1900 1913: ladies' home journal takes up a crusade against homework, enlisting doctors and parents who say it damages children's health. 1899 1915: various school districts around the country, including san francisco, sacramento and los angeles, pass anti homework regulations. 1901: california legislature passes law abolishing homework in grades k 8, and limiting it in high school. 1948: national survey shows that median amount of time spent on homework by high school students is three to four hours per week. 1940's 1960's: educational debate shifts from abolishing homework to reforming homework and making it more creative and individualized. 1949 1955: progressive education movement comes under attack, charged with being anti intellectual and insufficiently rigorous.

1957: launch of sputnik gives pro homework movement a boost, setting off concerns that american students aren't keeping up with russian counterparts. Department of education publishes pamphlet called what works and concludes that homework does. 1990s: overwhelming consensus in favor of homework: among both educators and general public. Survey shows level of high school homework hasn't increased, but amount given to kids in elementary school has gone up dramatically.

rethinking homework

by cathy vatterott homework is a long standing education tradition that, until recently, has seldom been questioned. Culture that the word homework is part of the common vernacular, as exemplified by statements such as these: do your homework before taking a trip, it's obvious they didn't do their homework before they presented their proposal, or the marriage counselor gave us homework to do.

Homework began generations ago when schooling consisted primarily of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and rote learning dominated. Simple tasks of memorization and practice were easy for children to do at home, and the belief was that such mental exercise disciplined the mind. Homework has generally been viewed as a positive practice and accepted without question as part of the student routine. Schools has evolved from the once simple tasks of memorizing math facts or writing spelling words to complex projects. As the culture has changed, and as schools and families have changed, homework has become problematic for more and more students, parents, and teachers.

The internet and bookstores are crowded with books offering parents advice on how to get children to do homework. Frequently, the advice for parents is to remain positive, yet only a handful of books suggest that parents should have the right to question the amount of homework or the value of the task itself. Teachers, overwhelmed by an already glutted curriculum and pressures related to standardized tests, assign homework in an attempt to develop students' skills and to extend learning time. At the same time, they are left frustrated when the students who most need more time to learn seem the least likely to complete homework. With diversity among learners in our schools at levels that are higher than ever, many teachers continue to assign the same homework to all students in the class and continue to disproportionately fail students from lower income households for not doing homework, in essence punishing them for lack of an adequate environment in which to do homework. At a time when demand for accountability has reached a new high in its intensity, research fails to prove that all that homework is worth all that trouble.

Although many people remain staunchly in favor of homework, a growing number of teachers and parents alike are beginning to question the practice. These critics are reexamining the beliefs behind the practice, the wisdom of assigning hours of homework, the absurdly heavy backpack, and the failure that can result when some students don't complete homework. This more critical look at homework represents a movement away from the pro homework attitudes that have been consistent over the last two decades kralovec amp buell, 20.

As a result, a discussion of homework stirs controversy as people debate both sides of the issue. But the arguments both for and against homework are not new, as indicated by a consistent swing of the pendulum over the last hundred years between pro homework and anti homework attitudes. The history of homework and surrounding attitudes is relevant because the roots of homework dogma developed and became entrenched over the last 100 years. Attitudes toward homework have historically reflected societal trends and the prevailing educational philosophy of the time, and each swing of the pendulum is colored by unique historical events and sentiments that drove the movement for or against homework. They bear a striking similarity to the arguments waged in today's debate over homework. At the end of the 19th century, attendance in the primary grades 1 through 4 was irregular for many students, and most classrooms were multiage.

By the 5th grade, many students left school for work fewer continued to high school kralovec amp buell, 20. In the lower grades, school focused on reading, writing, and arithmetic in grammar school grades 5 through 8 and high school, students studied geography, history, literature, and math. Learning consisted of drill, memorization, and recitation, which required preparation at home: at a time when students were required to say their lessons in class in order to demonstrate their academic prowess, they had little alternative but to say those lessons over and over at home the night before. Before a child could continue his or her schooling through grammar school, a family had to decide that chores and other family obligations would not interfere unduly with the predictable nightly homework hours that would go into preparing the next day's lessons. 174 given the critical role that children played as workers in the household, it was not surprising that many families could not afford to have their children continue schooling, given the requisite two to three hours of homework each night kralovec amp buell, 20.

