For the month of September, I have been focused on teacher well-being as we begin a new school year. It’s a topic very close to my heart, and if sharing my experiences and/or ideas on my tiny corner of the internet helps or motivates any teacher to take extra good care of themselves, then I feel that the fear of criticism when you put yourself out on the internet was well worth it. Now, we are nearing the end of September. The air is starting to shift — both in and out of the classroom. In that regard, let’s shift to a little homework talk. I promise it still has to do with teacher well-being.
I’m going to make a pretty bold statement… Teachers hate homework just as much as the kids do. I can’t think of any teacher I know that loves to sit and grade student homework. I know I never did. I can’t even begin to count how many times I asked myself why I had given my class homework. It just became an endless pile of papers that seemed to multiply faster than bunnies. Sometimes, I wondered if maybe the kids were adding extra papers from home to that pile. There had to be a reason why the pile kept growing! But, I always knew the real reason…I hated grading the homework just as much as my class hated doing the homework.
Just to set the record straight — this is NOT going to be an anti-homework rant. I actually believe homework is helpful and useful. I spent much of my life in various types of dance classes and dance teams. I understand the value of practice. I think kids understand the value of practice, too. Whether they’re practicing how to achieve a controlled pirouette, or how to dribble a soccer ball down a field, or how to defeat the boss at the end of a level of their favorite video game, kids have an understanding of the value of practice. So, finding a way for students to practice the skills they learned at school is important. But, the challenge comes in finding the right kind of practice for them.
When I first began my teaching practice, I gave my students packets of worksheets for homework. It’s what I knew. I was given packets of worksheets in elementary school, so why couldn’t I do that for my own students? I would give my students a weekly packet of worksheets from their language arts and math workbooks, a spelling list with a daily to-do list for those words, and a reading log. It was exactly the kind of homework I got as a kid. If it worked for me as a student, it should work for me as a teacher, right???
Evaluating 25 homework packets every week was an impossible task. Was it really necessary for me to review 25 alphabetical lists of of spelling words? Were the kids really reading for 30 minutes every night, or were they just writing anything on their reading log just so their homework looked complete? Slowly, the pile of paper packets was growing to look just like the trees from which they once came, right there of my teacher desk (that I had so lovingly decorated before the first day of school). How was I going to get rid of that overgrown forest of homework packets?!?!
A couple of years before I left the traditional classroom, I colleague introduced me to homework journals. I can still hear the angels singing! Finally, my desk wasn’t going to flowing over with papers! (Well, at least not papers from homework packets). The concept was simple — the students would be given a menu of choices for reading/language arts and math that is glued in to the front of a notebook, and the kids would choose and complete their homework right there in the notebook. The following morning, while the class was eating their breakfast and completing morning work, I would check off their homework journals. I was able to take attendance and record who was doing their homework, as well as get a general overview of how their daily practice was going. How’s that for multi-tasking!
I thought the homework journals were the perfect system…until I tried to do homework journals with a younger age group the following year. It was a complete disaster. The disaster was entirely of my own doing. I completely neglected the fact that I started homework journals with my previous class of third-graders mid-way through the school year. I tried to do the same thing with second-graders the following school year from the very beginning! Those sweet little ones has no clue what to do no matter how I tried to explain to them or their parents. They were used to packets. Their parents were used to packets. I eventually defaulted to packets. And, the forest of papers grew once again on my lovingly decorated teacher desk. I still think the homework journals could have worked had I waited to mid-year and practiced with them on how to complete their homework journals before actually diving into the journals. I realize I tried to get them to perform before I ever practiced the dance with them.
Although I’m not in a traditional classroom setting as I once was, and I’m no longer assigning homework like I once did, I know I would go back to homework journals should I find myself in a teaching assignment that calls for assigning homework to students. I would choose to go back to homework journals because I found them to be an effective way for students to practice skills learned in the classroom, and because they absolutely saved my teacher sanity. Homework journals may not be for everyone. If packets are working for you, keep going with them! If your school does project-based learning and your homework assignments are projects and that works in keeping your teacher sanity, keep going with that! Part of maintaining teacher well-being is finding what systems work for you. It’s easy to default to what others are doing, but if it is not working for you, then you need to find something that will.
I’m so happy to announce that I have a new product available in my TpT Store if you’re interested in getting started with Homework Journals! If you are interested, please go check out my store. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Homework-Journal-6055500 Or, if packets work for you, I also have some word study support materials that can work in homework packets as well. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Long-Vowel-Fun-5248417 https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Short-Vowel-Word-Family-Fun-5283969 https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/R-Influenced-Fun-5248515 I hope that you will find these materials to be helpful should you choose to purchase them. If you have any ideas for other products that you would like to have me create, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment to let me know what you need. I want to be here to support you in any way I can!
Until next time… Happy Teaching!!!
Pina Rose
PinaRose Education 