John, commenting on the homework thread today, in so doing revealed a profound truth about the record setting speed of old guard teachers in shooting themselves in the foot:
I stopped giving homework last year and my students and parents were both thrilled. A number of my kids’ parents are hugely involved in all of the parent groups that support the school, and they have completely embraced my no-homework policy. My colleagues on the other hand…
A traditional French teacher practically screamed at me, in the middle of a crowded grade office in our middle school, for not giving homework. That teacher then complained to my department head who then told me I had to give homework. He then blamed me for kids choosing to drop the Latin classes at the high school because they were ill-prepared by “non-rigorous” classes. Then I was publicly accused of bribing kids to take Latin during department meetings with ALL of my other traditional colleagues. Then when the enrollment numbers come out, and huge number of students had signed up for my CI Latin class, they all blamed their lack of students on my lack of homework. They then wrote letters to parents and told them that their programs were in trouble because I wasn’t giving homework. The school committee held TWO special public meetings about the dwindling enrollment in some of our languages where my lack of homework was a major topic of discussion. Fortunately, the school committee defended me. After all of that, my department head went into the classes of the 6th graders who had signed up for my Latin classes and accused them of signing up for Latin exclusively for the lack of homework. The 6th graders of course had no idea that I didn’t give homework. He then told them that I was forced to assign an hour and half of a homework a night! He then encouraged them all to switch to another language. All of this was done without my knowledge. In the end, I was given a “needs improvement” in the area of professionalism because all of my fellow teachers had complained to my principal/evaluator about me bribing students with no homework.
We had a parents’ night last night in our middle school. I told every single parent that I didn’t give homework, and every time I was met with a round of applause. I heard the phrase, “Can you please talk to all of the other teachers!?”, from at least one parent in every group.
These polar-opposite responses from parents and students vs. traditional teachers and administrators says it all. If we know that mandatory traditional homework does more harm to kids and their families than good, then we have no business assigning it.