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Alfie Kohn
On Thursday night, at the Teacher’s Convention, I went to listen to Alfie Kohn speak on the topic, “Testing, Grading and Homework- But why?” Although he is an outspoken critic on topics ranging from parenting, to human behavior to education, his talk on Thursday was one I totally agree with. He spoke primarily on educator’s fixation with homework. Despite the absence of its value, teachers continue to pile it on and really don’t give much thought about why they give it. Furthermore, negative effects of homework outweigh any positive effects (although research shows there may be some positive effects only in high school but not before).
I have to tell you since I began my teaching career some 25 years ago, I could never quite figure out why as teachers we gave homework, and to be quite honest, I too fell into the “homework trap” until I had my own child. I began to reflect and reevaluate the whole concept of homework. Why is it that I would make a parent come home from work to make their child do something that I have imposed outside of school hours because I think meaningful learning will result from the homework task I have given? Secondly, constructive time, such as playing a game or reading a story to them, in my mind, could be much more beneficial to a parent/ child relationship as opposed to having a battle of the wills with a parent/ child who are both tired. Furthermore, if the child did end up playing with his gameboy or watching TV, who am I to say what a child can and cannot do outside school hours? Lastly, if the child didn’t do the homework time and time again, who was I punishing by keeping the child in at recess or lunch to complete it. I was fighting a loosing battle.
Perhaps it’s time to rethink our whole concept of homework.
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Agreed
I have been citing Kohn for many years and would note that his talks are often shunned and even protested, revealing how resistant to re-seeing most of the stakeholders in education are. . .For example, when Kohn was scheduled to speak here: http://journalofeducationalcontroversy.blogspot.com/2009/10/alfie-kohn-t..., the local district refused to show. . .Despite the evidence, stakeholders in education are trapped in assumptions. . .we have much work to do, but one is to consistently ask "Why are we doing this?" paul thomas
Homework Battles
Here is a piece I wrote a few years back to vent my frustrations on homework....MH
Michael Hoechsmann, “It’s 8 p.m. and school is not out yet.” Montreal Gazette (Op/Ed), Sept. 22, 2005, A21.
The crumbs are still on the table from dinner as I sit down with my youngest son to help him with his homework. He must compose seventeen sentences in English and complete a page of Math. And for this Grade 3 student, another set of tasks will come home the next day from his French teacher.
His little fingers clutch the pencil in a vice grip. His inscriptions are etched into the paper to the point where he might rip through the sheet. Every third word or so, he makes a mistake. The eraser muddies and crumples the paper.
He ignores my suggestions for short sentences. His theme tonight is smelly shoes and he is darn well going to do it his way.
A half hour passes and he is finished seven of his sentences. I gaze at the clock and worry if he will get through his work before bedtime.
Tension mounts between us.
I worry about my own work – unanswered e-mails, a writing project I am working on – and wonder if I will have an hour to unwind after a long day.
We stop after nine sentences. This homework is not due for a few days. Turning to the Math sheet, my son tells me he doesn’t understand what is being asked of him.
I’m humbled to find I don’t quite understand it either. My father is a mathematician. I’ve already phoned him once today to ask advice on a math question my high school aged son was having trouble with. We’ll have to tackle this one alone.
We work it out. Or so we hope. Only the red ink of the teacher will tell for sure.
As the excitement of a new school year begins to wane, these realities of disciplined, structured learning return to family life.
For families with two working parents, the juggling act of weekday home life can be very challenging and stressful. The relentless beat of the homework drum intrudes into unstructured family time and squeezes out playtime, downtime, fool-around-and-have-a-laugh time.
Of course, playing a role in our children’s education is important. But must it occur every school night to be effective?
Not according to Etta Kralovec and John Buell, authors of The End of Homework. Kralovec and Buell argue that it is a form of unpaid labour, both for parents and students. They feel that students too should have their “work” confined to a 40-hour week and that parents should have the freedom to get involved in other learning tasks with their children, such as baking a cake or fixing a bike.
And they are concerned that homework regimes favour those who have social and economic privilege, a working computer, a quiet place to study and parents who are not doing shift work.
Then there is the question of who is doing the homework, the parent or the child?
When little Jimmy shows up to his grade 3 class with a PowerPoint presentation, whose intellectual property is it? Certainly, Jimmy would be a lucky boy to be exposed to the new literacies at such a young age, but how can his grade be fairly reckoned next to the child with the primitive looking flip chart?
And what sort of competition does this set up between parents, each trying to give their little Janey a leg up in the increasingly competitive game of life?
Certainly there is a role for homework, but it must be within reason. The rule of thumb has been 10 minutes a night per school year. But, as is the case with so many things in our hyper speed culture, inflation appears to have set in.
Crucial to a positive homework experience is also the nature of the work. Mind numbing skill and drill tasks are less interesting to the young mind than creative tasks such as drawing, practical household math tasks and free writing.
A barometer I set for appropriate homework is whether my children can understand the task at hand. Too often, we have to puzzle through an assignment photocopied from a textbook, sitting cheek to jowl trying to keep our frustration in check.
And with tensions simmering, this is how we parents are seen to be positively supporting our children’s learning.
Another brick in the wall.
yah...homework sucks
Interesting points have been brought up, however the question arises, how do we teach the full content of the curriculum without assigning homework? Personally I’m not a huge fan of homework either but being a math teacher and having so much pressure to teach the entire curriculum within the time constraints that I have there’s no way I could accomplish what I’m required to do and not give homework. I think this criticism of homework in reality needs to be directed more towards the curriculum that we teach because homework is pretty much a byproduct of our curriculum. It’s almost impossible (at least in math and I’m sure in other subjects as well) to follow the curriculum that we are supposed to and not be forced to assign homework.
In some situations the amount of homework kids have to do is ludicrous. My niece who is in kindergarten is required to do homework almost on a daily basis and she’s only 5 years old! Another issue with assigning homework is that, usually students have a bit of homework in multiple subjects, which then amounts to hours of homework on a daily basis. As such, students are indirectly being discouraged from doing activities outside of school. Some students may pick and choose which homework assignments to do because they can’t handle all the workload. Other students may feel that the homework overload is too much to handle and will just give up on doing homework all together. The result of all this is that kids that can’t manage to do all their homework tend to fall behind and not perform as well in their classes.
Behaving as students v. behaving as humans
Ultimately, the issue of homework is about our traditional expectations for training children to behave like students (so they will later behave like workers), instead of allowing them spaces to explore, discover, and expand their empowerment as humans. When I read, write, or think at home, it is not "to do homework," but part of who I am as a human. If a child is fully engaged in something that matters (like math), that child will decide to pursue math in many places other than school, resulting in true learning. Homework today is simply another cog in the machine of doing school—a process that dehumanizes everyone involved. I recommend more Kohn: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/selfdiscipline.htm. paul thomas
Assessment
What exactly are we assessing when we take in homework? More often than not it strikes me that rather than assessing skills in math, or science, or English, or whatever other syphon of knowledge we expect all this information to filter through, what we're actually assessing is:
1) the student's time management skills;
2) the stability of the student's home;
3) the economic status of their parents and its correlation to providing a desk, a computer or a quiet separate workspace for the student.
4) the student's economic status and its correlation to having free time after school that's not filled with a low-level job to help pay the bills.
In this case, homework quickly translates into punishment for being poor.
Assessment contd.
And the list could continue:
5) The ability/desire/willingness to follow directions.
6) The ability/deisre/willingness to think the way one is being told to.
7) The abiltiy/desire/willingness to understand what a teacher wants, and then do it.
Do 5, 6, & 7 add up to the abiltiy/desire/willingness to be dehumanized?