Early in the 20th century, in concert with the rise of progressive education, an anti homework movement would become the centerpiece of the progressive platform. Progressive educators questioned many aspects of schooling: once the value of drill, memorization, and recitation was opened to debate, the attendant need for homework came under harsh scrutiny as well kralovec amp buell, 20, p. As pediatrics grew as a medical specialty, more doctors began to speak out about the effect of homework on the health and wellbeing of children. The benefits of fresh air, sunshine, and exercise for children were widely accepted, and homework had the potential to interfere. One hundred years ago, rather than diagnosing children with attention deficit disorder, pediatricians simply prescribed more outdoor exercise. Homework was blamed for nervous conditions in children, eyestrain, stress, lack of sleep, and other conditions.

Homework was viewed as a culprit that robbed children of important opportunities for social interaction. At the same time, labor leaders were protesting working hours and working conditions for adults, advocating for a 40 hour workweek. Child labor laws were used as a justification to protect children from excessive homework. He recommended the elimination of homework for all students under the age of 15 and a limit of one hour nightly for older students. His writings were instrumental in the growth of the anti homework movement of the early 1900s, a harbinger of the important role media would play in the homework debate in the future. By 1930, the anti homework sentiment had grown so strong that a society for the abolition of homework was formed.

Many school districts across the united states voted to abolish homework, especially in the lower grades: in the 1930s and 1940s, although few districts abolished homework outright, many abolished it in grades k–6. In grades k–3, condemnation of homework was nearly universal in school district policies as well as professional opinion. And even where homework was not abolished, it was often assigned only in small amounts in secondary schools as well as elementary schools. 32 after the soviet union launched the sputnik 1 satellite in 1957, the trend toward less homework was quickly reversed as the united states became obsessed with competing with the russians.

Fearful that children were unprepared to compete in a future that would be increasingly dominated by technology, school officials, teachers, and parents saw homework as a means for accelerating children's acquisition of knowledge. Was losing the cold war because russian children were smarter that is, they were working harder and achieving more in school … the new discourse pronounced too little homework an indicator of the dismal state of american schooling. A commitment to heavy homework loads was alleged to reveal seriousness of purpose in education homework became an instrument of national defense policy. 176 within a few short years, public opinion had swung back to the pro homework position. During this period, many schools overturned policies abolishing or limiting homework that had been established between 1900 and 1940. However, homework in the early elementary grades was still rare gill amp schlossman, 2004. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, in the midst of the vietnam war and the civil rights movement, a counterculture emerged that questioned the status quo in literally every aspect of personal and political life.

Paragraph on My Childhood Memory Essays

A popular book, teaching as a subversive activity postman amp weingartner, 1969 , attacked traditional methods of what was labeled the educational establishment. Indicative of the times, a new debate emerged over homework and other educational activities. The anti homework arguments were reminiscent of the progressive arguments of the early 20th century again, homework was seen as a symptom of too much pressure on students to achieve. Two prominent educational organizations went on record opposing excessive homework. The american educational research association stated, whenever homework crowds out social experience, outdoor recreation, and creative activities, and whenever it usurps time that should be devoted to sleep, it is not meeting the basic needs of children and adolescents.

204 not surprisingly, by the late 1960s and during the 1970s, parents were arguing that children should be free to play and relax in the evenings, and again the amount of homework decreased bennett amp kalish, 2006. In 1983, the study a nation at risk became the first major report by the government attempting to prove that the purported inadequacies of our schools and our students were responsible for the troubles of the u.s. The report claimed there was a rising tide of mediocrity in schools and that a movement for academic excellence was needed national commission on excellence in education, 1983. a nation at risk planted the seed of the idea that school success was responsible for economic success. It ratcheted up the standards, starting what has been called the intensification movement the idea that education can be improved if only there is more of it, in the form of longer school years, more testing, more homework. a nation at risk explicitly called for far more homework for high school students.