The Homework Debate - Essay Example

The Homework Debate The Homework Debate Homework debate has severally resulted to disputes among parents, teachers, and students. French president lately abolished homework for pupils in junior and elementary high schools arguing its advantages to both the rich and the poor, and at the same time making a criticism of it being hard to the poor. Many battles have been experienced by the American states between those in support and those in the opposition. Governments have the ability of insisting on a compulsory homework policy for primary schools. Davis (2013) raises issues concerning homework which are relied on by teachers when making short term decisions about school lessons. Whether homework should be given to pupils or not should be based on other values such as the aspect of playing which is important to a child’s life and growth. The arguments brought out against homework are such as it being the source of the gap between students. This is because homework is considered as being divisive on social considerations. This is as a result of different home backgrounds for pupils with some having and others lacking conducive environments for undertaking the homework, Some having less time to do their homework due to the long distance they travel to get home from school while others taking more time than others to understand the task. Wealth disparity also widens the students’ gaps and the unequal circumstances at home lead the students to attaining different educational achievements. Another factor that is brought out against homework is sufficiency and inappropriateness of homework, with some homes not able to provide the sufficient conditions required to undertake the some homework and some requiring parental support. Different parents show different support levels in this case. Sufficiency issues mainly arise where there is need for students to do their homework immediately. If given longer time, students can be able to deal with the difficult conditions at home but this long duration hinders the homework’s ability to measure short term progress (Davis 2013). Factors in defense for homework may be such as the fact that homework has a role in achievement boosting and instilling qualities such as those of self discipline and hard work. There is a relationship between homework and academic achievement which is in turn linked to employability. There is also a belief that consistence in completing homework from a tender age sets pace for working habits. There is an argument also concerning the liberal idea in cases where homework is made compulsory for schools by the states. It is argued therefore against the concept of homework taking all the time that students spend away from school. Another argument concerning what the current happiness of the child is, led to some schools giving homework that seemed to be interesting to the students. Arguments that result from this is that children should view homework as work and not play which helps to develop self control and work habits in the children. Play being considered as one of the home activity is considered as being overruled by the time taken for homework. Parents also have seen homework as a threat to the time they are expected to be with their children. What makes for effective teaching? The main questions here are what the key element to effective teaching is, what the goals of education are and what the effective teaching practices are. The effectiveness referred in this case applies to a diverse group of people including students. The purpose of education is a contribution to what is meant by effective teaching. I agree to the fact that teachers are the key elements to effective teaching. A teacher’s work is usually instructional and normally carried out in the classroom, and effectiveness is attributed to the influence on student outcome. The effectiveness of the teacher is considered in broader terms on the duties performed which not only constitute the instructional role but might as well extend to leadership roles. Students’ progress and gains may be used to measure how effective the teacher is. The achievement of international test are used to determine the effectiveness as well and in broader basis used to determine the achievement of the set educational goals. Poor performance in these tests set a basis of raising concerns to teaching effectiveness. The information to determine teacher’s effectiveness may be derived from methods of data collection such as classroom interviews and questionnaires, analysis of students’ performance and observation, and using informants such as departmental heads and school principals. Ko et al (2013) indicates that effective teachers who perform effective teaching are conversant with the educational and instructional goals have a clear knowledge of the curriculum content and teaching strategies, deliver to students what is expected and use the available and efficient teaching materials that enhance clarity of concepts. They also have the ability of understanding their students and issue the appropriate instructions based on these needs, teach students strategies that are meta-cognitive, master them and apply them relevantly. They are also able to follow up the understanding of students by ensuring that the appropriate feedback is maintained and take responsibility to the different student outcomes. Effective teaching is only attained if the teachers have good knowledge of the subject use of the right skillful questions to keep the students engaged and challenged, as well as consolidating their understanding. Effectiveness in teaching therefore is maintained by continuous inspection using the right professionals (Ko et al (2013). In my school, effective teaching is ensured by use of the continuous information provided by students from questionnaires issued to them, concerning the performance of teachers, professional inspection of teachers and the school’s performance in international tests. The government a beneficial party to this program since it uses the publications made from inspection to determine a school’s adherence to national policies concerning education. Is inclusion always desirable? According to Booth & Ainscow (2011), inclusion in education is summarized to include placing values of inclusion in action, placing equal worth to every life and death, supporting every person to feel a sense of belonging, enhancing increased participation of both children and adults in education and eliminating barriers that result to discrimination in learning and participation. Inclusion also involves responding to diversity in ways that treat all people equally, improving schools for all the involved parties, considering the existing differences between children and adults to be learning basis and giving children the right to high quality education. It also entails improving schools to better the benefit of all the involved parties, improving and developing the community around the school, maintaining good and mutually beneficial relationships between the schools and surrounding community, and basically recognizing that education inclusion is an aspect of societal inclusion (Booth & Ainscow 2011). I however tend to disagree to the fact that inclusion is desirable. From Sharon (2014), the students with special needs and those in need of special attention go through a hard time as they try to fit in mainstreams and other primary and secondary schools that fail to give these students the special care they need while trying to hold on inclusion, and insisting that equal treatments should be given