A Quarantine Driven Reflection About homework

If this quarantine experience isn’t the ultimate argument against homework then I don’t know what is.

Teachers are working insanely hard to craft a meaningful home learning experience right now during this quarantine.  They are using all kinds of new technologies to make independent learning time for students a success. Google slides, Padlet, NearPod, Kahoot, Youtube, Screencasting and so many more apps and softwares are being used to try and replicate the structure of the classroom - minilesson, go off and try it out, come back together.  It is an impossible task that somehow the teachers are managing to create!  These, in addition to live Zoom meetings in whole groups, small groups and 1:1 - the effort is incredible!

However, at the end of the day, there is still a major factor determining the level to which our children can access the material, grapple with it, focus on learning and feel a sense of progression and success - support at home.  As with homework, each of our own abilities to help our children with their school work varies greatly.  In these times, parents are balancing working full time and fulfilling all of our job responsibilities to their fullest (sometimes in fear of losing jobs), managing multiple children doing schoolwork, feeding the family, cleaning the endless mess and doing regular household chores like food shopping, landscaping, laundry and on and on.  Maybe sometimes, sitting with a cup of coffee or even feeling the freedom to play.

During the school year, parents are still managing all of these things everyday after school!  Each child goes home to unique circumstances and unique levels of support - emotionally, physically, intellectually.  Everyone’s hierarchy of needs are met on the widest possible scale imaginable.  Everyone has worked ALL DAY LONG - children included!  Children have spent 6 full hours learning reading, writing, word study, math, science, social studies, music, media literacy, art and physical education.  They have had ups and downs in social relationships, felt success or failure in learning concepts, loved or hated their lunches, couldn’t focus, felt tired, felt antsy... 

Why are we turning over our precious family time to homework?  Why isn’t our time together with our children coveted more?  Why can’t this time be seen as our own opportunity to instill a sense of curiosity, lifelong learning, being a responsible member of the household community, developing our own passions, serving the community with a family project?

Spending this time at home now, even while working full time, makes me reflect on what is essential.  We have so little time during our "non-quarantine lives" to have our own impact on our kids in ways that are unique to their needs and interests.  We are the ultimate models of being learners.  Why are we giving the little time we have with our kids during “normal times” over to homework that so few of them enjoy, or worse, get much benefit from?