“The natural law of education”- Homework assignments in mathematics, a Chinese perspective

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze the attitudes of several mathematics teachers towards homework as part of the workload of 10-11 year old students at a school in Yunnan Province, China. The focus is to describe and analyze their reasons for assigning homework as well as the nature of that homework. This study also describes their perspectives on how homework can contribute to improving a student’s knowledge of mathematics and what kind of homework they assign. Furthermore, it presents how the teachers describe the ability of the students to assimilate the mathematics homework. The main concepts and theoretical frameworks used to analyze the data are the "two basics", the five elements, cultural capital, habitus, the behaviorist learning theory and sociocultural learning theory. To fulfill my purpose I carried out four interviews and four observations. The results show that the reasons for the teachers assigning homework are “that it is the law of education” and “that practice makes perfect”. The teachers also think that homework helps the students to review and consolidate what they have learned in school that day. In addition, the analysis shows that homework gives students the opportunity to assess whether or not they have understood everything and if they have not, they can practice it. All of the teachers believe homework to be an important part of mathematics education. They assign two principal types of homework: oral and written. Two of the teachers also assign a third type: practical homework. According to the teachers, the students’ ability to assimilate the mathematics homework is affected by their parents’ learning habits, which they themselves have learned from their parents before them. The students are reflections of their parents. If parents have a good learning habit, they will teach their child how to successfully assimilate homework. The teachers agree that the parents’ lack of mathematical knowledge or mandarin can affect their ability to help their child with homework