■ observer
To allow students to make full use of their own time, school education and family education need to change their concepts.
With the end of the Spring Festival holiday, people are going to work one after another, and primary and secondary schools in various places are also about to end the winter vacation and usher in the back-to-school season. According to Shangguan News, before the start of school for primary and secondary students in Shanghai on February 19, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission issued a notice requiring that primary and secondary schools should not use the completion of winter vacation homework as the basis for registration for the new semester, which caused concern.
In fact, this notice is not a new requirement from the education department, but a restatement of previous regulations. But before that, some middle schools clearly listed “uncompleted winter vacation homework” as one of the circumstances that would deny registration. Therefore, the reiteration and emphasis on similar provisions still have practical relevance.
The completion of winter vacation homework by students before the start of school has always been a concern for many parents. Some students have even been criticized by teachers and interviewed by their parents for not completing homework.
Having to complete winter vacation homework during the winter vacation is something that some primary and secondary school students "hate". As for how to reduce students' homework burden and make holiday life easier and more enjoyable, schools and parents are also faced with realistic dilemmas.
Assigning too much homework to students is not in line with the spirit of "double reduction". However, there are fewer homework assignments, and parents are also worried that students will completely relax during the holidays and learn nothing, and will be "waste" when school starts.
The education department has made it clear that the completion of winter vacation homework must not be used as a basis for registration. This is a policy to reduce the burden on students, but in practice, it is difficult for school teachers and students’ parents to treat it calmly. When school starts, many school teachers will still check the completion of students' homework, including paper homework, manual homework, and practical homework.
Parents are also worried that their children will be criticized and looked down upon by teachers if they fail to complete their homework on time before school starts. Therefore, they urge their children to complete their homework even if they work overtime, or even do it themselves.
Some primary and secondary school students failed to complete their winter vacation homework due to various reasons. If there are many students who have not completed their homework, or if many students need help from their parents, it means that the homework assignment itself is unscientific, unreasonable, and beyond the students' abilities.
And if most students have completed their homework and think that the workload is not large, and only a few students have not completed it, it reflects the lack of parental supervision and the lack of students' awareness and ability of independent management and independent planning.
The purpose of our country's promotion of "double reduction" is to reduce students' homework and training burden and return more time to students. It is clear that winter vacation homework cannot be bundled with registration for the new semester. This is undoubtedly the purpose of burden reduction, and it should become the consensus of home and school.
In order for students to make full use of their own vacation time and promote the healthy physical and mental growth of students, school education and family education also need to change their concepts and pay attention to cultivating students' independent learning, independent management and independent planning abilities.
To put it simply, in the past, school teachers and parents assigned tasks to help students plan their vacations and make full vacation arrangements, to a situation where students are guided to independently arrange their own study and life during the holidays. Only in this way can winter vacation homework and other tasks no longer become an additional burden, allowing students to live their own vacation life.
□Xiong Bingqi (educational scholar)
(Beijing News)