Homework occurs within the context of both school and family, but the traditional practices of homework may be out of sync with the needs of today's families. The incredible diversity among families presents many challenges to the successful implementation of homework. Families are more economically and culturally diverse than in the past, and family composition is more varied than ever before, with divorced parents and blended families increasingly common, and with more grandparents than ever raising their grandchildren. Today's families exhibit a variety of parenting styles and values, some of which may be mismatched with the values of teachers and schools.
In previous generations, mainstream America seemed to agree about issues like honesty, respecting authority, obeying the law, premarital sex, and child rearing. Children received similar messages about right and wrong from their school, church, home, and neighborhood. If it takes a village to raise a child, in previous generations the village was raising the child. Adults seemed to agree about what was best for children. In some communities today, those shared values still exist, but in other communities that consistency of message is sorely lacking (Taffel, 2001).
Copyright © 2009 by Cathy Vatterott. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication—including the drawings, graphs, illustrations, or chapters, except for brief quotations in
critical reviews or articles—may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system
, without permission from ASCD.