Stop Homework

Less than a month ago, I heard from Tracy Mason, a mother of 3 from San Marino, California, who had

experienced (one of many) long afternoons helping my 11 year old daughter battle the mound of homework she had been assigned. After “we” were finished, I decided to go online to see what I could learn about the educational value of homework. I just didn’t “get it” and was sure that I must be missing something. What an eye-opening evening that turned out to be!

Tracy told me that she was reading everything she could about homework and then was going to start discussions with her local school district.

Tracy works fast. Over the past few weeks, she’s called all of the members of her School Board (and heard back from many of them) and organized a meeting for this coming week. Her local newspaper ran a front-page article on the meeting she’s organizing.

In the next months, this dynamic stay-at-home mom (and former certified public accountant) will keep us informed of her progress.

What follows is the email Tracy sent to parents, friends, and colleagues announcing her meeting. (In The Case Against Homework you can find a sample of a much shorter organizing email and tips for how to run a meeting like the one Tracy is planning.)

Dear Friends,

I am sending this email out to all San Marino parents that I know, with the hope that I may find some of you share a concern that I have that affects the well being of our children and families. The issue is:

HOMEWORK

I know that many of you can identify with the “negatives” of homework:

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A few weeks ago, I had a great conversation with Christopher Garlington of the Dave & Chris show out of Chicago. Check out his very funny blog, deathbykids, about his life as a mostly stay-at-home dad. Here’s what he posted about homework before I went on his radio show.

Down with Homework
by Christopher “G” Garlington

So it’s 10:30 at night and I’m driving to Kinkos to print out my daughter’s social studies paper because our printer is, mysteriously, out of ink again. Like it’s got a leak. I get to Kinkos and they’re closed. So I have to call and find the 24 hour Kinkos where all the employees are failed dot com millionaires and screenwriters and perform their duties with the grim disaffection and terminal hatred you’d expect from vassal slaves and I’m thinking–this isn’t life: it’s survival.

When the hell is my daughter going to lie on her bed and daydream? When’s she going to read something that’s not assigned to her? When’s she going to hang out on the stoop with her friends and shoot the $%!^? When am I?

Anyone with a new teen knows that this is the point in a child’s development psychologists call the FU phase
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Today’s guest blogger is Vera Goodman, author of Simply Too Much Homework; What Can We Do, which came out in early September. Her book is concise, straightforward, and short (88 pages), and I highly recommend it. Vera a long-time educator, teaches parents of struggling readers how to “conduct reading practice with material that is interesting for both parent and student and that models for the student how to read fluently and with comprehension.”

It’s Hard to Read When You’re Tired
by Vera Goodman

Reading well is the most important outcome of schooling. We learn to read most effectively by doing guided practice with someone who can read.

But the parents I teach often complain that excessive homework makes reading together almost impossible most nights. An example is Zack who is eight years old and is struggling with reading. He works hard to keep up all day despite his handicap. When he gets home he is often so fatigued that he puts his head in his arms and cries. However, he still faces an evening of homework, which is especially draining on him because he doesn’t read well. Zack is an incredibly gifted inventor and would just like to spend his personal time working on his latest invention. But instead, homework fills his time. When it is done, he is exhausted and reading together is out of the question. His mother, Joy, says, “Sometimes I wish I could home school Zack because at least I could practice with him when he is fresh in the morning.”

My question is,”How can an 8 year old who has failed to learn to read be expected to do homework that inevitably requires the ability to read?” As a teacher I know how easy it is to assign the same work to everyone and fail to realize that for some it is the straw that can break the camel’s back.

We learn to read well by reading. Time for reading is compromised for all students by excessive homework.

At the end of the last school year, Sharon Stochel, a parent from a Jewish day school in the New York area, was invited to give a short presentation on homework to her school principal, teachers, and staff. Throughout the school year, Sharon had approached the faculty about some of the problems with homework and the school took her concerns very seriously. At that same meeting, another parent gave a pro-homework presentation.

In the coming months, Sharon will let us know what the school decided to do with the information it learned at that meeting and whether any policy changes are implemented.

Parent Presentation on Homework
by Sharon Stochel

Thank you…for inviting me to discuss with you the ever increasing debate over an issue concerning today’s parents, teachers and children alike: homework. I applaud the school’s effort to re-evaluate and examine their current HW system.

During the past several years, numerous books have been published and articles written exploring the topic of HW as the concern and desire grow to keep up academically with our global economic competetitors, today’s demanding job market, and with top schools and universities. One of the most important facts I want to stress is that as of today, as explained by Alfie Kohn , the author of “The HW Myth”, is that “NO study has ever, EVER, demonstrated ANY academic benefits to doing homework for kids in elementary school and little, if any, value to kids in High School.” He goes on to say that ironically, “more and more homework is being piled on to younger and younger children when research supporting HW isn’t just dubious – it is non existent.”

Let’s take a moment to debunk just a couple of myths about HW.

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Here’s an update from Lisa Grady, the parent from southern California who writes about what she’s doing to try to change homework policy in her fourth-grader’s public school.

Organizing Other Parents (Continued)
by Lisa Grady

In my previous blogs, I have chronicled our group’s progress in reducing homework ( I would like to say eliminating but our group has varying degrees of support for this idea and let’s face it, striving to reduce the homework poses fewer obstacles initially). I last wrote about a written presentation we gave to the fourth grade teachers and the principal. While our offer to create a dialog on the issue of homework has yet to receive an answer, the homework has been reduced or at least shifted from home to class time. Actually, it dawns on me that we have received an answer in that we made our request in April and there are only three weeks left of school….

