It is not the teacher’s proper task to be constantly testing and checking the understanding of the learner. That’s the learner’s task, and only the learner can do it. The teacher’s job is to answer questions when learners ask them, or to try to help learners understand better when they ask for help.
-John Holt, from How Children Fail
I can’t say that I agree or disagree with this. I can see benefit of both.
But on a stranger note, please explain to me why my daughter gets homework which is not even looked at by her teacher? Besides the fact that doing work without any feedback is pointless. There is zero incentive to do it. At Least Not for me?
When I was teaching, the purpose of homework was two-fold. First, it served to reinforce skills covered in class. Second, it gave an indication of how well each student had mastered the skills. Not all teachers used it for both purposes; some only used it for the first. Typically those teachers would have students correct one another’s work or would have the entire class correct papers together as the teacher called out the answers. Of course, I did run across teachers here and there who didn’t bother to correct homework at all, but it was the exception rather than the norm in my experience.
Homework is irrelevant to unschooled kids. As they pursue their interests, skills are naturally reinforced in a deeper, more meaningful way, which is truly an authentic incentive.