Why teachers send homework but don't grade it all.
By: Thunder
January 20th, 2007
8:57 pm
My child brought up a valuable point about teachers. She always has lots of homework but the teachers don't grade it when it comes back. I am worndering how they would feel if they went to work and did not get those hour paid out on their pay check what would they do?
Do you think it is fair for our children to not get graded on all homework turned in?
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37 comments on "Why teachers send homework but don't grade it all."
January 21, 2007 at 9:49 am
I have not run across that problem yet. So far my son's homework or the work he does has all been graded. I would want to see it graded just so I know what he might need more practice on. I would actually ask him/her why it is not graded?
January 21, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Yes, that needs to be followed up on. Although it may not received a grade per se it should be corrected and commented on. Psychological experiments showed that practise alone does not produce very much learning, unless there is feedback about what is correct and what it not. I have always found that the teacher at least looked at it and offered comments on good and bad points.
January 21, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Yes, that needs to be followed up on. Although it may not received a grade per se it should be corrected and commented on. Psychological experiments showed that practise alone does not produce very much learning, unless there is feedback about what is correct and what it not. I have always found that the teacher at least looked at it and offered comments on good and bad points.
January 26, 2007 at 5:48 am
Homework is such a tough issue. As both a teacher and a parent I am inclined to say that homework should only be to practice a learned skill, hopefully just for the kids who need to practice it. However the reality of our school systems sometimes is that teachers give homework to cover material they haven't been able to get to in class. That's hard to grade b/c if the students don't understand a non-taught topic then it's unfair to grade it.
January 27, 2007 at 7:16 am
We are lucky ~ at the beginning of the year both of my sons teachers sent home a sheet outlining homework expectations and what we as parents should expect throughout the school year as far as his homework and the percentage of that would effect his grade. We are well into our 4th six weeks and they have been consistent in their expectations. JMO - If I were you ~ I would talk to your childs teacher and ask her expectations of homework and guidelines of grading it. Good Luck!
September 4, 2007 at 5:39 am
Uh, I'm still a few years away from this problem... but I'm planning on instructing my kid's teachers that my kids will be ignoring busy-work.
In your situation I would give my kid a signed note that reads "My child is excused from this homework because it would be a complete waste of her time. We'd rather she be out in the sunshine with her friends. Please only set homework in the future if it has educational value."
September 4, 2007 at 8:08 am
lol @ previous poster.
You'd send a note that your child doesn't have to do the homework? Nice.
Why?
I agree that teachers SHOULD be checking homework and grading it...but it's also up to the parents to help out when they can. What's wrong with checking it yourself as a parent? I already give my son homework in pre-school just so he gets used to doing it.
He's fine doing it, even though it's not very fun. It's made him the smartest kid in his class, and I plan on continuing that trend so he is always a step ahead of all the other kids whose parents don't teach them things.
It's weird to see such perspectives, but to each his own.
September 4, 2007 at 9:20 am
Uh, I'm still a few years away from this problem... but I'm planning on instructing my kid's teachers that my kids will be ignoring busy-work.
In your situation I would give my kid a signed note that reads "My child is excused from this homework because it would be a complete waste of her time. We'd rather she be out in the sunshine with her friends. Please only set homework in the future if it has educational value."
September 4, 2007 at 9:22 am
No kidding Fallon!
Since when do teachers just make up homework just to waste everyone’s time? Is that part of the approved curriculum…homework that serves no purpose and doesn’t promote learning?
September 4, 2007 at 9:47 am
my daugter started Kindergarten today and was in preschool for 2 yrs before that, she's 4 yrs old and we did homework, 2 pages of writting reading or math everyday this summer. If I didn't tell her to come to the table to be what we called "pencile papers" she would ask. I believe this has given her a strong upper hand and will continue to work with her beyound her "normal" school hours
September 4, 2007 at 12:10 pm
If a parent has a problem with a teacher, they need to take it up with the teacher or school administrators, not put their son or daughter in the middle. A note excusing a child from homework is a very bad idea, and I would guess something a school would never allow to occur on student by student basis without carefully considering the justifications for each student.
September 4, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Uh, I'm still a few years away from this problem... but I'm planning on instructing my kid's teachers that my kids will be ignoring busy-work.
In your situation I would give my kid a signed note that reads "My child is excused from this homework because it would be a complete waste of her time. We'd rather she be out in the sunshine with her friends. Please only set homework in the future if it has educational value."
Define "busy work"?
