Chapters 4 and 5 bring us to the question most teachers want answered: "How can I get them to do their homework?" (Darling-Hammond & Ifill-Lynch, 2006). We often tend to look for the quick fix—expressing concern more about "How can we make them do their homework?" instead of looking more deeply at "Why don't they do their homework?" The search for answers is a complex one that requires us to conduct a methodical examination. Many strategies exist to improve the rate of homework completion, but before discussing those strategies, we must rethink how common practices may contribute to the problem. We must look at the old paradigm of how we do homework and suggest a new paradigm.

Rethinking Common Homework Practices: The Old Paradigm

The old homework paradigm is a set of common practices driven by the traditional beliefs and attitudes that were discussed in Chapter 1. The paradigm is built upon such ideas as the belief in the inherent goodness of homework, the assumption that the homework is doable and any problems are related to motivation, the belief that the key to controlling student behavior lies in reward and punishment, and the attitude that homework should be completed simply because the teacher told the student to do it.