I am listening to a live EduChat featuring Alfie Kohn, who is one of the well-known educators in North America. His ideas are progressive and they challenge many of the traditional norms in education. His latest book is “The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing.” Kohn argues that homework is a burden to children and their parents, and that there is no research that shows the slightest connection between homework and independent thinking.
One of the professors of education, Tom Whitby, who I follow on Twitter and who helped organize the EduChat with Alfie Kohn through The Educators PLN, writes the following:
I have come to appreciate that a student’s day in school begins at about approximately 8 and ends at 3. Many, but not all, are often involved with extra-curricular events for an additional two hours. This puts kids home between 5:30 and 6PM. Work in a little downtime and dinner and it is 8 pm. Of course the student is now ready to work, because it’s homework time. Each teacher has only assigned about 20 to 30 minutes of work, so each teacher feels that the assignment is not too much. That would be okay if the kid did not have five teachers all thinking the same thing. That could be on a given day two to three hours of homework. It is now 11 PM.
After hearing what Alfie Kohn and Tom Whitby said on the subject of homework I am beginning to think more about its impact on my students. Even though I consider myself progressive in many ways, when it comes to homework I am very traditional. I like to assign homework to my students, and when I don’t, I feel that I left them with nothing to do, or that I gave them the impression that they don’t need to practice, study or review the material. I am very conscious about how much homework I assign. Usually I do not assign more that three to four questions. However, with the current policy in education in Ontario, homework carries no value. In other words, we cannot assign a grade for students doing homework; we can assess it as a skill (working habits), but we do not evaluate it! So, does this mean that we should may be consider Alfie Kohn’s progressive ideas and abandon homework?
I usually start checking homework in my classes, but after a month or so I forget to do it. My teaching becomes my priority rather than walking around with a checklist, checking off who did the homework and who didn’t. This would waste 15 minutes of my class time, so I just eventually stop checking homework. When I look back now, I am not entirely sure that it even made all that much of a difference for student success when I was checking it.
How am I going to help my students develop the working habits if I am not going to assign any homework in the future? May be it’s those creative assignments, project and presentations that students have to work on that are sufficient for development of good work habits. May be students do not have to work that “extra shift” at home to be successful and learn? This is challenging my thinking and I am not sure where I exactly stand on this issue. I challenge my colleagues to consider the impact of homework on student success.
To watch the EduChat with Alfie Kohn, click on the link below:
By: Mary Nanavati on March 16, 2010 at 9:26 pm
I appreciate your thoughts on homework both as an educator and as a parent. As a parent, I have watched my children bring home interesting and engaging homework related to projects and assignments they have enjoyed. I have also, however, more often than not watched them bring home the ‘drill and kill’ type of homework that left them tired and far less interested in the subjects at hand. Students need time for review, to finish extended work and for things like reading and writing for pleasure, hobbies and interests – and family time – all of which are curtailed when homework becomes excessive. As an educator, I appreciate your approach to homework and I have no doubt your students do. And I know parents do as well!
By: mkrstovic on March 17, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Hi Mary,
Thank you for visiting my blog and thank you for leaving a comment to this post. I am somewhat concerned about those “drill and kill” type homework that kids bring home. I hope that your kids didn’t bring home this kind of homework over March Break
I feel that the right thing is to be considerate of what “kind” of homework we assign. Extra practice is needed, but is it possible (with our 110 hours per course) to create a curriculum that maximizes practice in class, while minimizing practice at home? The more comfortable I get with my curriculum the more effectively and efficiently I can teach it, and part of that efficiency means more time spent in class practicing and learning the new skills.
By: Megan on May 30, 2011 at 10:19 am
As a student, I would have to agree that some homework do not develop our skills. It just increases the burden and simply makes us tired. But the positive impact is that it improves our self-discipline. But still, I wish professors would see to it that they check the assignments that they give since every student has worked hard on it. I personally believe that group projects and presentations are more effective for our learning skills. One more thing, professors should also consider that we have many subjects that also have homework. So they shouldn’t give too much that we can handle.