3 Reasons Worksheets Destroy Lives

by Guy E. White on 14 October, 2014

Do worksheets sometimes falsely mimic learning and destroy academic progress?

My fifth grade teacher’s hands were ink-stained purple. She pumped out worksheets every day, handed them to us as we walked into class, and gave us six hours to fill them out: My year in the paper mill.

Worksheets are not all bad. Some support (and sometimes propel) learning through their use. However, the use of worksheets is sometimes greatly abused. Sadly, worksheets can sometimes become the dominant (90%+ of the time) “teaching” strategy utilized in the classroom.

What results is quite sad. Students are often less apt to engage in deeper learning and higher levels of cognition, because the main task in front of them is fill-in-the-blank.

Here are some ways that I see worksheets destroying lives.

1. Many Worksheets Never Engage Higher Level Thinking

Many worksheets simply engage the lowest level of learning: define/solve. At this level of learning, there is only one possible answer. Some worksheets advance to describe and explain (which is better).

For a worksheet to engage higher level thinking, it must get into the “explain why,” “analyze,” “compare and contrast,” “apply,” “create,” or “evaluate” level of learning – which, frankly, can be quite hard on a worksheet. Check your worksheets - do they engage at this high level? What happens to students in the long run when they are not regularly engaged at this high level of thinking?

2. Many Worksheets End Up Replacing Other Teaching Strategies

Depending on how worksheets are implemented in a classroom, program, or school district, teachers can sometimes replace great teaching strategies with worksheets entirely. Worksheets can be a great learning tool – but not when they represent the majority of classroom interactions.

How does your classroom measure up? Are students spending the majority of their time working through worksheets? What does this offer them? What does this take away from them? In the end, students learn in a wide variety of ways. If worksheets are poorly implemented, they can sometimes cut out what’s working best for students. That hampers learning, opportunity, and futures.

3. Many Worksheets Don’t Engage What We Want From Kids

In the end, what are we trying to produce as educators? In my mind, we are looking to work students through the standards, so they are able to engage with them at increasingly higher levels of application and creativity. Creativity - the ability to build something new (which is VERY hard to do) - is what I am trying to build with my students. In my experience, worksheets rarely engage the creative brain.

In the end, worksheets are part of my arsenal of strategies as a teacher – but they’re not the dominant form of instruction. Anything that helps my students master the Common Core State Standards is great – but I’m always striving to be my best teaching self, not my best worksheet grading self.

What about you? Do you think that worksheets have a place in the classroom? How much should they be used?

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