So far as parent of 11 year old, I have never come across it. We also have been very involved in asking that our daughter have certain a teacher each year. We gotten to know all the teachers at our daughters school because turn over is very low, most have been there at least 5+ years.
September 4, 2007 at 4:34 pm
If a parent has a problem with a teacher, they need to take it up with the teacher or school administrators, not put their son or daughter in the middle. A note excusing a child from homework is a very bad idea, and I would guess something a school would never allow to occur on student by student basis without carefully considering the justifications for each student.
I wouldn't ACTUALLY do it.
I'm just aware that homework is mostly designed to be stuff done to keep overanal parents happy - it's work that's designed to keep kids busy and stressed in order for their parents to somehow believe that this helps them learn more fully.
I don't believe that it's necessary. But, then, maybe I'm different. I learnt things the first time, and I'm aware that not all minds work like mine.
Kids should be so busy playing, running, playing sports, playing music, reading for fun, being with their parents etc etc etc that I can't reasonably see a time in their life when it's approriate for them to sit down and trudge through some dumbarse rote-learning worksheet that the teacher set purely because of school policy - not because they had an inspiration that this education needed to happen in the privacy of a child's own home instead of during the school day.
September 4, 2007 at 4:40 pm
my daugter started Kindergarten today and was in preschool for 2 yrs before that, she's 4 yrs old and we did homework, 2 pages of writting reading or math everyday this summer. If I didn't tell her to come to the table to be what we called "pencile papers" she would ask. I believe this has given her a strong upper hand and will continue to work with her beyound her "normal" school hours
mm hmm.
I think that playing at letters and numbers is a much more sensible idea than doing home work.
September 4, 2007 at 5:09 pm
+1
mm hmm.
I think that playing at letters and numbers is a much more sensible idea than doing home work.
September 4, 2007 at 5:24 pm
I'm just aware that homework is mostly designed to be stuff done to keep overanal parents happy - it's work that's designed to keep kids busy and stressed in order for their parents to somehow believe that this helps them learn more fully.
Part of the purpose of having a child do a small amount of home work is foster the development of independent study skills. As a 5th grader our daughter had, at most, 1 hour of home work, and on average she was done in 30 minutes. It wasn't every day either. For any books the students read on their own, they got extra points (1 point per page) and the teacher would spend a few minutes discussing the book with them, or they could write a 1-2 page report about the book. Kids were allowed to propose their own extra credit projects, which in itself was a process of learning how to define what they were going to do, how they were going to do it, and the expected results. Our daughter loved it most of the time, but sure she griped occationally about having to spend 30-60 minutes doing a few math problems when she would rather be outside with her friends, but it never was busy work.
November 11, 2007 at 3:25 am
in the school where i teach, we don't give a numerical grade for homework but we give a letter grade for it. homework is a way of the school to develop a sense of responsibility to our children, to help them establish a good work and study habits at home and it also serves as a communication of the school to parents as to what topic or lesson has been discussed to help the parents further strengthen what they have learned on that day. and in our school, before we give homeworks, we should first make sure that the lesson to be brought home was thoroughly discussed and the child can actually accomplish it all by him/herself. if not, it is the responsibility of the teacher to give remediation to help the child cope with it.
January 26, 2008 at 6:59 am
What one parent may consider "busy work" for their child might be a challenge for another. My 2nd grade daughter comes home w/ a math page every night. It takes her about 5 min tops to complete it b/c she has such strong skills. She actually gets annoyed that she has to do these "baby sheets". However, I spoke w/ my neighbor down the street whose son is in the same class and she actually complained that it is too much for the kids at this age.
Meanwhile, my 6 year old comes home w/ stuff that is as simple as matching/writing letters and pictures and then coloring them. Do I see a value in coloring as a homework assignment? Not necessarily, however, she is learning to read and follow the directions, and complete an assignment in a timely manner.
Also, teachers aren't spending time finding an assignment, photocopying it, and collecting it if they didn't think it was of some sort of educational value. And like some of the other replies mentioned, the lesson might be to establish a good work ethic and/or approach to learning on one's own.
January 29, 2008 at 9:47 pm
My daughter is a student at a school that has an unbelievable amount of homework. She is a HS sophomore and averages six hrs of work a night. Some of that is due to the fact that she is competitive and is taking two AP's.
As I understand it, there is a trend away from grading homework. The idea is that HW should be practice, and that you should not be graded on it. I personally agree with this trend.
Think about it this way: if you don't do your HW, you won't do well on the next test. So it evens out even if you don't grade HW.
January 29, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Think about it this way: if you don't do your HW, you won't do well on the next test.