Rethinking Homework
By Alfie Kohn
After spending most of the day in school, children are
typically given additional assignments to be completed at home. This is a
rather curious fact when you stop to think about it, but not as curious as the
fact that few people ever stop to think about it.
It becomes even more curious, for that matter, in
light of three other facts:
1. The negative effects of homework are well
known. They
include children’s frustration and exhaustion, lack of time for other
activities, and possible loss of interest in learning. Many parents lament the impact of homework on their
relationship with their children; they may also resent having to play the role
of enforcer and worry that they will be criticized either for not being
involved enough with the homework or for becoming too involved.
2. The positive effects of homework are largely
mythical. In
preparation for a book on the topic, I’ve spent a lot of time sifting through
the research. The results are nothing short of stunning. For
starters, there is absolutely no evidence of any academic benefit from
assigning homework in elementary or middle school. For younger students,
in fact, there isn’t even a correlation
between whether children do homework (or how much they do) and any meaningful
measure of achievement. At the high school level, the correlation is weak
and tends to disappear when more sophisticated statistical measures are
applied. Meanwhile, no study has ever substantiated the belief that
homework builds character or teaches good study habits.
3. More homework is being piled on children
despite the absence of its value. Over the last quarter-century the burden has increased most for the
youngest children, for whom the evidence of positive effects isn’t just
dubious; it’s nonexistent.
It’s not as though most teachers decide now and then
that a certain lesson really ought to continue after school is over because
meaningful learning is so likely to result from such an assignment that it
warrants the intrusion on family
time. Homework in most schools isn’t limited to those occasions
when it seems appropriate and important. Rather, the point of departure
seems to be: “We’ve decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several
times a week). Later on we’ll figure out what to make them do.”
I’ve heard from countless people across the country
about the frustration they feel over homework. Parents who watch a torrent of busywork spill out of their
children’s backpacks wish they could help teachers understand how the cons
overwhelmingly outweigh the pros. And teachers who have long harbored
doubts about the value of homework feel pressured by those parents who
mistakenly believe that a lack of afterschool assignments reflects an
insufficient commitment to academic achievement. Such parents seem to
reason that as long as their kids have lots of stuff to do every night, never
mind what it is, then learning must be taking place.
What parents and
teachers need is support from administrators who are willing to challenge the
conventional wisdom. They need principals who question the slogans that
pass for arguments: that homework creates a link between school and
family (as if there weren’t more constructive ways to make that connection!),
or that it “reinforces” what students were taught in class (a word that denotes
the repetition of rote behaviors, not the development of understanding), or
that it teaches children self-discipline and responsibility (a claim for which
absolutely no evidence exists).
Above all, principals need to help their faculties see
that the most important criterion for judging decisions about homework (or
other policies, for that matter) is the impact they’re likely to have on
students’ attitudes about what
they’re doing. “Most of what homework is doing is driving kids away from learning,” says education
professor Harvey Daniels. Let’s face it: Most children dread
homework, or at best see it as something to be gotten through. Thus, even
if it did provide other benefits, they would have to be weighed against its
likely effect on kids’ love of learning.
*
So what’s a thoughtful principal to do?
1. Educate yourself and share what you’ve
learned with teachers, parents, and central office administrators. Make sure you know what the research
really says – that there is no
reason to believe that children would be at any disadvantage in terms of their
academic learning or life skills if they had much less homework, or even none
at all. Whatever decisions are made should be based on fact rather than
folk wisdom.
2. Rethink standardized “homework
policies.” Requiring
teachers to give a certain number of minutes of homework every day, or to make
assignments on the same schedule every week (for example, x
minutes of math on Tuesdays and Thursdays) is a frank admission that homework
isn’t justified by a given lesson, much less is it a response to what specific
kids need at a specific time. Such policies sacrifice thoughtful
instruction in order to achieve predictability, and they manage to do a
disservice not only to students but, when imposed from above, to teachers as
well.