In addition to reducing the homework to more manageable levels, the school distributed a survey. You might be initially encouraged about this, as we were, until you actually see the survey and discover that you have to put your child’s name on the survey and then proceed to answer questions about whether you are required to sit next to your child during homework in order to ensure its completion or whether you feel your child’s teacher gives an appropriate amount of homework, etc. Another survey question was whether outside activities interfer with homework. Wouldn’t a more appropriate question be “Does homework interfere with your children’s other important activities? Hmmm, I can tell where this survey is going!

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Today’s guest blogger, Amanda Cockshutt, writes her thoughts on a Middletown, Ohio, editorial, which opposed a school board’s proposal to eliminate the grading of homework. Amanda, who lives in New Brunswick, Canada, was instrumental in getting her local elementary school to reexamine its homework policy. Her school now has no homework on nights of major school events and there are two weeks per year where there is be no homework other than reading.

Muddled Thinking in Middletown, Ohio
by Amanda M Cockshutt, PhD

I read with interest the editorial by the concerned folk of Middletown concerning the school board’s proposal to stop the grading of homework. I think that the proposal is progressive and clearly attempts to preserve standards rather than lower them.

The authors of the editorial seem absolutely convinced that stopping the grading of homework will lower standards and ruin their children’s chances of success. Having not seen the proposal I can’t be sure, but I would be surprised if the lowering of expectations was a stated policy of the school board’s initiative.

Rather, it seems, that the board wants to level the playing field. I would interpret this to mean that all the same benchmarks of student performance will be used, except the grading of homework. In other words, tests and exams will be as difficult.

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Today’s guest blogger is Kate McReynolds, a child clinical psychologist who is currently the Assistant Editor of Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice. I met Kate while working on The Case Against Homework and, whenever I get the opportunity to talk to her, or read her writing, I feel lucky to spend time with her. Here, she explains why vacations are so critical.

The Importance of Getting a Break
by Kate McReynolds

With the end of the school year, over 50 million American children are looking forward to summer vacation. But for most children, the school year never really ends. Summer homework assignments, internships, and summer school (including voluntary programs) mean that most children will be taking a working vacation. Many educators and politicians, especially those who support the current “standards movement,� maintain that homework, including summer homework, is vital to the academic success of our children. But is it? More importantly, is it good for children’s overall development?

The Development of the Whole Child

Academic mastery is one of the many developmental needs of children. They also need to develop social and emotional skills, self-control, problem solving abilities, self-confidence, creative and imaginative capacities, values and morals, a hopeful vision of the future, and a strong sense of self. Too exclusive a focus on school work deprives children of the activities they need to develop these other important capacities. In other words, excessive homework might help youngsters do better in school (although there is reason to believe that it works against learning), but it makes it hard for them to develop what they need to do better in life. To develop fully, children need time to play, time for self-directed activities, time to socialize with friends and neighbors, and time in nature. Children need time with their families too, relaxed time that is not fraught with homework battles. And they need time to dream and to wonder, time to imagine who they are and what they can become. Teenagers especially benefit from free time with their friends and unscheduled time to think, to dream, and to ponder their futures.

How Summer Homework Hurts Academic Growth

Not only can summer homework hinder children’s full development, it can hurt their academic development. Everyone needs a break from their work, especially children. A real vacation, without even the thought of work hanging over one’s head, provides time to rest and recuperate. Vacations restore children’s spirits, renew their energy, and revitalize their enthusiasm for school. But real vacations do even more. They give children’s brains and minds vital time to consolidate and integrate new knowledge. When children have the opportunity to turn their attention away from their studies, for an afternoon or for the summer, new knowledge can “sink in� and become a permanent part of the child’s mind. Youngsters are then ready to take in more. Imagine a sponge that’s completely full of water. If we want it to absorb anymore, we have to make room for it.
Summer without homework will help our children, emotionally, socially, and academically. And it will add to their happiness.

Today’s post is a letter that appeared in the Sackville Tribune Post on May 8, 2007. I’ve been corresponding with the author, Amanda Cockshutt, since the publication of The Case Against Homework and Amanda and I were on a Canadian radio program together in the Fall. Amanda, who lives in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada, is the CEO of Environmental Proteomics, a small biotech company, and part time lecturer at Mount Allison University. She has 3 children, ages 12, 8 and 6. In the winter, Amanda persuaded the principal of her children’s elementary school to have two separate one-week trial periods without homework. When it was over, the school did not abolish homework, but it did institute some homework policy changes, including no homework the nights of major events and two weeks per year where there would be no homework other than reading.

Letter to the Editor
by Amanda Cockshutt

Children are assigned daily homework from the time they start kindergarten at the ripe old age of five. Is it really necessary? Does homework promote better learning or even higher test scores?

I have been bothered by homework for the past 7 years. At times it has been a nuisance, at other times it has elicited outright mutiny (complete with kicking and screaming) in my household. I started to seriously question the value of homework when our family spent a year in Sweden. My oldest child, then 7/8 attended a Swedish school that assigned one math sheet on Monday to be returned Friday as the only homework. School ran from 8:10 am until 1 pm. My child went from an English reading level of Curious George to beyond Harry Potter, went from only a few words of spoken Swedish to being a fluent speaker and reader of Swedish chapter books and she covered the entire Canadian math curriculum that year. The last spike in the homework coffin for me, was the discomfort I felt telling my kids to put down the book they were reading or come inside from playing and do their homework. It was time to do my own homework. Read the rest of this entry »