to all students. Some of these students may be going through difficult family issues that affect their behavior and thus requiring a little special attention and appreciation compared to those from stable background. She expresses these using two examples of two students who failed to fit in the previous schools but fitted in a specific special school that offered them the right environment. These students are viewed to have shown violent behaviors as a result of their family backgrounds which cleared following their admission to the special school where they were appreciated and constantly received positive rewards and encouragement. Inclusion has been attributed to the marginalization of special schools that help these students through discovering their potential and abilities. I as well disagree to the inclusion in my school as it results to a disadvantage to some students. The government should consider therefore the needs of special schools and special students before implementation of educational inclusion. Do we need Ofsted inspection for schools? Ofsted inspection is importance in many cases. To some extent, I tend to agree to its importance and significant contribution to schools. This is as long as the right approach to inspection is followed, with information being collected from the school sources such as observable students’ performance over time, and progress across different group and years (Burns 2015). According to Waldergrave & Simon (2014) Ofsted inspection has among other things seen improvements in the secondary schools that were previously rated as being satisfactory in performance to being good in the next inspection. Analysis for the report shows that for many secondary schools that exhibited satisfactory rating to this inspection, they end up increasing the numbers of students passing in their GCSEs in the following years. The inspection also has helped in many instances to range schools performance and in the identification of the poorly performing schools and thus appropriate steps being taken against them. The actions that follow in this case are the school’s closure, school takeovers or being reopened as academies. Determination of whether the reports obtained by the inspectors are accurate or not should therefore be made. This should be done by assessing the quality of this inspection and what is really focused on in schools during this inspection. Additionally, the other aspect that needs to be determined is the impact if any of the Ofsted inspection report and whether they are proportionate and fair. Ofsted inspection usually focuses on four different areas of the school in question. These are the students, the teachers and their quality of teaching, school leadership and management and safety and behavior. The availability of data concerning students performance over the past and current years is what the inspectors use to determine the performance of students. Students’ performance in turn is one of the basis for measuring the performance of teachers. Observance of performance is a basic step in Ofsted inspection for instance to determine the quality of teachers and that of teaching though this is questioned to be a source of bias as revealed by Waldergrave & Simon (2014). The question of the inspection having to rely on observance therefore leads me to disagreeing to its importance, basing on the argument that it results the recommendation of great reforms to the structure of the inspection of schools. The inspection is also questionable on the ground that it is able to draw conclusions concerning the way in which a school is and should be run. There are other concerns still raised by many schools after an Ofsted’s inspection which range from high stress levels, to more impacting concerns like lack of incentives to conduct long term changes that arise to many schools out of the fear of what the inspection report would state concerning their operation. To counter the issues, Ofsted has tried to see some changes and improvements in areas like offering training to additional inspectors, bringing new preferable teaching styles, outlining how their inspectors base their grading during inspection. However there are still issues in their school inspection models despite their change efforts (waldergrave &Simon 2014). Education manifesto of 2015 I would like to see an improvement in the education quality and levels for the whole nation. This will entail every child irrespective of the social or economic background, attaining education to the highest local levels. Education is the basis to the growth and efficient continuity of the economic performance of any nation. This is because once all children are educated, the nation will be ensured of a skilled labor resource in the future. The students will be able to work professionally and improve the nation’s economy. It is my dream to see educational inclusion eradicated as it presently leads to marginalization of special schools which have a great importance in seeing that students with special needs and disabilities have gained access to education and are provided with learning environments that suit their needs, and are led to achievement of their academic goals, excellence and determination of their potential. It is also my wish that the government will subsidize the education to provide an opportunity to students from the economically challenged backgrounds. It is also my wish that more schools will be built all around the country to ensure that many schools are available for students in different regions. Teachers being an important element in education should also be given a special consideration. The right remuneration should be offered to them to act as a motivation to their performance. Other allowances as well as benefits should be offered to enhance their job security. The government should as well come up with policies that govern the standards of education nationally and also come up with forums that will allow teachers to severally meet and revise the teaching syllabus. Effective teaching should be put to consideration with the hiring of competitive and professionally qualified teachers. Implementation of subjects that will lead the students to discovering their talents is yet another important factor that will see change in the educational approach. More lessons in support of talent such as artistic subjects will see the students to confidently discovering their talents and abilities. Out of class activities as well need to be subsidized and funded too ensure that the schools are able to prepare their willing students to enable them to take part in these competitions and help them interact and discover their competitive abilities and build their confidence. Voluntary and not imposed homework programs will as well help the students to have a positive stand when undertaking their homework. Reference list Davis, A. (2013). Homework and getting a life. New college, oxford. Ko, J. et al. (2013). Effective teaching: a review of research and evidence. Retrieved from: http://cdn.cfbt.com/~/media/cfbtcorporate/files/research/2013/r-effective-teaching-2013.pdf Booth & Ainscow. (2013). The index for inclusion. Retrieved from: http://www.csie.org.uk/inclusion/what.shtml Sharon, H (2015). Limits of inclusion. Retrieved from: http://www.teachingtimes.com/articles/limits-of-inclusion.htm Burns, J. (2015). Ofsted school inspections: concerns about reliability. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/education-30745018 Waldergrave, H. & Simon, J. (2014). Watching the watchmen: The future of school inspection in England. Read More