3. Reduce the amount – but don’t stop there. Many parents are
understandably upset with how much time their children have to spend on
homework. At a minimum, make sure that teachers aren’t exceeding district
guidelines and that they aren’t chronically underestimating how long it takes
students to complete the assignments. (As one mother told me, “It’s
cheating to say this is 20 minutes of homework if only your fastest kid can
complete it in that time.”) Then work on reducing the amount of homework
irrespective of such guidelines and expectations so that families, not schools,
decide how they will spend most of their evenings.
Quantity, however, is not the only issue that needs to
be addressed. Some assignments, frankly, aren’t worth even five minutes
of a student’s time. Too many first graders are forced to clip words from
magazines that begin with a given letter of the alphabet. Too many fifth
graders have to color in an endless list of factor pairs on graph paper.
Too many eighth graders spend their evenings inching their way through dull,
overstuffed, committee-written textbooks, one chapter at a time. Teachers
should be invited to reflect on whether any given example of homework will help
students think deeply about questions that matter. What philosophy of
teaching, what theory of learning, lies behind each assignment?
Does it seem to assume that children are meaning makers -- or empty
vessels? Is learning regarded as a process that’s mostly active or
passive? Is it about wrestling with ideas or mindlessly following
directions?
4. Change the default. Ultimately, it’s not enough
just to have less homework or even better homework. We should change the
fundamental expectation in our schools so that students are asked to take
schoolwork home only when a there’s a reasonable likelihood that a particular
assignment will be beneficial to most of them. When that’s not true, they
should be free to spend their after-school hours as they choose. The
bottom line: No homework except on those occasions when it’s truly
necessary. This, of course, is a reversal of the current default state,
which amounts to an endorsement of homework for its own sake, regardless of the
content, a view that simply can’t be justified.
5. Ask the kids. Find out what students think
of homework and solicit their suggestions – perhaps by distributing anonymous questionnaires. Many
adults simply assume that homework is useful for promoting learning without
even inquiring into the experience of the learners themselves! Do
students find that homework really is useful? Why or why not? Are
certain kinds better than others? How does homework affect their desire to learn? What are its
other effects on their lives, and on their families?
6. Suggest that teachers assign only what they
design. In most
cases, students should be asked to do only what teachers are willing to
create themselves, as opposed to prefabricated worksheets or generic exercises
photocopied from textbooks. Also, it rarely makes sense to give the same
assignment to all students in a class because it’s unlikely to be beneficial
for most of them. Those who already understand the concept will be
wasting their time, and those who don’t understand will become increasingly
frustrated. There is no perfect assignment that will stimulate every
student because one size simply doesn’t fit all. On those days when
homework really seems necessary, teachers should create several assignments
fitted to different interests and capabilities. But it’s better to give
no homework to anyone than the same homework to everyone.
7. Use homework as an opportunity to involve
students in decision-making. One way to judge the quality of a classroom is by the
extent to which students participate in making choices about their
learning. The best teachers know that children learn how to make good
decisions by making decisions, not by following directions. Students
should have something to say about what they’re going to learn and the
circumstances under which they’ll learn it, as well as how (and when) their
learning will be evaluated, how the room will be set up, how conflicts will be
resolved, and a lot more.
What is true of education in general is true of
homework in particular. At least two investigators have found that the
most impressive teachers (as defined by various criteria) tend to involve
students in decisions about assignments rather than simply telling them what
they’ll have to do at home. A reasonable first question for a parent to
ask upon seeing a homework assignment is “How much say did the kids have in
determining how this had to be done, and on what schedule, and whether it
really needed to be completed at home in the first place?”
