«Homework should be fun for the children»
Mr Arn, what is the homework concept for your class?
Firstly: The child must want to do the homework! The motivation therefore lies with the child. Secondly, they must feel competent in doing it, they must be able to visualise what they are supposed to do at home and feel confident in doing it. Thirdly, the homework arises from what happens in class and flows back into it. Fourthly, the child should receive recognition. They receive feedback on what they have worked on. We don't impose anything on the pupils, but offer them the opportunity to do something meaningful for themselves. They should enjoy doing their homework!
What does this look like in practice?
In order to do justice to the uniqueness of each child, we work without teaching materials and worksheets. Instead, the children have blank exercise books that they fill with their own work. Each exercise book is as unique as the children themselves. Homework is also written in these exercise books. Of course, these should and must be tailored to the individual child. This means, for example, that they ask us after doing their maths plus together whether we could write some more tasks in their exercise book. They usually also tell us exactly what these should look like and how many they want. It's time-consuming, but it's worth it. We are currently exploring the «four elements». So it makes sense to encourage the children to repeat the experiments from school with their parents at home and explain everything to them. It's fun for everyone and everyone learns something!
How do parents deal with this?
I think everyone likes it! Of course, it's a bit unusual for parents at first. But that changes quickly: they see how hard their children work at school and, depending on the situation, also at home. They also see the children's learning successes. This builds confidence that you can learn more with joy than with fear and pressure. Many parents also find it very relieving because our homework doesn't create any family stress. This is because the children choose their homework very consciously. If a child has training or another programme one evening, they hold back. On a rainy Wednesday, significantly more children take something home to work on. In any case, parents keep telling us that the children tackle their homework on their own initiative and are able to complete it very independently. This must be the case, because we don't write and develop the tasks for the parents!
Further information about Darinka Egli and Achim Arn's class, the Prisma school building and its school concept: www.prisma-wil.ch
The big online dossier on homework:
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