Stop Homework

Today’s interview is with Anthony, who has been teaching for five years at a New York City public school where he is a fourth-grade teacher. He holds a B.A. in Psychology and a Masters in Childhood Education from New York University. This year, he was accepted into Teachers Network Leadership Institute, a “professional community of teachers and educators working together to improve student achievement.” The Institute advocates for changes in policy and gives teachers an active voice in policy-making decisions. His research project for the Institute is homework in elementary school.

Later this month, he is sitting down with the administration at his school to look to develop a meaningful policy. So far, they have all agreed that the research does not support a policy that focuses on ‘time in each subject’ per night. “We want to lessen the load and create more teacher independence in decision-making regarding homework.”

Interview with Anthony
by Sara Bennett

“As a teacher, there’s a tension between what I want to do and what I’m supposed to do. I have to take small steps before I can take big ones. I have to go through the channels, go about it the right way.”

–Anthony, New York City fourth grade teacher

Why did you decide to research homework?
I teach in a very diverse school with a wide range of ethnicities and family economic statuses. Most of my students qualify for free lunch. Homework in elementary grades was a no-brainer of a topic for me. I hear so much about homework: stories from my parents of kids up too late, guidelines for how much to give each night from “above”, my “higher achieving” students asking me “why” they have to do homework, the lack of quality of the assignments, the time to check it taking away from my time in preparing better lessons, and mostly to me, how I’m not seeing its positive effects.

What are your school’s guidelines on homework?
Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last few months, I’ve conducted interviews with educators and activists around the country who’ve been on my radar as people who are doing their best to change policy and practice in their communities. I’m going to run the interviews this week.

To kick off this series, I’m thrilled to introduce Christine Hendricks, the principal of a K-4 school in Glenrock, Wyoming, which implemented a no-homework practice in the Fall of 2007. Hendricks, who started out teaching 24 years ago and has been a principal for the past 12, is the single mother of a college-age daughter, a 7th-grade son, and a fifth-grade daughter. This coming Fall, she is moving to a new school in Fort Collins, Colorado, where the staff is “eager to learn more about her no-homework practices.”

Interview with Christine Hendricks
by Sara Bennett

“So many of our students are coming to school in survival mode, and I think, as a school, we need to help let kids be kids.”

–Christine Hendricks, principal, Grant Elementary, Glenrock, Wyoming

What motivated you to eliminate homework at your school?
We had been struggling with the concept of homework for awhile. There was a lot of conflict between teachers and students and students and parents over homework, we had parents asking for homework clubs, and I’d experienced the problem first-hand with my son, who’d been fighting me for years on doing his homework.

In the Fall of 2007, Kim Bevill of Brain Basics in Colorado came and did a workshop and she talked about how the research shows that homework doesn’t work. We went to a break and about 10 of my teachers came and said to me that we need to get rid of homework. And we just decided to try it.

Did you have the support of all of the teachers?
There are 25 teachers in my school, and most of them bought into it from
Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago, a college professor posted a comment that deserves highlighting:

I am a college professor. While some may argue that some of my assignments are overly challenging… all of my assignments are designed to force students to consider complex issues independently. They are meant (usually) to take little time, but be addressed seriously.

It stuns me how much training I have to commit to showing our incoming freshmen how I intend their “homework” to be used.

For example:
- Students have typically been “trained” to rewrite all of my questions prior to typing their answers. What a gratuitous waste of time – I should know what I asked.

- Students typically ask “how long it has to be”, where, to me, if you address the questions as asked, the length is unimportant (as short as possible to answer the questions). More meat, less filler.

-Students have been taught to “read” the textbook. No one should literally read a text – it is a reference, use it to gain information, not to follow word-for-word. Use it to glean key features, organize material, identify differences between similar ideas, and so on.

-Homework is not an opportunity to force students to teach themselves something that you don’t find interesting enough to cover.

Now that my children are working their way up this system, it is that much more infuriating.

A principal of a K-8 school in New Brunswick, Canada, recently posted the following comment:

I am a principal on the east coast of Canada. A large k-8 school of 800 kids. We are revisiting our homework policy/procedures to ensure that we have an equitable system in our school. We are aiming to have no homework, based on much research.

Read Alfie Kohn: The Homework Myth.

Rocks.

Homework is just one more structure to keep the marginalized down.

Schools can do a better job teaching. And parents could assist with spending their energy in to just “being” with their children: talking, dreaming, playing, etc.

My two cents.

