Less Homework = More Learning
Schools should stop extinguishing kids’ curiosity
Dear Coddling movie community,
Nobody likes homework. Sure, we know it’s often important to do things we don’t like, but what if homework isn’t one of those things?
I’m pleased to publish this essay by first-time TCM contributor Lynn Collins. She’s an educator, educational therapist, and homeschool mom.
I hope you enjoy her essay. I know your kids will!
All the best,
Ted
And here is more about Lynn:
Lynn Collins, M.Ed., ET/P brings 25 years of Special Education, Educational Therapy, and homeschooling experience to her work with students facing dyslexia and other reading disorders, as well as ADHD. Lynn is the creator of Knowledge is Power: An Introduction to ADHD, an engaging course designed to empower learners to understand their amazing brains, celebrate their strengths, and embrace practical strategies for managing everyday challenges. She also consults with families navigating home education. To learn more about Lynn’s work, you can find her profile on the Association of Educational Therapists' website. To reach her, email: LessonsByLynn@outlook.com.
By Lynn Collins, M.Ed.
I once believed that, through homework, my child would learn more and, therefore, achieve more academically. If he became a high achiever, he would later gain admission to a great college. He would be set up for a successful and happy life.
Over the course of my 25 years as a teacher and parent of two, I have come to see things very differently.
Homework does not lead to greater achievement, in school or in life.
Why Homework Is Not the Answer
First, homework kills that natural desire to learn that kids are born with.
Our children spend six to seven hours in school every day where they engage in multiple lessons and assignments, and then we give them take-home work. We want our kids to work hard and achieve, yet we overload them with work until they no longer enjoy school, and learning becomes “lame,” or overwhelming. This school burn-out is the antithesis to curiosity. And burn-out does not lead to school success.
Alfie Kohn, a widely popular writer and lecturer on education, summed it up by saying, “Homework may be the greatest extinguisher of curiosity ever invented.”
Second, hundreds of research studies, hundreds, do not support homework.
According to Denise Pope, senior lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education and author of Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids, “The research clearly shows [at the elementary level] that there is no correlation between academic achievement and homework, especially in the lower grades.” A small correlation exists between homework and achievement in middle school, and only two hours is supported by research at the high school level.
Interestingly, a study from Penn State University, conducted by researchers Gerald LeTendre and David Baker, showed that students in high-performing countries like Japan, Denmark, and the Czech Republic are given less homework than students in the United States. Students with the lowest scores came from countries like Iran, Greece, and Thailand, where large amounts of homework were given.
The research condemning homework goes on and on.
Homework often harms sleep. After a long school day, an activity, and dinner, children often take longer to finish their work than they do in school, as they’re tired from the long day. So they go to bed later, losing precious sleep, which is backed up by research as a necessary component to learning.
“When we are sleep deprived, our focus, attention, and vigilance drift, making it more difficult to receive information,” write researchers at the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Without adequate sleep and rest, overworked neurons can no longer function to coordinate information properly, and we lose our ability to access previously learned information.”
Additionally, families often disagree and argue over homework, leading to great stress at home. The parent becomes the teacher (without credentials) and is expected to know the methods the teacher used in class, an unfair burden to place on parents. Children deal with the burden of their parents’ disappointment when they don’t understand a concept. Evenings should not be a stressful time for families but, rather, a chance to bond.
Finally, kids who struggle in school spend so much time simply getting through the homework that there is no time left to work on the basic skills they need. How are these kids expected to achieve if they have no time to master the basics?
What IS the Answer?
How about learning in other ways? Learning from a teacher who is credentialed and knowledgeable is wonderful, and worksheets can help students work toward mastering the material, but traditional schooling shouldn’t be the only way our kids learn.
How about an activity that is backed up by research: nightly reading. Kids can also learn by watching interesting documentaries, doing math through cooking and grocery shopping with a parent, playing Scrabble, going to museums, and so on. By learning in other ways, our children will use their brain in new ways, and they will see that learning is not just something that happens inside a classroom.
