite unpleasant because it always bothered me to have large amounts of homework to do during the day.
I was bored here at home and I was very stressed because I did not feel like doing anything since these tasks sometimes took me up to six hours to finish them, then I arrived at my house at 4 or 5 in the afternoon and I had to spend up to 10 or 11 at night doing homework and writing essays that really seemed meaningless to me.
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Because I did not understand the matter, many times in earth sciences and biology I did not understand anything, I did not understand anything about cell division or any of that and I was bored for infinite hours trying to find the way around and I could not do the jobs.
And this made me repudiate and that I felt very disgusted with the school, I did not like it at all, I began to hate it and I think that is why today I am more self-taught than focused or with a tendency to study at university at this point in my life if I would really like to have the opportunity to enter a university and study a technical degree.
But I already have a different vision of life.
What I want to tell you is that I had the experience of being a teacher for a school year and in that school year I had to teach children from the age of three to teenagers of 17 years old, each one with different requirement.
I even remember very well that one of my students was a neurodivergent with different cognitive abilities than the average student and I was not prepared with the tools to be able to deal with a young man of these characteristics.
And yet I thought for a long time how to deal with it and I came up with the great idea of raising a game and thanks to this game it is that it simply posed a role-playing game where they and he were going to be the hero the protagonist. and he was going to face monsters and different challenges and puzzles that were going to make him advance in a fictitious story that I invented.
Many times it was to rescue a dragon, other times it was to save the princess, other times it was to help the inhabitants of a town to find the person who was stealing the animals or stealing in their houses, and this was very much liked by the children both the three-year-old little ones and the teenagers.
In this way, then I told them well if they want to find out a clue to see who is the thief of this town, because they have to solve this riddle, and the riddle according to each level of study from elementary school to the children who are the young people, who are in high school.
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The question was different to the adults, I asked them more technical things about computing such as what error there is in this programming line and they already saw a programming line of a program that was in charge of making the drawing of a circle, and they had to go to their house without me asking them, or sometimes it is even in the same class they solved the riddle.
And the little children because they put simpler things. what does it mean where is the power button on a computer?, and then they were worried about asking their parents at home to learn and they asked me if everything was more fun. because they were advancing in this role-playing game.
And I have told other classmates here in the community that because without being a teacher they gave me the award to teacher of the year, and also the award to honorary father of the year.
So I think what is needed at the level of education is to change the teaching method, so that instead of the students having a lot of obligations and tasks in their homes they worry and are more interested in learning and studying and not just having to memorize what appears in a book.
Because the fact of repeating what appears in a book does not show intelligence does not show education, education is to know that the knowledge you are obtaining you will be able to use it in your life, to dedicate yourself to what you like the most or to help to have a better world.
And well, in this way I present the topic of today that seems really very interesting to me and I hope that this contribution teaches you that it is not necessary to send tasks to the children, or force them to do tasks because I think that is a problem too, but to educate them through an interesting educational method.
So that they feel motivated and by their own initiative they dedicate themselves to doing tasks and practicing their skills of what they learned in class, in their homes. I think it is much more intelligent and I think it is much more beneficial for them.
Thanks for reading me and until the next publication.
This is my black cat "manclar", this account is to honor his dead (it happened years ago).
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Post translated from spanish to english using Deepseek AI
Regarding class attendance, although adults insist on how good school classes are for children, the truth is that no adult who is asked to sit for hours without talking, unable to move and watching a series of adults called teachers parade in front of him without stopping to talk would say yes, he wants to go to class.
School classes are saved by some teachers like you, @manclar. Because the real function of education is to tame the student. To turn him into someone obedient and servile. The learning that remains for life is the following: that there are people who know and others who do not know, and that you have to blindly obey the one who “knows”. And the one who “knows” is always a hierarchically superior person.
School teaches us that we must be servile to our superiors and compete with our equals, as Illich would say.
In short, school only serves to create slaves.
And I say all this just to say that, please, leave the children alone after school, they already have enough to go to class.
A big hug.
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And I'm going to be brief, answering you with a phrase that summarizes everything, and I know what you know very well:
"Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone!"
Of course, as a teacher, there is a very specific view and I respect even those who are attached to old practices. But for me, it is very clear that the issue of homework is something from the old school and completely inadequate for today's times. Nowadays, anyone who has access to a computer or cell phone with internet can easily send homework to be solved by artificial intelligence. It has lost all meaning!
!BBH
I agree with you, and I must also say that there are better teaching methods than giving tasks to students. They need to investigate, learn by their own hands and to the particular rhythm of each one, so the study programs must be open and leave the old back school.
Esta anécdota que cuentas aquí, demuestra que no se necesita de un título para dejar algo en los demás y que tienes una habilidad innata para enseñar 🙌. Está muy buena esa idea de los juegos, la creatividad siempre fomenta la imaginación y le da dinamismo a las clases que, por lo general, suelen ser aburridas si el profesor hace las cosas de manera monótona. Saludos, @manclar 🤗.
Bueno, yo siempre busco hacer las cosas a mi manera con las herramientas que tengo, asi que eso hice. No creo en los titulos universitarios, sino en la inteligencia. Muchos ingenieros y profesores me preguntan como hacer cosas y yo ni siquiera soy bachiller, me considero un bohemio de la vida.
un beso, @vezo 😀