Stop Homework

The other day I received the following email from a teacher in a private school in Toronto, Canada.

Teachers: She’s really looking for advice and support from you, so please help her out by posting a comment.

Dear Sara,
As a veteran English teacher, I totally concur with your views about homework. I do not assign daily homework, only longer term projects in which there is student choice and which serve as extensions to the curriculum - endeavors designed to take them out of the classroom and apply skills and knowledge.

So here’s the problem. Parents in our school are demanding more homework. Our principal is leaning on us to assign more homework, according to the ridiculous formula of 10 minutes per grade level, i.e. grade 8 should be doing 80 minutes per night. It’s like these kids have to be putting in a set amount of time chained to their desks. By the way, our school runs from 8:45 to 4:10 - a very long day.

I refuse to assign hateful content questions and word lists to fill this arbitrary homework quota.

Monday on our curriculum night, when I do my spiel before the parents, I am ready to try to educate them on the homework issue. Any ideas?

A math teacher from Liberty, Missouri, revamped his own personal homework practice after noticing that his students’ grades were unnecessarily low because they didn’t complete the numerous math problems he assigned. According to KCCommunityNews, the teacher began assigning math homework twice a week, never on weekends, and only a few problems. Then, after discussing and dissecting the assigned problems in class, students sometimes have a “homework quiz,” which counts as their homework grade. “Their grades are now reflecting more of what they know, not what they did at home,” the teacher reported. “They understand their work better, and they communicate about it. Also, in a group setting, they have accountability. It’s working; the number of Ds and Fs is down 10 percent over last semester.”

I had a conversation today with Steve Price, the School Superintendent of Middletown, Ohio, where school board members are considering a policy which would eliminate the grading of homework. Price, who supports the policy, is hearing from parents who think it’s a bad idea. From the editorial in the local newspaper, you’d think the school board were considering something radical.

Here’s the editorial.

To grade or not to grade homework?

“We are challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
— President George W. Bush, Jan. 8, 2004

We are disappointed that Middletown schools are planning to no longer grade homework assignments.

The plan is not an indictment of the schools or the teachers — it’s a practical recognition of the sad fact that we have a growing number of students who live in situations that make completing homework an extremely low priority. Or no priority at all.

But the plan is an indictment of those parents who just don’t care about their child’s education or future, those who are too busy with their own lives, their own problems, to devote a few hours a week to helping their child succeed.

Read the rest of this entry »

A high school math teacher near Santa Cruz, California, writes in his blog that he doesn’t assign homework because, in his experience, an organized teacher can get all instruction and practice completed in class. Read “Why I Don’t Assign Homework” here.

When I started this blog last summer, one of my first entries was about schools that had cut back on summer homework. There, I wrote about the principal of Needham High, Paul Richards (whom I had interviewed for The Case Against Homework), an educator who’s concerned about the amount of stress today’s students face.

Paul Richards was in the news again recently because he put an end to the tradition of publishing the honor roll in the local newspaper, a move which subjected him to ridicule on national TV. But, according to Richards, high schools stress contributes to increased incidents of suicide, eating disorders, drug abuse, and other self-destructive behaviors.

According to the Boston Globe, Richards recently outlined several new initiatves to combat stress among students, including surveying students about their anxieties; consulting the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital; and forming a stress-reduction committee of students, parents, and teachers. He also said he’d ask teachers to be more flexible in their assignment deadlines, noting that college professors often hand out a syllabus at the start of a semester that list windows of time to turn in projects and reports. And he plans to ask teachers to make sure they clearly state the objective of assignments, so that students are not left feeling they’re doing busywork.

Read the entire article here.

A Palo Alto, California, high school teacher, has stopped assigning homework to his world history and advanced placement economics students, according to an article in sfgate.com, After years of teachers piling it on, there’s a new movement to … Abolish homework.

The teacher has found that his students achieve a 94 percent pass rate–a rate that increased once he abolished homework–on the advanced-placement test. That 94 percent pass rate is one of the highest in the country.

In an article in The Seattle Times, A teacher’s evolving view of homework, a third/fourth grade teacher with 30 years’ experience writes about how her views have changed over the years. Several years ago, she writes,

I sent out a survey, which I have since done several times, asking parents their views on homework and what they wanted in my classroom. What I repeatedly found was that most parents didn’t want hours of homework each night, and that they were very supportive of daily reading as ongoing homework. They were also relieved to know they didn’t have to fill out forms, keep track of reading minutes or have their child punished (stay in at recess, miss points, miss the pizza party, etc.) because he or she didn’t turn in paperwork.

I encourage students to be critical thinkers and self-directed learners, and we often brainstorm ideas for homework as a class. Instead of typical reading, writing and math assignments, learning at home can include building with K’Nex or Legos (future architects!), artwork, music, science projects and board games. These all involve higher-level thinking and are important brain-builders.

When the typical homework boundaries are removed, students begin to soar and will often choose to do research on their own, read for much longer periods and/or create new projects to share with the class. It becomes a very dynamic process that reinforces student interest, motivation and purposeful learning.

You can read the entire article here.