The Dreaded Debate:  To Assign Homework or Not to Assign Homework.

If you’re like me, then you are familiar with spending hours doing homework after school while you grew up.  It was considered normal.  But I don’t think there is anything normal about it.  Many people say homework teaches responsibility and it reinforces class content.  While that may be true to an extent,I don’t think teachers need to assign homework to guarantee the success of the student.

Why cut out homework?

Homework is frustrating.  It’s not only frustrating for the student, it can also be frustrating for the parent.  I can’t count how many times I became a slave to a homeschool curriculum.  My mind was set- the homework would get done no matter the cost.  Even if it took my child an hour to do one assignment, I would make my daughter sit at the table until the work was finished. At the time, I believed I was being a good parent. But now, as I remember those battles, I cringe. I remember her tears of frustration. I cried lots of tears myself.  All of this taught me that learning should not be a drudgery; if it is, then why would my child want to learn at all?  Why give homework if it discourages them from learning?

Homework also limits playtime for the child.  Children learn from the world around them.  While they climb trees, have picnics, dig in the mud, or search for roly polys, they are learning.  They are soaking in an education with their imagination.  Grown-ups are so stuck up when it comes to imagination.  Don’t you remember how you learned when you played?  You thought about the bark on the tree, right-it’s color and texture?  And while you had that picnic, you watched the clouds and noticed all the different kinds that God painted in the sky.  When you played in the mud you noticed that some of the bugs drowned while others didn’t.  The roly polys!  How incredible they are to protect themselves by rolling into tiny balls. Why can’t we grown ups see that children learn while they play?

But what should the teacher do if she doesn’t assign homework?

Replace homework with narration.  Narration is the child saying out loud what he knows.  It’s a re-telling (it can also be written) of the reading from a living book. But it doesn’t have to be from a book.  Narration can be applied to everything a student learns. For example, your student can teach you step by step how to solve a math problem.  After reading a book, your student can tell the story from beginning to end.  After learning the anatomy of a cell, they can draw a picture and describe to you how the cell works. Not only does narration give them an opportunity to share what they have learned, it also gives them a chance to share what they think about it.  (Shocked!?) Why not let them share what they love or dislike about what they have learned!? Set them on fire with a hunger to learn by giving them the freedom to express their opinions (respectfully;-))!  And as they learn, point them to the wonder of their Savior. Narration gives them the chance to tell about what they have learned and what they loved about it.

The benefits of narration are numerous. Narration teaches responsibility.  The student listens with urgency so they are able to tell back the lesson to the teacher. Narration also encourages the student to communicate his thoughts in an effective manner.  As the student recalls the lesson back to the teacher, the content becomes cemented in his mind.

A few thoughts before you go…

The child’s heart is the most important priority.  We can teach our children facts and give them knowledge, but teaching them how to follow after the heart of Christ is the ultimate goal.  A child following after God’s heart will grow in his desire to please Christ in the mundane tasks-even if those tasks happen to be homework.  So whether you agree or disagree with a no homework policy, don’t forget that our eyes ought always to be set on Jesus Christ. How does he want us to teach our children?  Are we chasing after the heart of Christ?  If we, as parents and educators, are not chasing his heart, why would our children want to?

Geography in Elementary Years

This is a our first year including Geography in our homeschool.  I had never enjoyed geography in school and thought of it as “extra”. In fact, I didn’t learn geography until the 9th grade. My teacher was Mr. Arnold. I vaguely remember reading the news for class. Overall, Geography was boring.  But when  I read what Charlotte Mason thought about Geography, I tried to keep an open mind.  She wrote, “But the mother, who knows better, will find a hundred opportunities to teach geography by the way…”

Charlotte Mason loved geography. “To teach by the way” means that the mom teaches her children in everyday conversation. Walks around the neighborhood become opportunities to teach how to tell the time of day by noticing where the sun is in the sky. Drives through the town become teaching tools to learn which way is north and which direction you take to get home.

Geography Should be Exciting

Geography should captivate the child’s interest. Charlotte Mason wrote, “But let him be at home in any single region; let him see, with the mind’s eye, the people at their work and at their play, the flowers and fruits in their seasons, the beasts, each in its habitat; and let him see all sympathetically, that is let him follow the adventures of a traveler; and he knows more, is better furnished with ideas, than if he had learnt all the names on all the maps.  The ‘way’ of this kind of teaching is very simple and obvious; read to him, or read for him, that is read bit by bit, and tell as you read,…Here, as elsewhere, the question is, not how many things does he know, but how much does he know about each thing(Home Education, 275).”

With Charlotte Mason’s words, I found myself pulled into the wonder of learning. I set out to make geography an adventure.  I wanted stories filled with “ideas”- ideas that spark a hunger to learn in my children.  While searching, I found the book, Paddle-to-the-Sea.  Paddle to the Sea is a story about a little Indian named Paddle.  A little boy carved Paddle, who sits in a canoe, from wood. The boy leaves Paddle on frozen Lake Nipigon just before Spring. When the ice begins cracking, he sets out on a journey to the sea (the Atlantic Ocean).  The story takes us along with Paddle through all five Great Lakes, the Niagara Falls, the St. Lawrence River and finally out to Atlantic.

Traveling with Paddle, I saw the animals at Lake Nipigon.  I noticed all the steal mills in Michigan.  Then I learned that there’s a lake that is a continual whirlpool near Detroit.  Everywhere I went, I saw.  I couldn’t wait to see Paddle’s next adventure.  Then I noticed my children couldn’t wait either. My kids were eager to learn where Paddle would travel next.  With sweet interest, they would find the place on the map and imagine all that Paddle had seen.   Funny how it tugged at my heart strings.

Paddle-to-the-Sea Reviews

After reading Paddle-to-the-Sea, I asked my kids why they enjoyed it so much.  Here are their replies,

“It was adventurous.”

“Because of the maps.”

“Because of the waterfall and the whirlpool.”

Charlotte Mason was right.  Together we followed the adventures of Paddle-to-the-Sea; “and we know more” and are “better furnished with ideas”.  Instead of memorizing a list of facts, we’ve experienced a journey that we’ll stay with us forever. Now I’m thoroughly convinced Geography is exciting- not because Charlotte Mason said it was, but because I experienced the adventure for myself.