{"id":31356,"date":"2022-09-26T23:01:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T23:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=31356"},"modified":"2022-10-02T07:49:02","modified_gmt":"2022-10-02T07:49:02","slug":"theres-only-so-far-i-can-take-them-why-teachers-give-up-on-struggling-students-who-dont-do-their-homework","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/theres-only-so-far-i-can-take-them-why-teachers-give-up-on-struggling-students-who-dont-do-their-homework\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018There\u2019s only so far I can take them\u2019 \u2013 why teachers give up on struggling students who don\u2019t do their\u00a0homework"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jessica Calarco<\/a>, Indiana University<\/a><\/em> and Ilana Horn<\/a>, Vanderbilt University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whenever \u201cGina,\u201d a fifth grader at a suburban public school on the East Coast, did her math homework, she never had to worry about whether she could get help from her mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI help her a lot with homework,\u201d Gina\u2019s mother, a married, mid-level manager for a health care company, explained to us during an interview for a study we did about how teachers view students who complete their homework<\/a> versus those who do not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI try to maybe re-explain things, like, things she might not understand,\u201d Gina\u2019s mom continued. \u201cLike, if she\u2019s struggling, I try to teach her a different way. I understand that Gina is a very visual child but also needs to hear things, too. I know that when I\u2019m reading it, and I\u2019m writing it, and I\u2019m saying it to her, she comprehends it better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of us is a sociologist<\/a> who looks at how schools favor middle-class families<\/a>. The other is a math education professor<\/a> who examines how math teachers perceive their students<\/a> based on their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were curious about how teachers reward students who complete their homework and penalize and criticize those who don\u2019t \u2013 and whether there was any link between those things and family income.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By analyzing student report cards and interviewing teachers, students and parents, we found that teachers gave good grades for homework effort and other rewards to students from middle-class families like Gina, who happen to have college-educated parents who take an active role in helping their children complete their homework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when it comes to students such as \u201cJesse,\u201d who attends the same school as Gina and is the child of a poor, single mother of two, we found that teachers had a more bleak outlook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The names \u201cJesse\u201d and \u201cGina\u201d are pseudonyms to protect the children\u2019s identities. Jesse can\u2019t count on his mom to help with his homework because she struggled in school herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had many difficulties in school,\u201d Jesse\u2019s mom told us for the same study. \u201cI had behavior issues, attention-deficit. And so after seventh grade, they sent me to an alternative high school, which I thought was the worst thing in the world. We literally did, like, first and second grade work. So my education was horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse\u2019s mother admitted she still can\u2019t figure out division to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[My son will] ask me a question, and I\u2019ll go look at it and it\u2019s like algebra, in fifth grade. And I\u2019m like: \u2018What\u2019s this?\u2019\u201d Jesse\u2019s mom said. \u201cSo it\u2019s really hard. Sometimes you just feel stupid. Because he\u2019s in fifth grade. And I\u2019m like, I should be able to help my son with his homework in fifth grade.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike Gina\u2019s parents, who are married and own their own home in a middle-class neighborhood, Jesse\u2019s mom isn\u2019t married and rents a place in a mobile home community. She had Jesse when she was a teenager and was raising Jesse and his brother mostly on her own, though with some help from her parents. Her son is eligible for free lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An issue of equity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As a matter of fairness, we think teachers should take these kinds of economic and social disparities into account in how they teach and grade students. But what we found in the schools we observed is that they usually don\u2019t, and instead they seemed to accept inequality as destiny. Consider, for instance, what a fourth grade teacher \u2013 one of 22 teachers we interviewed and observed during the study \u2013 told us about students and homework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel like there\u2019s a pocket here \u2013 a lower income pocket,\u201d one teacher said. \u201cAnd that trickles down to less support at home, homework not being done, stuff not being returned and signed. It should be almost 50-50 between home and school. If they don\u2019t have the support at home, there\u2019s only so far I can take them. If they\u2019re not going to go home and do their homework, there\u2019s just not much I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While educators recognize the different levels of resources that students have at home, they continue to assign homework that is too difficult for students to complete independently, and reward students who complete the homework anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
Middle-class students often enjoy many advantages that other students don\u2019t when it comes to getting help at home with their homework. Kentaroo Tryman via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Consider, for example, how one seventh grade teacher described his approach to homework: \u201cI post the answers to the homework for every course online. The kids do the homework, and they\u2019re supposed to check it and figure out if they need extra help. The kids who do that, there is an amazing correlation between that and positive grades. The kids who don\u2019t do that are bombing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I need to drill that to parents that they need to check homework with their student, get it checked to see if it\u2019s right or wrong and then ask me questions. I don\u2019t want to use class time to go over homework.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that the benefits of homework are not uniformly distributed. Rather, research shows that students from high-income families make bigger achievement gains through homework than students from low-income families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This relationship has been found in both U.S.<\/a> and Dutch schools<\/a>, and it suggests that homework may contribute to disparities in students\u2019 performance in school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tougher struggles<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On top of uneven academic benefits, research also reveals that making sense of the math homework assigned in U.S schools is often more difficult for parents who have limited educational attainment<\/a>, parents who feel anxious over mathematical content<\/a>. It is also difficult for parents who learned math using different approaches than those currently taught in the U.S.<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, students from more-privileged families are disproportionately more likely to have a parent<\/a> or a tutor<\/a> available after school to help with homework, as well as parents who encourage them to seek help from their teachers if they have questions<\/a>. And they are also more likely to have parents who feel entitled to intervene at school<\/a> on their behalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

False ideas about merit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the schools we observed, teachers interpreted homework inequalities through what social scientists call the myth of meritocracy<\/a>. The myth suggests that all students in the U.S. have the same opportunities to succeed in school and that any differences in students\u2019 outcomes are the result of different levels of effort. Teachers in our study said things that are in line with this belief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, one third grade teacher told us: \u201cWe\u2019re dealing with some really struggling kids. There are parents that I\u2019ve never even met. They don\u2019t come to conferences. There\u2019s been no communication whatsoever. \u2026 I\u2019ll write notes home or emails; they never respond. There are kids who never do their homework, and clearly the parents are OK with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“When you don\u2019t have that support from home, what can you do? They can\u2019t study by themselves. So if they don\u2019t have parents that are going to help them out with that, then that\u2019s tough on them, and it shows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Calarco<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Indiana University<\/a><\/em> and Ilana Horn<\/a>, Professor of Mathematics Education, Vanderbilt University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessica Calarco, Indiana University and Ilana Horn, Vanderbilt University Whenever \u201cGina,\u201d a fifth grader at a suburban public school on the East Coast, did her math homework, she never had to worry about whether she could get help from her mom. \u201cI help her a lot with homework,\u201d Gina\u2019s mother, a married, mid-level manager for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":31357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[292],"tags":[7689,6783,7737,1737,12634,11185,665,3297,4849],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31356"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31409,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31356\/revisions\/31409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}