A discussion about whether homework might be useful
(and why) can be valuable in its own right. If opinions are varied, the
question of what to do when everyone doesn’t agree – take a vote? keep
talking until we reach consensus?
look for a compromise? – develops social skills as well as intellectual
growth. And that growth occurs precisely because the teacher asked rather
than told. Teachers who consult with their students on a regular basis
would shake their heads vigorously were you to suggest that kids will always
say no to homework – or to anything else that requires effort. It’s just
not true, they’ll tell you. When students are treated with respect, when
the assignments are worth doing, most kids relish a challenge.
If, on the other hand, students groan about, or try to
avoid, homework, it’s generally because they get too much of it, or because
it’s assigned thoughtlessly and continuously, or simply because they had
nothing to say about it. The benefits of even high-quality assignments
are limited if students feel “done to” instead of “worked with.”
8. Help teachers move away from grading. Your faculty may need your
support, encouragement, and practical suggestions to help them abandon a model
in which assignments are checked off or graded, where the point is to enforce compliance, and toward a model in which
students explain and explore with one another what they’ve done -- what they
liked and disliked about the book they read, what they’re struggling with, what
new questions they came up with. As the eminent educator Martin Haberman
observed, homework in the best classrooms “is not checked – it is
shared.” If students conclude that there’s no point in spending time on
assignments that aren’t going to be collected or somehow recorded, that’s not
an argument for setting up bribes and
threats and a climate of distrust; it’s an indictment of the homework itself.
9. Experiment. Ask teachers who are reluctant to rethink their long-standing reliance on traditional
homework to see what happens if, during a given week or curriculum unit, they
tried assigning none. Surely anyone who believes that homework is
beneficial should be willing to test that assumption by investigating the
consequences of its absence. What are the effects of a moratorium on
students’ achievement, on their interest in learning, on their moods and the
resulting climate of the classroom? Likewise, the school as a whole can
try out a new policy, such as the change in default that I’ve proposed, on a
tentative basis before committing to it permanently.
*
Principals deal with an endless series of crises;
they’re called upon to resolve complaints, soothe wounded egos, negotiate
solutions, try to keep everyone happy, and generally make the trains (or,
rather, buses) run on time. In such a position there is a strong temptation to avoid new initiatives that
call the status quo into question. Considerable gumption is required to
take on an issue like homework, particularly during an era when phrases like
“raising the bar” and “higher standards” are used to rationalize practices that
range from foolish to inappropriate to hair-raising. But of course a
principal’s ultimate obligation is to do what’s right by the children, to
protect them from harmful mandates and practices that persist not because
they’re valuable but merely because they’re traditional.
For anyone willing to shake things up in order to do
what makes sense, beginning a conversation about homework is a very good place
to start.
RESOURCES
We are awash in articles and books that claim homework
is beneficial – or simply take the existence or value of homework for granted
and merely offer suggestions for how it ought to be assigned, or what
techniques parents should use to make children complete it. Here are some
resources that question the conventional assumptions about the subject in an
effort to stimulate meaningful thinking and conversation.
Barber, Bill. “Homework Does Not Belong on the
Agenda for Educational Reform.” Educational Leadership, May 1986:
55-57.
Bennett, Sara, and Nancy Kalish. The Case Against
Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About
It (New
York: Crown, 2006).
Buell, John. Closing the Book on Homework: Enhancing
Public Education and Freeing Family Time. (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 2004).
Dudley-Marling, Curt. “How School Troubles Come Home: The
Impact of Homework on Families of Struggling Learners.” Current Issues in Education
[On-line] 6, 4 (2003).
Hinchey, Patricia. “Rethinking Homework.”
MASCD [Missouri Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development] Fall
Journal, December 1995: 13-17.
Kohn, Alfie. The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get
Too Much of a Bad Thing (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2006).
Kralovec, Etta, and John Buell. The End of Homework:
How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2000).
Samway, Katharine. “’And You Run and You Run to
Catch Up with the Sun, But It’s Sinking.’” Language Arts 63 (1986):
352-57.
Copyright ©
2007 by Alfie Kohn. This article may be downloaded, reproduced, and distributed
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