A kindergarten teacher posted a comment that I want to make sure everyone sees. This is what s/he says:

As a kindergarten teacher (don’t shoot me) policy and curriculum is not set by the teacher and many times not by the school, but by standards set by the state and federal government. I agree that we are overtesting and not giving children enough “free” time. We do not even get “recess” for our kindergartners. What kind of social skills are we giving them? What adult wants to go somewhere for a meeting/educational activity without much of anything but a bathroom break in 3-4 hours? This is what many kindergarteners face. I am proud of the parent that “checked” out the school she was sending her child to and their policies. Most of my parents are not even aware of no recess in our schools….. We are burning out our kids on reading before 2nd grade because we are not teaching the LOVE of reading but attaching a test every time they read a book. The teachers do not have control. Parents need to get involved and push for change. Teachers would lose their jobs if they didn’t do what is considered their job “the way the standards” make them teach……

Today’s guest blogger, Ben Kestner, is the Middle School Principal at the Berlin Brandenburg International School, where he initially started as curriculum coordinator for the IBO Middle Years Programme. He studied flute at the London College of Music and in Berlin with Andreas Blau and after spending time playing and teaching he pursued a career in education after completing his PGCE in the UK. He wrote to me several weeks ago to tell me he’s an “avid supporter” of Stop Homework. He has a blog that’s worth reading.

Homework Should be Relevant, Interesting, and Personal
by Ben Kestner

I am currently the Middle School Principal at an International School in Berlin, Germany.

Over the last two years, I set out to examine the whole idea of homework at our school. After reading relevant books and research I decided that we really needed to re-think the whole idea of homework and go back to the question of why we set it. Then, during the current academic year, I pulled together a task force in the Middle School to look at the issue of homework. Throughout the year we have discussed the issue in staff meetings, parent meetings, and student leadership groups and during the last two years student surveys were conducted. It has become clear that homework is certainly a topic which creates a range of opinions and emotions amongst staff, students and parents.

The student survey was interesting. To the question “Do you find your Homework interesting”, 61% said no, only 4% said yes, with the rest answering “don’t know”, suggesting that the last group had no particular feeling about their homework assignments. The survey also revealed that 83% of our students take part in extra curricular activities in or outside of school on an average of 3 times per week, which shows that they are using their time after school for relevant tasks, and that additional homework can overwhelm that benefit.

Read the rest of this entry »

In yesterday’s blog post, a former principal and current teacher wrote about some of the problems with homework. As we continued our email exchange, he offered more insights which I’m sharing with you today:

Are we teaching or are we preparing for exams so that we can demonstrate accountability?

In a knowledge based model (the lowest level of the continuum of learning) we must ‘push’ through material and ensure that we ‘cover’ what needs to be covered. I am all for exit outcomes, but creating curriculums to be covered for the sake of covering allows a mindset to develop. It is one in which certain rituals are necessary to demonstrate accountability: (a) show that there is a ample amount of cleverly written curriculum, (b) develop a rigor and pace that will force this curriculum to be covered in a stringently set amount of time, (c) demonstrate the rigor and breadth of the curriculum by stressing teachers, stressing students, and stressing parents — stress, after all, is the hallmark of success; (d) give lots of homework to prove the validity of the curriculum and the rigor of the approach. Homework becomes an indicator of something that ought to be real. It’s not real, however. It’s a facade meant to placate the accountability police.

I was in China recently visiting a private school… whoa, they study from morning to night and create great students… er, regurgitators of knowledge. And with all their great results, they send their students in the thousands to Western schools (as do many Eastern countries) to understand play, freedom, fun, creativity, joy, diversity, individuality, self-determination…. I have dealt with educators from China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan and all of them are awed by our system… why? They see the uniqueness of our education — the soul. Yet they can’t change because they are caught in the illusionary dance of sequences… so they send their kids here to get their hearts back, to learn about their souls……

I got the following email from a former high school principal and current teacher who is located in British Columbia, Canada.

Dear Sara,

As a — past — high school principal and teacher… I have never seen the value of more than a little homework. And that ‘little’ has to be considered for its merit before it should be issued. I believe that there should be a ‘through’ line where kids are thinking about their studies and planning and preparing at home, but not homework in the traditional sense.

You know what I really really believe — not popular — homework is a way of lessening the demands of the teacher to teach during the day and giving them an out that says “here’s the work that has to be done — if you waste your time during class, you will have homework.” Or, “we have to get through x, y, and z, and you will have extra work at home because the curriculum is too much to be covered at school.” TEACH differently then!
Read the rest of this entry »