"Over the long run, is it for the best?"
"Over the long run, is it for the best?"
Several lawmakers are advocating a policy that either limits or does away with a traditional educational method that has been used since the start of the modern era.
Through their proposed bills preventing teachers from assigning homework on certain days to specified grade levels, these solons want young students to enjoy quality time at home rather than spending their free time on school work.
House Deputy Speaker Evelina Escudero wants to do away with homework for kindergarten to Grade 12 students, while Quezon City Rep. Alfred Vargas and Senator Grace Poe want to limit it to weekdays.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones affirmed her support for the bill. All “formal” work, as she termed it, should be done in school—“Assignment, project, whatever. Pag-uwi nila libre na sila, free time nila to be with their parents, with their friends.”
She also claimed that when she assumed leadership of the Department of Education, she had already made ‘no homework’ a policy, but it seems not to have been implemented. “[Meron] pa ring mga schools na nasanay talaga sa pagbibigay ng homework,” she said.
She implied that giving homework is pointless because in some instances it is not the student who does the homework but a relative, caregiver, or other adult.
“Alam naman natin ang bata talaga kung minsan si lola, si mommy, si yaya ang nagtutulong o gumagawa mismo, si tutor, ng homework kaya minsan kung ano nasa isip ni yaya ‘yan ang lumalabas sa homework ng bata,” Briones said.
While some sectors lauded the suggestion (students, predictably), others (teachers, equally predictably), objected to it.
“Kyla,” a student, tweeted, “I remember being so stressed because of homeworks. Lahat ginagawa sa bahay, barely sa school. Pati mga projects, sa bahay rin. Sobrang kulang sa tulog, tipong less than four hours of sleep lang.”
For the other side, Far Eastern University Institute of Law dean Mel Sta. Maria tweeted, “For the record, I am against any proposed law recommending a NO HOMEWORK POLICY for elementary/highschool students every weekend. Not only will this idiotic bill violate a school’s academic freedom, it may make your children idiots.”
“SN”, a teacher, tweeted, “Di ko maiwasang manggigil sa bill na ito lalo kung maisasabatas na. They forgot or (maybe) they really don’t know the essence of HOMEWORK. We, as teachers give homework not to punish the students. We give homework either as ENRICHMENT or as PREPARATORY.”
The Teacher’s Dignity Coalition, through its chairperson Benjo Basas, said in a statement that homework “is not intended to make life difficult for our students… the value of homework… [is] about discipline, responsibility, and continuity of learning.”
When it comes to ‘no homework,’ Finland has made itself the world standard for best practices. Finnish teachers have not given homework for years. An August 2017 article on Leadprep.org states that Finland’s high school graduation rate is 93 percent compared to 75 percent for the United States.
I can find no similar statistics on the Philippine Statistics Authority website, although some sources say that fewer students were able to graduate high school after the K-12 policy was implemented.
After the adoption of new educational policies, Finnish students have shown better outcomes than their peers in other countries: Two out of three Finns go on to college, and their mean test scores dominate everyone else (in 2006, the Finns scored almost double over the next highest, Hong Kong).
But it’s not just not having homework that accounts for this educational success, and these other factors, infrastructure among them, must be considered.
Finland has a high teacher-student ratio, at 1 to 12. In the Philippines for school year 2017 to 2018, it is 1:31 for the elementary level, 1:36 for Junior High School level, and 1:31 for Senior High School level. I teach two undergraduate classes in a private university, and in one I have 41 students, and in the other 44.
Class size is crucial—in March 2018, DepEd Undersecretary for Planning and Field Operations Jesus Mateo admitted that class sizes need to be reduced for learning to be effective.
Finland has also done away with standardized tests. Much school work, including homework, prepares the student to pass standardized tests, which many studies have found are not a good measurement of a learner’s true level of knowledge and skill. Finland also does not use multiple-choice tests, unlike here; students have to know the answer.
Will less or no homework benefit students? Yes, in certain and immediate ways. For one, those in Metro Manila will have more time to relax after their hellish commutes. Some students will indeed spend more time with family and friends. Those with part-time jobs will have extra hours for work.
But over the long run, is it for the best?
Critics of the proposed policy say that there is no assurance that students will use their extra free time productively. Many will spend it bent over mobile phones or watching TV, whereas in Finland, they are encouraged to play in nature, play music, do crafts, and other creative work.
The policy should be studied further because it may do more harm than good. A trial run might yield useful data, but the potential for injury, even over a short-term experimental period, is great.
Our educational system is elitist to begin with—those who can afford private schools receive better education than those in public schools. Without homework, can that gap be ever bridged?
FB and Twitter: @DrJennyO