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Homework
Too Much Homework?
Or the Wrong Kind of Homework?
Much has been written in the last few years
about homework. The most often asked question is whether there is
too much homework nowadays. Parents in some communities
have even organized against what they see as "excessive" homework.
A better question is to ask whether children
are getting the right kind of homework. All too often,
the kind of homework being assigned today has more of the
same "project" and "activity" flavor that is clogging the school
day itself.
J. E. Stone, Ph.D., founder of the
Education Consumers Clearinghouse,
says,
"Instead of responding to the public call for better
results and greater accountability with better use of the
existing school day, the schools with which I am familiar
are retaining the often ineffectual and inefficient practices
to which they are accustomed and dumping the result-oriented
exercises on students (and parents) as homework. ... The growing
concerns about homework need to be redirected.
Where parents see too much homework they need to ask what the schools
are doing with the available school day. Is time being wasted
on non-academic matters? Do the teaching methods used seem to be
chosen on the grounds that they are entertaining for the students
rather than effective in bringing about learning?"
One suburban Chicago parent gives an example:
"The key
to homework is effect use of time. An example: My daughter in 5th
grade had to do a Chicago Math (Everyday Mathematics) project on spending one
million dollars. The project included a glitzy poster (parents have to help)
and the learning objective is to essentially spend 1,000,000 by adding
categories until they meet the target spending. As I remember, the project
consumed several hours. By comparison my daughter did four lessons in her Saxon
program (around 30 minutes each) and gained 100x the knowledge of arithmetic.
Today's elementary schools are filled with project and discovery learning
education which consume vast amounts of time, with minimal returns to our
students. In my time we called this 'busy work.'"
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"Homework: A Cruel Hoax" by Rory Donaldson. Excerpt:
"Few activities drive more severe wedges between parent and child
than homework. I know of no other activity that has destroyed
more family unity or caused more cruelty and tears.
All this, when there is absolutely no evidence to support
the efficacy of what passes as homework at all.
Homework not only drives wedges, most of it does not work.
There are four common types of homework ... Wrongly, all four
are almost always used to introduce the student to new material.
Since the material is new, often requiring Mom and Dad to get
involved in instruction, the chances of frustration, parent-child battles,
and academic failure increase exponentially."
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"The Right Kind of Homework", editorial, New York Post, Jan. 21, 1999.
Excerpt: "The problem is not the amount of homework. What's wrong is the amount
of quasi-educational busywork masquerading as homework."
-
"Bad-Homework Book Is Warm-Puppy Dogma" by Marianne M. Jennings.
(Also available at
this address.) The author takes on education theorists who want to reduce
homework overall, blaming any homework "problem" squarely on the nature of the homework
that is typically assigned in today's schools:
"Not all homework is beneficial. Real homework hones. But busy work assigned
as homework is, well, just busy work. There is a certain breed of teacher
... who insists on posters, presentations and
panoramas as homework based on the odd belief that children learn from such inane tasks.
My oldest and I spent her eighth grade year running to the party store looking
for figurines and props for her American history class projects.
It is her weakest knowledge area because there were no tests -- just crafts."
- When parents complain their kids have "too much homework," seldom
is the cause an assignment to learn the names and significance of the major Civil War battles,
or to complete a worksheet on the parts of a cell, or to diagram
a set of sentences. No, far more often the phrase "too much homework" comes up
when dealing with massive, time-consuming projects, especially projects
that have elements of art or crafts. If this describes what you are seeing in
your children's homework, read our page on Projects vs. Learning.
Symptoms of Bigger Problems
Is your child spending enormous lengths of time on "projects"?
Instead of actually learning anything, is your child working on elaborate
posters and displays?
Is homework carved up among the kids in the class? Is your child
spending weeks on a report about Bulgaria without learning much about
Europe? Or, is your child making an enormous papier mache model of the main crop of Nebraska,
without learning much about other states?
Not Enough Homework?
-
The homework gap,
editorial, Washington Times, October 11, 2003. Excerpt:
"The myth of boundless, unbearable homework assignments seems to
be boundless in itself. Fueled by anecdotes and spread by
journalistic sensationalism, the homework monster has become
entrenched throughout the educational culture. There's just one minor
problem: It has virtually nothing to do with reality. ...
As a recent
comprehensive review of the data by the Brookings Institution
reveals, the horror stories about students "buried in homework" are
essentially fictional. Moreover, because homework has been shown to
make significant contributions to learning, the fact that students
continue to spend little time doing homework probably goes a long way
explaining why there has been little improvement in test scores over
the past 20 years, particularly in reading. The same fact explains
why U.S. students perform so poorly compared to their foreign peers."
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Homework: An Easy Load?
Brookings Institution, October 1, 2003. "The Brown Center on Education
Policy at the Brookings Institution released new findings today that
contradict years of anecdotal evidence (and millions of student complaints)
that American children are overwhelmed with school work.
The report, authored by Brown Center director Tom Loveless,
found that, on average, students spend less than one hour a day on homework."
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Do Students Have Too Much Homework?
A Report by The Brown Center on Education Policy,
October 2003.
"Several major newspapers and magazines have run articles describing
a backlash against homework. The typical story is that dramatic
increases in the amount of homework are robbing American students
of their childhood, turning kids off learning, and destroying family life.
A revolution is brewing. Kids are buried in homework.
Parents are hopping mad, and they're going to do something about it.
Except, almost everything in this story is wrong."
Full PDF report:
click here
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