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My personal homework assignment experiences
I feel that this section might “give up the goat” as to my feelings on homework.
It was 1990, and I was a cute little 5th grader in Mrs. Scholle’s class. I LOVED Mrs. Scholle and still do to this day. A student taught where I attended school as a kid and would hang out in her room to chat or help with extra tasks. While I very much remember Mrs. Scholle fondly, I vividly remember the crushing amount of homework that we were often assigned.
I was always a student who excelled. I did not struggle with the material itself, but I remember sitting at the dining room table, crying into the night because there was sooo much work to do. The work was tedious, repetitive, and not teaching me anything new. I wanted to watch tv, go outside or play Nintendo, but instead, I was inside doing loads of math problems. The sheer amount of homework is seared into my brain and shaped my views as a teacher.
My Homework Policy as a Teacher
When I had my classroom of third graders, I vowed not to assign any homework if I could help it. If the school required it, fine, then it would be time-based, not task-based and only checked for completion. I didn’t want to take work home, neither did they. Why should I spend time grading work that they either flew through, didn’t understand, or had extensive help from a parent? No one should be crying at the kitchen table after dinner.
By that time, research had started to question the benefit of homework, and parents questioned my lack of homework. My teammate gave out homework daily; why weren’t their children getting the same? My reply was always the same. For me, it was more important the kids enjoy the few free hours they had each day. They did enough school at school. Some kids were in sports and my gut told me that parents didn’t want to get home from a game only to have an hour of homework staring them in the face.
To make matters more difficult, my school was 95% free and reduced lunch. Many students went home to an empty house, or to parents who did not speak English, and therefore couldn’t help them with homework. How was it even fair to send homework home with them? When asked if there was anything that they could do at home, I simply said “Read. Read in any language, just read.”
Are there homework benefits?
Does Homework Help or hurt learning?
Whether or not homework is a help or hindrance to learning is a question every teacher and administrator I have ever met struggles with. What is too much homework for kids? Should there be homework for 2nd graders? What about online homework? High schoolers should have homework, right? For kids, the critical questions are, “can homework kill you?” and “is homework illegal anywhere?”.
Unfortunately for kids, the answer to the last two questions is “no,” but the other questions have been debated for over 100 years, with the pendulum swinging in both directions.
A short history of homework for you
I could find no definitive answer of when homework was invented. Various sources credit Pliny the Younger from the Roman Empire, Roberto Nevilis of Italy in 1905, or Horace Mann. It seems likely that homework, in some form or another, has existed for a long time.
Today’s concept of homework is said to have been introduced by one of the last two men (right?! I mean, a WOMAN would have known that there is already PLENTY to do at home!). It was invented as a punishment or a way to show power over students’ time.
Homework was controversial almost as soon as it was introduced. At the turn of the 20th century, there were already homework bans in place in some states. However, as fears of the cold war grew and Americans dealt with concerns about falling behind, the amount of homework given to kids increased. Then, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, anti-homework sentiment grew again, and the amount of homework given to students decreased. THEN, just as I was entering the “workforce,” I mean, school, the country was experiencing an economic downturn. Who else to blame but teachers? The Department of Education thought that the amount of homework given to kids should increase.
Since then, time spent on homework has continued to increase, with Kindergarteners getting homework and some high school students reporting having up to three hours of homework each night.
Is Homework Illegal Anywhere?
The Argument for Why homework is important
For those in the camp of wanting positive homework answers, you can look to Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology at Duke University. He has created the seminal study that most people look to decide if homework is beneficial. Cooper took studies that already existed from the mid-2000s and correlated the number of homework students reported doing to standardized test scores. He concluded that doing more homework correlated to higher test scores, and this correlation was strongest among older students.
Detractors have pointed out several flaws in his study, such as the research is based on self-reporting of kids, which is not entirely reliable. I would also like to see a study done directly with students, tracking the actual amount of homework and correlating it to test scores. A meta-analysis of other studies laid over test scores isn’t very convincing for me.
Parents
Another argument for why homework is good comes from parents. The first reason parents say they want homework is to make them feel connected with the learning process, and it lets them know what is going on in class and feel helpful and have a home-to-school connection. Parents also tend to use the amount of homework a teacher gives to judge the rigor of that classroom. A teacher who provides more homework is perceived to have more a more rigorous classroom.
In surveys, parents say they expect homework because THEY had homework. Parents see homework as a rite of passage that every child should have, and homework = school.
There is also the argument that homework is a great way to teach kids how to be organized. While I believe that it can teach organization, I think there are other, better ways to support organization. Have you ever tried to get a nine-year-old ready for baseball? They need so much equipment, and the natural consequences of missing something are pretty immediate. Students who take music lessons, art lessons, language classes need to be organized to be successful.
Of all the reading I have done over the years looking for homework answers, this is the extent of the evidence I have seen in homework support. Now, let’s take a look at the other side.
