No More Homework
My mom didn't believe in homework. If I ever probed beyond this simple declaration to discover the reasons behind her belief, I don't remember it specifically, but I do seem to recall that she felt that reading and undirected play were hugely important.
Of course, as with so many of my mom's declarations, I took it as gospel—and license not to work very hard. I know that despite her disagreement with common educational practice, my mom did still inquire as to whether I had any homework; since I didn't like carrying books home from school, "don't you have any homework?" was actually a pretty common query, to which I always answered, "I did it at school." (Once in a while this was even true.)
Unlike so many of my mom's declarations, I kept "I don't believe in homework" as my own. We are more unalike than similar now that we are both adults and mothers, but I think we're in agreement that homework is a soul killer, a stealer of childhood, and usually a waste of time. It is with great dismay that I've read over the years about the increasing homework burden on children as young as 5. I've seen with my own eyes second and third graders struggling home under the weight of a backpack bursting at the seams with books. It's just wrong for elementary school children to have back and shoulder pain—not to mention anxiety and depression—because we as parents want them to be able to compete in a global market. If that's what it takes, count me out. (Perhaps one of the reasons I've considered home schooling Austen is becoming clear, eh?)
Now I read that piling on the homework may *not* be what it takes. In an op-ed piece in the New York Times (free subscription required to view) this morning, co-authors of the forthcoming book The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It write:
In fact, there's serious doubt about whether homework has any benefit at all. Most studies have found little or no correlation between homework and achievement (meaning grades and test scores) in elementary school or middle school. According to Harris Cooper of Duke University, the nation's leading researcher on the subject, there is a clear correlation amoung high school students, but he warns that "overloading them with homework is not associated with higher grades."
For the record, I did just fine without doing my homework. My grades suffered a bit when homework counted for a significant portion of the grade, of course, but I don't feel like my learning suffered. In fact, I think all that time *not* doing homework probably helped me, not least because I spent a good deal of it reading, writing letters and journals, and daydreaming. I'm all for reinforcing concepts, but I've found throughout my life—in school and especially beyond—that sometimes walking away from a problem is the best way to understand it (and, often, to come up with a solution for it). Let's give kids that same time to mull things over... and, more importantly, to just be kids.