"The contracts were effective for me because I like choosing which activities I want to do rather than doing something that could be deemed 'busy work'."       —Sam H., student

"Busy work gets us nowhere."            —Maya Z., student

It’s an open work day, the last day before the test, and I’m walking around the room checking in with various students.  I notice that Janet is working on some basic practice problems, that I suspect are too easy for her. 

“Hey,” I say, “have you been having difficulties with that kind of problem?  I thought you were doing pretty well with them.”

“I am,”  she says.  “It’s just that our contracts are due tomorrow, and I don’t have time to finish everything.”

“Well, how many items have you done so far on the contract?”

She pulls her contract out, marks off a few new items along with some that are already checked.  

“I’ve only done eleven.”

“And the contract calls for fourteen, right?  Would you say that the work you’re doing at this point is still helping you learn the material, or are you just trying to get to fourteen?”

“Definitely getting to fourteen.”

“So how did you get into this position?  Did you check on how you were progressing during thetwo weeks of this contract, or did you just discover you were shy?”

“Honestly, I haven’t even looked at the contract for a week.”

“Aha.  And has this happened with other contracts?”

“Almost every one.  I suddenly have to do a bunch of work in the last day or two.”

“Well, learning how to manage your time better is a worthwhile skill.  Are you interested in working on that with me?”

“Definitely.”

“Would it help to have some interim deadlines during the contract cycle?”

“That would work.”

“Okay, so at the start of the next contract, let’s sit down and work out a plan together about how many items you should have done by what date.  We’ll do that together for a few contracts, then you do a few and run them by me, and then you’ll just do them on your own.  Sound like a plan?”

“That’s a deal.”

“So for right now, is there anything that would be more useful for you than this busywork problem set?  Do you feel like there is anything else you need to work on to master the essential questions or skills?”

She looks at the contract. 

“No, I’m pretty solid onI guess I could try one of the Above and Beyond sets.”

“I’ll tell you what.  Finish this one A&B tonight in preparation for the test, and write a comment on the contract so we can talk about it later.  If you can think of some work you can do that would be meaningful for you - some outside research say, or some reading that would be of interest to you but wouldn’t be cramming stuff in by the deadline, that would be better than this.  Do you have anything like that in mind?”

“Yes, I do.  I’ve found a couple of articles in Scientific American that intrigued me - I could summarize what I learn from them.”

“Great.  And when would a reasonable deadline be for getting that done?”

“I would definitely be able to do that by Friday.”

“Okay, so Friday is your new deadline for the contract.  And let’s set up a time once you get the new contract to talk through your time management of it.”

It is certainly possible to have students see homework as an effective learning tool, and to do it out of the desire to learn.  Yet, in my experience, that is generally not how students view homework.  In fact, the prevalence of students perceiving homework as busywork is one of the hallmarks of doing school.  It is certainly one of the reasons why so little long-term learning actually takes place in school, despite the sheer volume of effort thatboth students and teachersdevote to homework.

This is not what teachers want to happen, but somehow it happens all the time, anyway.