“The child learns everything without knowing he is learning it and in doing so he passes little by little from the unconscious to the conscious, treading always in the path of joy and love.” – Maria Montessori, MD
This is the natural way of childhood learning that is more productive than the conventional teaching methods, and home working. Human tendency to explore, to make independent decisions, create order, develop self-control, to get ideas from experience, use of creative imagination, work hard, and repeat, these things will be enough to develop the health and intellectual capacity of brains in childhood.
Now let’s come to that essential part of academic life, homework and if there is any need of it. Homework develops the sense of responsibility, planning, independence and discipline. But one should keep in mind that the level of understanding varies from student to student. If one may finish his or her homework in a few minutes, another may take longer. Also, huge amounts of homework affect the extra-curricular activities. Today’s modern age not only requires qualification in terms of educational degrees, but also certain personality traits like communication skills, entrepreneur skills, the development of which may have affected by the huge amounts of homework. So homework has to focus on less quantity and more to develop and unleash these skills.
As “homework horror” is very common among school going students, teachers can use other terms like ‘study’, ‘investigate’, ‘survey’ etc., which will grasp the student’s attention more easily and they will much more willingly accept to do the task. Every topic can be better understood by three simple questions of ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘how’. So the nature of the tasks to plan for the classwork and homework should focus to develops better understanding of the topic instead of burdening, hence abolishing homework horror.
One merit of homework that could not be neglected is the involvement of parents in their child’s homework. So homework bridges the gap between the parents and teachers. The child not only enjoys the trustworthy child-parent relationship and student-teacher relationship but also his/her enthusiasm directs him/her towards interest in his/her studies.
With a simple change in technique, our students’ capabilities and talents could be raised many folds. A balance between quantity and quality of homework should be maintained. Parents, teachers, students, institutions, all should put their heads together to plan a wise programme for homework, accenting the essentials and ignoring the useless and the harmful.
With such an educational setup, our youth will move forward towards the gateway of success along with a youthful and colourful life. Our student will experience the freedom of mind as well as time, and it is this fertile soil where a fertile brain is erecting a powerful tree, a powerful leader of tomorrow.
