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the ministry of education has issued several documents, calling for overcoming formalism in primary and secondary school teaching. however, xinhua viewpoint reporters found that formalism still exists in some local primary and secondary school homework, which has placed a burden on students, parents and teachers.

many students often have to complete tasks that leave traces, such as taking photos and videos, as well as various online course check-in tasks. it is particularly noteworthy that the number of tasks for hand-copied newspapers, which has troubled students for many years, is still high, so much so that "making hand-copied newspapers for others" has become a hot business on e-commerce platforms, with some stores selling as many as 200,000 orders. (xinhua news agency "xinhua viewpoint" reported on august 27)

in april 2021, the general office of the ministry of education issued the "notice on strengthening the management of homework in compulsory education schools", which directly pointed out prominent problems such as low quality of school homework and functional alienation, and clearly proposed the need to improve the homework management mechanism.

but it is obvious that the implementation of this "notice" is not so good.

in theory, it is not impossible to assign handwritten newspaper assignments, whether it is an art course, a language course, or a science course (including mathematics).

for example, for physics classes starting in the second year of junior high school, it is indeed possible to assign hand-written newspapers on mechanics knowledge. teachers can guide, help, and instruct students to draw knowledge structures and system diagrams, so that students can connect the knowledge points through such an assignment.

similarly, history and english classes can also be assigned similar handwritten newspapers. handwritten newspapers can play a relatively good role in promoting students' knowledge points and concretizing knowledge structure.

handwritten newspapers about summer vacation, winter vacation, and major festivals are also meaningful for students to record their holiday life, life experiences, and present customs and festivals in the form of individual experience, cognition, and perception.

if the schoolwork and assignments of each grade in primary and secondary schools are appropriate, it would certainly be beneficial to present some of the assignments through hand-written newspapers, or more directly, in the form of mind maps.

the problem is that in many schools, hand-written newspaper assignments are assigned too frequently. in some schools, children are even required to complete multiple hand-written newspapers for a single course within a semester.

handwritten newspaper assignments are included in the evaluation scope of schools, grades, or course research groups, and classes, with excessive emphasis on the design and artistic presentation of such assignments, and even directly evaluated according to the printing, typesetting, and art requirements of newspapers. in this case, handwritten newspaper assignments have become "rolled up", and some schools have put pressure on teachers, and teachers have made higher demands on children and parents, ultimately forcing children and parents to either complete them themselves by sacrificing a lot of rest time, or spend money to buy "oem products".

in fact, it is easy to tell at a glance whether a handwritten newspaper is a "oem product". however, schools and teachers are not really that concerned about this, because handwritten newspaper assignments are only included in the evaluation and assessment as the "result" of certain course teaching reforms and homework reforms. it is not important whether the students have completed it themselves.

this is, of course, a manifestation of formalism.

let’s look at the homework that leaves traces. as mentioned in the xinhua news agency report, some homework requires students to take photos of the process of completing the homework step by step, print them out as photos and paste them on the homework book; some require parents to take photos and upload them to the app, generate a qr code and paste it on the homework book; some require parents to edit the homework video, and parents are forced to become "cameramen" and "directors".

this so-called "leaving traces" is very close to staged photography and fabrication, and it is like training parents to be photographers, directors and screenwriters, while students are actors who are controlled by multiple remote controls. such trace-leaving homework is of course a manifestation of formalism. it is not only not enough to strengthen and consolidate learning outcomes, but it will inevitably infect and pass on the floating and perfunctory work style to students.

there are also the check-ins for physical education homework submitted during vacations and holidays, as well as the check-ins for cultural course homework, which are essentially "leaving traces" and easy to count, but there are huge loopholes in them, and the actual completion status of physical education and cultural homework is difficult to verify in this process.

punch-in homework not only breeds formalism, but also because this type of homework often requires parental supervision, the answers to the cultural homework are sent out for students to check themselves or for parents to correct. in fact, it means that it is difficult for teachers to accurately determine the homework burden of students, and it is easy for homework assignments to exceed a reasonable range, causing those children who complete their homework honestly to have their rest time further compressed, and fall into a state of exhaustion.