Home task is essential. It is an extension of school task. A student in India spends about six hours at school and the remaining eighteen hours at home. He must be usefully busy at home, too. If he has no task to do at home, he will laze, loiter and lounge.
He will spend the time in careless gossip or profitless games. A short spell of idleness after six hours’ work at school is all allowable indulgence but after that he must work for two or three hours at his books.
He must revise what he has read at school. He must break some fresh ground and attempt independently work assigned to him in all the subjects by his teachers. He must keep himself usefully busy at home in his studies. He must read at home the lessons he has to learn at school the next day. This will enable him to grasp his lessons better. He will take more interest in his lessons at school next day.
Home task should not over-burden the student. He must have sufficient free time for games, recreation, reading of interesting books, magazines, and newspapers and riding hobbies and above all doing some social service. This will enable him to grow into a useful citizen. Students are a great force. The youths of a country represent the hope and expectation of the future. If their energy is properly channelized, they can become good citizens of tomorrow.
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If a student gets no home task, he will be idle for the major part of the day. “An idle man’s brain is a devil’s workshop”. In countries like America, students do not have sufficient leisure but in our country, students do not have sufficient work.
Too many of them are too leisurely and ease loving. They study only when the annual examination is knocking at the door. In fact, leisureliness has become the bane of our life. Work and leisure go together. Those who work must have leisure and those who want leisure must work hard. Leisure must be distinguished from laizness. Leisure comes after work but laziness before work. Leisure is the result of hard work. Laziness is the result of idle habits.
Some home task carefully planned is absolutely necessary. It will keep the students usefully busy at home. He will cultivate habits of hard and regular work throughout the year. But home task should not over burden the student in any way.
After a hard day’s work at his books, a student should have sufficient time left for hard sports to keep healthy and happy. Physical fitness is also a moral duty. But home task has value only if it is regularly checked by the teachers. If home task is set but never checked, students never do it.
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Home work must be interesting and purposeful. To be so, it must be such as can be done by an average student with a certain amount of effort. Every time a pupil successfully attempts a problem without anybody the help of help he feels encouraged to attempt another.
Extremely difficult problems should not be assigned as they cannot be done by an average pupil. Problems which are too easy are purposeless.