Letter to newspaper: Drill homework sucks

This is a letter that I sent to Campanile, my school's newspaper. They had to cut it down somewhat to make it fit (space is at a premium on printed newspaper), but they still printed it in Monday's issue. Teh awesome. Here's the original.

Dear Campanile,

I believe that the practice of assigning mandatory "drill"-type homework is insulting to students and that it should be stopped. Take this hypothetical example: An English teacher gives his students a list of vocabulary words and says there will be a quiz on the words at the end of the week. Then he assigns them the task of copying out each word and its definition--and those who fail to do so will get graded down.

This sort of thing is so commonplace that you're probably thinking, "…Yeah? So?" So, here's how I look at it. The students know they have to learn the words by Friday; that is enough to get any responsible student to study. So why would the teacher have to threaten them with a bad grade on the homework to make them study? It's completely redundant… for any responsible student. The teacher must therefore believe his students are not responsible. This is the key: When students already know they have to study, forcing them to do it is equivalent to telling them, "You are too lazy, disobedient, or otherwise irresponsible to study on your own."

Throughout elementary and middle school, my teachers told us that one of the most important things to them was respect. This type of drill homework is completely at odds with that doctrine. If you respect a student's intelligence, you tell him, "Learn these concepts for the test. This worksheet might be a helpful study tool, but you're the one who knows best how you learn. You decide how to study." Making him fill out the worksheet effectively tells him, "You don't know how to study and you won't unless I make you. Now do this, or else."

I don't think this is good for the kids. If, all your life, you're told by implication that you will not do anything productive except under close supervision and the carrot and stick of good and bad grades, you start to believe it and make it true. Teachers who wonder why kids are so irresponsible these days can find the answer here: That's how they've been taught.

If Paly is so proud of its great students, it should treat them with the respect they deserve. Paly does do this to a degree; my English teacher example was purely hypothetical, and he follows the laissez-faire method I advocated above. But Paly still has a long way to go before its policies show the respect it claims to have for its students.