After Receiving Criticism, Teacher On TikTok Explains Why She Refuses To Give Her Students Homework
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Even though most high schoolers might not yet have age-related health issues, wrinkles, or loads of adult-life problems, let’s admit—being young isn’t easy. Teenage years usually mean having quite a bit on your plate and you’re expected to somehow find a balance between all of it. Needless to say, with the whole COVID-19 situation, today’s teenagers have to deal with even more difficult things.
Texas high school teacher Courtney White clearly understands it. And to help her students deal with stress and all the things life throws at them, Courtney chooses not to assign homework. Recently, this teacher went viral on TikTok after she posted a video explaining her reasons for doing so.
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High school teacher Courtney White has a TikTok account with over 500k followers
Image credits: teachingwithmrswhite
Courtney White, a teacher at Alvarado High School in Alvarado, Texas, has a TikTok account and it seems like her unorthodox approach to teaching is getting her a lot of attention. To be exact, her account currently has over 500k followers.
Her unorthodox approach to teaching is getting her a lot of attention on the interwebs
Image credits: teachingwithmrswhite
Though not everyone supports her kind of teaching. After receiving some criticism for not assigning her students homework, the teacher decided to make a TikTok in which she explained her philosophy behind the decision to do so.
Recently, Courtney went viral on TikTok for explaining her reasons behind not giving her students homework
@cmw1129Reply to @tafgarcia Me not assigning homework, doesn’t make me any less of a teacher. My kids show me mastery of content in class. ##teachersoftiktok♬ original sound – Courtney 💕
“There’s no proof that homework is going to make them better students in my class. I respect their time outside of class, they work hard for me all day, they don’t need to go home and do more homework,” the teacher explains in her video. “Most of my students are high schoolers. They have jobs, they have FFA, they have sports, they’re in practice, they’re in band, they have other responsibilities outside of school.”
“There’s no proof that homework is going to make them better students in my class”
Image credits: teachingwithmrswhite
“Some of them are going home and taking care of their younger siblings because their parents are at work. Some of them just need to go home and sleep. Some of them have to go home and worry about how they’re going to eat because there’s no food at their house,” Courtney continues. “So, if I also give them hours of homework, when do they have time to be kids? When do they have time to relax? Because when you get off of work, you want to go home and relax.”
“I know homework can be essential for some classes, and you just can’t get around not assigning it,” Courtney explained to Good Morning America. “So, I totally understand the point of homework. But for me personally, I just like to have a little more leniency and letting them know like, it’s okay to be human and go home and sleep.”
“I respect their time outside of class, they work hard for me all day, they don’t need to go home and do more homework”
Image credits: teachingwithmrswhite
Speaking to Good Morning America about her unorthodox approach to teaching, White explained that her goal is to take “a small portion of the stress away from them by not assigning extra assignments” and “give them the little extra love that they need in class.”
“The sillier I am, the more interested they are in the topics. I try to make it fun. My favorite part of teaching is connecting with students. I like to get to know them as a student in my classroom as well as what they do outside of my classroom just to build that personal relationship. So they feel comfortable and cared for while they are in my class,” the teacher added.
Here’s how people are reacting to the teacher and her unorthodox approach to teaching
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Junior high teacher here. If you look at her pictures, you might start to notice some thing… They're not traditional images of a classroom for a high school. That's because this article does not provide a key detail that took me about 30 seconds to find on the internet and I knew exactly what I would find when I got there because of my career experience: this teacher is a special education teacher. If this was a traditional classroom with core students or honor students for a required course for graduation and not a self-contained special education course, there probably would be no way that this teacher could get away with not having homework occasionally. I am a junior high teacher with 170 students and I do my best to not give my students homework. I never give busywork just to make my students do something. But what I can tell you is that the requirements for every single subject are so strict and so overwhelming that there is no way that we can get away with never having homework... especially at the high school level!!! The common core state standards just don't let that be a reality… Unless you're a special needs student who has accommodations.
hi! i'm actually a student in this teachers class, and having just found this article and her tiktok, i was very excited for her, but i would like to say, she actually teaches Pre- AP english 2. i dont know if she teaches special needs and Pre-AP, but i do know she does treat us pre-ap students the same, and it's very helpful, and makes her a very easy teacher to trust and learn from (although i am terrible at english, in case you couldnt tell from my lack of capitalization and apostrophes, lol)
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As someone who took AP, not preping kids by giving some homework so they learn how to budget time seems like a dis-service... unless AP has changed.