How about giving them some down-time after school, or after their activity, so they can recover mentally from the long day? If our kids go to school refreshed rather than stressed every day, their natural curiosity will return and they will have more mental energy to learn. By protecting that down-time for your kids, you’re also giving them time to think for themselves and discover who they are, rather than being robots who do as they are told from morning until night.
How about having them do chores?
According to the Harvard Grant Study, the longest longitudinal study of humans ever conducted, the number one predictor of professional success in life is having done chores as a child. By helping out around the house, children feel that they are contributing to their family. This translates to an attitude of, “How can I contribute to the group,” as an adult rather than an attitude of, “What can I do for myself?”
How about changing what homework looks like to reignite that natural desire to learn?
Professionals on both sides of the issue agree on the importance of nightly reading. With a reading-only homework policy, kids would actually have time to do the reading and would enjoy it rather than squeezing their mandatory minutes into a packed schedule. A reading-only homework policy would also allow time for kids who struggle to work on their basic skills.
Vicki Abeles, education advocate and creator of, Race to Nowhere, a powerful documentary on our high-pressure education system and what it is doing to our children, created guidelines, with her team (a lawyer, a professor, and an education advocate), for what homework should be, if assigned at all. Their guidelines include: project-based, student-led work within the student’s interests, experiences “that cannot be had within the confines of the school setting or school day,” and assignments that “advance a spirit of learning, curiosity, and inquiry among students.”
Many educators and entire schools across the country have abolished homework with great success. Others are hesitant, often because the parents still demand homework without understanding the issue. If we don’t make a change now, our children will pay the price later. Please go to your child’s teachers and principal and share your thoughts on this crucial issue.
Freedom in learning, rather than traditional homework, will bring back our kids’ natural desire to learn, setting them up for greater achievement and fulfillment, both in school and later in life.
This essay originally appeared at Let Grow.
Maybe my memory is a little faulty, but my memory tells me that not all students do all reading assignment. Of course, I ALWAYS did mine (fingers crossed behind my keyboard).
There's no obvious answer to getting kids to learn. Making it fun is one obvious approach, but not everything we need to know is fun to learn. Part of learning to handle adulthood is in learning to put the stuff that needs doing ahead of the stuff that you want to do.
I was a teacher, back when. And of course I was a student before that. Teaching is an art as well as a science. Each teacher needs to be the teacher that they are, and not be shoehorned into an educational straightjacket of dogma.
Of all my teachers, I remember Miss Monkmeyer best. She taught HS sophomore English. She had every student engaged, all the time. Even the goof offs. She even made grammar seem interesting! I watched her do it, yet I can't really tell you how she did it. She was a natural. If she had been forced into some predetermined educational doctrine, it would have ruined her effectiveness.
I have to agree more with Vicki Abeles' approach. I am 83 and if I had not had home work as a an elementary student I would have had a harder time getting math concepts and reading skills. I was fortunate to have parents who loved to read and read to me and as I progressed in school the homework I had was definitely a benefit. I had teachers that gave us projects to do at home and reading that was inspiring. I wasn't overwhelmed because the teachers then were invested in their students success and had the freedom to keep discipline in the class room, and when help was needed they gave us options. All through my years in school I had teachers who made class relevant and required research in English, history, civics and social studies, to name a few. We also had PE everyday and clubs that gave us the opportunity to delve deeper into things that interested us like Debate teams, Key club, Home Ec, Thespians, Orchestra, Chorus, Marching Band, Shop, etc. I went to schools in different parts of Louisiana and New Mexico,. Back then the states were in charge of education and the curriculum was much more experiential and we were exposed to cultural events in the arts, sports and sciences that taught good human relations in ways that were respectful and mannerly, but also honest without shoving ideologies down our throats that went against honoring the honesty, integrity, fairness and thoughtfulness so important to having productive lives. I honor the truly devoted and wonderful teachers we have today while knowing there are quite a few who probably shouldn't be in the profession. We have "Golden Apple " award winners in our family so know what it takes to be a good teacher. Thank you all.