The argument for why homework is bad
On the other hand, there have been many studies outlining many problems with homework.
Time
There are a few levels to the element of time.
The first problem with homework is the level of difficulty and how this affects the amount of time a student will spend on the homework. The general “rule of thumb” that I still hear from teachers today is “10 minutes of homework per grade, per night”. Following this rule means that 1st graders get ten minutes, second graders get 20 minutes, etc.
My question has always been, “whose ten minutes are we talking?” Let’s say homework for second graders is supposed to take twenty minutes, and Brynn flies through her given homework in ten minutes and can go out and play. On the other hand, Wyatt struggles through his homework, misses playtime outside, and his parents are sitting with him after dinner for over an hour, trying to help him. They believe it is vital that he gets it done before returning to school tomorrow.
The second element is, does the student have time to complete the work at home? A common complaint in a pre-pandemic world was that children are over-scheduled. There might not be sufficient time to do the homework at home between sports, music lessons, foreign language classes, church obligations, and art lessons.
Thirdly, some high school students work almost full time to help support their family or are entrusted with watching siblings when they get home. With these types of obligations, homework will fall to the back burner.
Lack of Differentiation
Others point out that homework has not changed much. At its best, homework WOULD ideally be differentiated for each student, giving them something engaging with enough challenge but not too difficult to lead to frustration. As a classroom teacher, I would have LOVED to do this for my students, but time is so fleeting and precious that spending time to differentiate homework does not feel like time well spent to me.
Differentiating homework to each student is asking a lot for already overwhelmed teachers.
Level of Parent Help
The amount of parent help that a student will have on homework varies widely between home and family situations. I have sometimes gotten homework that is done IN the parent’s handwriting, while other students have parents whose first language is not English or whose parents work two jobs and are not around to help them. This highlights one of the elements of lack of equity in homework.
Another issue with parent help is that sometimes it can be detrimental! When a parent attempts to help students, sometimes the parent has forgotten or thinks they know how to tackle the homework. I have personally seen this when dealing with new ways to approach math problems. The newer, more concrete, and conceptual ways are sometimes confusing for parents. This is when you see the standard algorithm pop up in homework before it the teacher introduces it in class. When a parent helps their child in the wrong way with homework, this can lead to homework help discord in the home.
Type of Work Given
Homework has looked the same for many years. Homework is often based on memorizing facts, repetitive, and focuses on the process, not understanding the concept. The focus often falls on the quantity of work given, not the quality.
When students don’t see the value in the work that they are being given, they become resentful of the task. Again, ideally, homework would be differentiated, urging students to think critically outside of class and sparking a love of learning. Instead, the type of work homework generally is believed to reduce creativity and independent thought outside of (and sometimes inside) school. Here is a great article about how we should change our mindset about homework and how we use homework.
Stress
One researcher asked a pool of 50,000 students what their most significant source of stress was, and the resounding answer was homework. More and more studies have emerged detailing the damages that stress does to our brains, and especially the brains of developing children. If the research does not show a clear benefit, why pile so much pressure onto our learners?
Giving students math homework that is beyond their level, or difficult for them to complete independently can increase levels of math anxiety. Even high achieving students can suffer from math anxiety, which can lead to a lifelong avoidance of math.
What about remote learning and homework online?
The challenges of COVID and remote learning have caused researchers, teachers, and parents to look at homework differently. The pandemic forced many of us to see (if not to address) the vast levels of access to basic internet service needed to make remote learning even approachable. Online education is not equitable across the country, therefore doing homework online is just as inequitable. Sometimes teachers may not realize this inequity exists within their classrooms.
I have worked in upper-middle-class areas where I assumed the students had access to high-speed internet at home. The school required students to spend a particular amount of time per week on an online math program. I was surprised to learn that the only source of the internet for some students was a parent’s phone.
Another problem with online homework during pandemic learning is that the lines between “homework” and “schoolwork” have become blurry. There is no clear definition for kid’s “homework,” adding more stress into their days.
So, is homework beneficial?
I suppose you are expecting a resounding “NO!” as an answer to this question. Some research shows that homework can be beneficial to older students, meaning high school-age kids. They could be given some homework, but not the three hours a night many high schoolers reports. I can’t entirely agree with giving homework to students younger than high school.
There is one type of homework that is shown to have many benefits- reading for pleasure! From critical thinking to growing empathy skills, reading for fun every night is one type of homework that is good for kids.
Should we give kids a big homework pass?
I am going to stand by my previous views on homework. Yes, I think kids should all get a homework pass. Let them play, engage in sports and yes, relax in front of the television at night with their families. A healthy work-life balance is essential for the mental and physical health of our children. The sheer amount of research showing the negative of homework versus the one study pointing at a precarious link between homework and test scores is not enough for me to throw my hat into the homework ring.