My daughter is almost at the end of year 9 and hasn’t had homework since she started high school in January last year. For the first year she was in a special ed class but this year she has transitioned to mainstream. I spoke to a couple of her teachers and they don’t like to give out homework so they don’t. My son who is in reception has his reading book and sight words he has to do for homework, which is less than 20mins a night. The kids are at school long enough and after school is time for extra curricular activities, family time, household chores and leisure.
Thank you for the info that she is a special ed teacher; that makes all the difference. For most kids homework is essential because in education, as in anything else, you only get out of it what you put in. Even if most kids won't do it and they are not penalized for it, there will be quite a few who are motivated or who have parents that are motivated and they will benefit tremendously. One of the things wrong with American education is dumbing-down or reducing expectations to suit the least promising students. Gifted and hard-working young people should be encouraged and rewarded for exceeding expectations.
LOL But seriously, what kind of person has a problem with this sentence: "Gifted and hard-working young people should be encouraged and rewarded for exceeding expectations." I think most adults enjoy inspiring young people to expand their horizons. But apparently there are some who do not, which is just sad.
I used to have homework til 11 pm every day. And in Belgium school is from 8.30 am til 5 pm. Long days and the homework did not help at all.
Tahani like
Tahani no
coyager easy
7th grade, all four honors classes. Its an insane amount of homework, for work I already understand and know like the back of my hand! And even though this is the case, the stack is so big that I have no time for family, friends, eating, sleeping, its nuts.
Junior high teacher here. If you look at her pictures, you might start to notice some thing… They're not traditional images of a classroom for a high school. That's because this article does not provide a key detail that took me about 30 seconds to find on the internet and I knew exactly what I would find when I got there because of my career experience: this teacher is a special education teacher. If this was a traditional classroom with core students or honor students for a required course for graduation and not a self-contained special education course, there probably would be no way that this teacher could get away with not having homework occasionally. I am a junior high teacher with 170 students and I do my best to not give my students homework. I never give busywork just to make my students do something. But what I can tell you is that the requirements for every single subject are so strict and so overwhelming that there is no way that we can get away with never having homework... especially at the high school level!!! The common core state standards just don't let that be a reality… Unless you're a special needs student who has accommodations.
hi! i'm actually a student in this teachers class, and having just found this article and her tiktok, i was very excited for her, but i would like to say, she actually teaches Pre- AP english 2. i dont know if she teaches special needs and Pre-AP, but i do know she does treat us pre-ap students the same, and it's very helpful, and makes her a very easy teacher to trust and learn from (although i am terrible at english, in case you couldnt tell from my lack of capitalization and apostrophes, lol)
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
As someone who took AP, not preping kids by giving some homework so they learn how to budget time seems like a dis-service... unless AP has changed.
My daughter is almost at the end of year 9 and hasn’t had homework since she started high school in January last year. For the first year she was in a special ed class but this year she has transitioned to mainstream. I spoke to a couple of her teachers and they don’t like to give out homework so they don’t. My son who is in reception has his reading book and sight words he has to do for homework, which is less than 20mins a night. The kids are at school long enough and after school is time for extra curricular activities, family time, household chores and leisure.
Thank you for the info that she is a special ed teacher; that makes all the difference. For most kids homework is essential because in education, as in anything else, you only get out of it what you put in. Even if most kids won't do it and they are not penalized for it, there will be quite a few who are motivated or who have parents that are motivated and they will benefit tremendously. One of the things wrong with American education is dumbing-down or reducing expectations to suit the least promising students. Gifted and hard-working young people should be encouraged and rewarded for exceeding expectations.
LOL But seriously, what kind of person has a problem with this sentence: "Gifted and hard-working young people should be encouraged and rewarded for exceeding expectations." I think most adults enjoy inspiring young people to expand their horizons. But apparently there are some who do not, which is just sad.
I used to have homework til 11 pm every day. And in Belgium school is from 8.30 am til 5 pm. Long days and the homework did not help at all.
Tahani like
Tahani no
coyager easy
7th grade, all four honors classes. Its an insane amount of homework, for work I already understand and know like the back of my hand! And even though this is the case, the stack is so big that I have no time for family, friends, eating, sleeping, its nuts.