EdObserver

I went to school in a different time, but it sometimes seems like a different planet. For one thing, there was homework almost every night, even on weekends. And though teachers sometimes checked to see if you had done the assignment, if it wasn’t a long-term project, it was never graded. In other words, while you might get a demerit for failing to do it, you didn’t really get credit for doing it. Homework was practice. Learn a new lesson; reinforce the lesson with homework as practice .

I was not a perfect student. I should have spent more time studying every night instead of cramming before tests. But I almost always did my homework. I once got caught with a missing assignment only 30 seconds before the principal announced that President Kennedy had been shot. Everyone remembers what he or she was doing when they heard the news. I was getting a zero for not completing my homework.

Today, homework counts. In most classes it accounts for 10% of a student’s grade. It is usually not a letter grade; some cruder, more flexible grading system is used. Some teachers will evaluate each assignment on a five-point scale, or they will use “√ +, √, and √ ─.” This system lets a teacher assign a weighted grade at the end of a marking period that might more fairly reflect the student’s homework participation.

It doesn’t matter. For the “at risk” students, homework is a waste of time and they just won’t do it. Just doing it will give the student a score of 100% for 10% of your grade. It doesn’t even have to be done correctly, or completely. It doesn’t even have to be done at home.

In most classes, homework is merely the completion of the class work, worksheet or problems, which you didn’t finish in class – usually because you were talking, or texting a friend on your cell phone held under your desk. There seems to be an unwritten code of honor, in a group with an unofficial membership, and a slogan that says “We don’t do homework. No we don’t!”