Dear Editor,
Some Guyanese teachers don’t seem to understand the purpose of homework. As I understand it, homework should have some connection to the work that children are doing in class, and be at an appropriate level, so they can continue their learning at home. It should also serve to involve parents in their child’s learning. Fundamentally, a child should be able to understand what the homework task is about and be able to answer some of the questions. I recently came across a piece of homework that was given to an eight year old child, that seems to have little or perhaps no connection to that child’s classroom work. The task was about homonyms and homophones. The child who brought home this homework had absolutely no idea what the task was about.
The child had one night to complete the task. A child in this class had to be a genius to complete this homework unaided. I feel that most parents would have found this homework challenging. I myself completed this homework task with extensive use of the internet. The content of the questions are also problematic. The answers to the first two questions are the names of trees that are found, not in Guyana, but in Europe and North America. The teacher in question seems to have copied this homework task from a European book, without much thought for the child’s learning. I was told that children who go to school the next day without completing the homework, have to stand outside of the classroom, I am not sure for how long. Has this teacher thought about the children who don’t have Internet access at home?
Sincerely,
Leland De Cambra
