for the love of learning

What training or education are teachers given on the topic of homework? I find it curiously disconcerning that homework is such a large part of school, and yet most teachers could not cite a philosophy on homework that is grounded in sound research or logic. Unfortunately, homework usually fits under the category of 'it was good enough for me, so it's good enough for my students.' Or in other words, teachers simply chose to continue teaching the way they were taught.


However, homework is a contentious issue in education, and there are a lot of myths about the topic that need some serious debunking.


Let's take the age old belief that homework provides non-academic benefits such as responsibility, time management and study skills.


Firstly, the research is decidely absent on this topic. Even Harris Cooper, a long-time supporter of homework, admits that:

"No studies [have] looked at non-academic outcomes like study habits."

And the Encyclopedia of Educational Research still reads to this day that:

"Of all the research questions asked about homework, the paramount one has always focused on the relationship between homework and academic achievement." Whether homework has any effect on "objectives other than test marks and course grades - such as developing discipline and independence, extending understanding, or strengthening a positive attitude to learning - cannot be stated."

Let's examine the idea that homework encourages students to be more responsible. Some one does not become more proficient at making good decisions by having others continually make decisions for them. Responsibility works in a simliar fashion. People only become more responsible if given the opportunity to exhibit responsibility. In his book The Homework Myth, Alfie Kohn explains:

Consider the idea that doing homework promotes "responsibility." Such a claim might seem plausible until we stop to ask what it is, exactly, for which students are actually responsible. Almost never are they permitted to decide whether to have homework, or how much, or what kind. Instead, their choices are limited to such peripheral questions as when to do what they've been required to do. This is, it must be conceded, a rather pale version of responsibility.

How about time management? Homework must provide students with an opportunity to improve their timeliness and punctuality? Again, the problem arises that it is not the child who is expected to improve their time management; rather, all those adults who are managing the child's time for them are the ones likely to show improvement. Kohn continues:

Still, if homework taught children how to budget their time well, that would be something. But this is a hard case to make for two reasons. First, the choice of when to do their homework is typically made for students by their parents, who insist that they finish it before doing something they find enjoyable. One mother remarked to me that what her kids' assignments are really testing is her proficiency at time management. Of course we might reply that she, and other parents, could back off and leave kids on their own to finish their homeowrk (or not). But this is neither caring nor practical. The consequences are unpleasant for parent and child alike if the assignment is discovered undone just before bedtime or early the next morning. In fact, if it remains undone, parents can usually count on hearing from the teacher, which would suggeest that a hands-off poloicy on the part of parents really isn't expected or desired. It's understandable, then, that most parents are accustomed to saying, "You need to get your homework out of the way before you..." What's not so understandable is that they would turn around and defend homework on the grounds that it helps children to develop responsibility  or become more independent.

Surely homework helps students to hone their "study skills"? This is a tricky one because study skills can be defined in quite a variety of ways. Kohn writes:

Assuming that this phrase refers to the ability to formulate questions, locate information, and organize one's thoughts, what reason is there to believe that these capabilities can't be developed during the six or seven hours a day, five days a week, that children spend in school? It seems peculiar to claim that homework is a school's sole tool, or even best tool, for supporting any of these character -related attributes. The premise that homework is necessary to imporve study skills becomes persuasive only if that phrase is defined so narrowly that the whole argument becomes circular: homework is useful to help kids get better at doing homework.

My favorite part of Kohn's message might be how our dependence on homework may be artifically self-perpetuating - meaning we only think we need to do homework because homework demands it.

Homework is no small issue for most students and too many families suffer nightly homework crusades for teachers to simply assign homework on a whim. It's time teachers did their homework on homework and realize that the reasons for giving homework are at best suspect and at worst downright disagreeable.