Homework has been a perennial topic of debate in education, and attitudes toward it have been cyclical gill amp schlossman, 20. Throughout the first few decades of the 20th century, educators commonly believed that homework helped create disciplined minds. By 1940, growing concern that homework interfered with other home activities sparked a reaction against it. This trend was reversed in the late 1950s when the soviets' launch of sputnik led to concern that u.s. Education lacked rigor schools viewed more rigorous homework as a partial solution to the problem. By 1980, the trend had reversed again, with some learning theorists claiming that homework could be detrimental to students' mental health.

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Since then, impassioned arguments for and against homework have continued to proliferate. Homework is typically defined as any tasks assigned to students by school teachers that are meant to be carried out during nonschool hours cooper, 1989a, p. A number of synthesis studies have been conducted on homework, spanning a broad range of methodologies and levels of specificity see fig. Some are quite general and mix the results from experimental studies with correlational studies. Every school day brings something new, but there is one status quo most parents expect: homework. The old adage that practice makes perfect seems to make sense when it comes to schoolwork. But, while hunkering down after dinner among books and worksheets might seem like a natural part of childhood, there 39 s more research now than ever suggesting that it shouldn 39 t be so.

Many in the education field today are looking for evidence to support the case for homework, but are coming up empty handed. Kohn points out that no study has ever found a correlation between homework and academic achievement in elementary school, and there is little reason to believe that homework is necessary in high school. If you 39 ve ever had a late night argument with your child about completing homework, you probably know first hand that homework can be a strain on families.

In an effort to reduce that stress, a growing number of schools are banning homework. Mary jane cera is the academic administrator for the kino school, a private, nonprofit k 12 school in tucson, arizona, which maintains a no homework policy across all grades. The purpose of the policy is to make sure learning remains a joy for students, not a second shift of work that impedes social time and creative activity.

Cera says that when new students are told there will be no homework assignments, they breathe a sigh of relief. Many proponents of homework argue that life is filled with things we don 39 t like to do, and that homework teaches self discipline, time management and other nonacademic life skills. Kohn challenges this popular notion: if kids have no choice in the matter of homework, they 39 re not really exercising judgment, and are instead losing their sense of autonomy. At the kino school, cera says children often choose to take their favorite parts of school home. Ldquo a lot of what we see kids doing is continuing to write in journals, practicing music with their friends, and taking experiments home to show their parents, rdquo she says.

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Anecdotal information from kino graduates suggests that the early control over their education continues to serve them well into college they feel better equipped to manage their time and approach professors with questions. One of the reasons that we continue to dole out mountains of homework, kohn says, is our obsession with standardized tests. This concern is especially relevant with the latest program for international student assessment pisa results placing american students 25th in math and 21st in science.

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Ldquo the standards and accountability craze that has our students in its grip argues for getting tougher with children, making them do more mindless worksheets at earlier ages so that we can score higher in international assessments, rdquo kohn says. Rdquo even if we can agree on the importance of kids doing better on tests like pisa, kohn says, there is no research to suggest that homework is our ticket to success. Our ldquo competitors rdquo in the global marketplace are coming up with the same conclusions about homework. Cities shows there is no correlation between time spent on studying and academic achievement. So, what 39 s the solution? the national parent teacher association suggests children in kindergarten through second grade should do homework for no more than 10 to 20 minutes a day, and for third through sixth graders the limit is 30 60 minutes a day. Kohn says the question isn 39 t just, how much homework is too much? many parents would be delighted if teachers reduced the amount their children are getting, but he says the quality of those assignments needs to be addressed as well. Ldquo some of this stuff isn 39 t worth two minutes of their children 39 s time, rdquo he says.

Kohn believes that the ldquo default rdquo setting for schools should be no homework, but that if evening work was assigned on occasion, it better be for a good reason. That means repetitive practice problems from 500 page textbooks get tossed out the window. Instead, kohn says parents should be asking two fundamental questions:

does this assignment make kids more excited about the topic and learning in general? does this assignment help kids to think more deeply about questions that matter? for parents who want to probe deeper into the quality of homework their child is getting, kohn says the first step is to check the school 39 s policy. In the case where poorly designed homework is being given, it 39 s time to talk to the teacher, sit down with the principal, write a letter to the editor, and/or speak up at the next school board meeting. Ldquo ten parents saying that homework does more harm than good are hard to ignore.

Rdquo after viewing the documentary the race to nowhere twice , i noticed that homework was a huge topic of discussion in the documentary created by vicki abeles. All ages of children discussed homework, teachers of various levels discussed homework and parents found it particularly a sore subject in the lifestyle of their family. I have a definite strong opinion about homework that has shifted over the years as a teacher. As i grew in my professional development many of the ideas that i once held firm to my teaching philosophy shifted, molded and morphed into something with a piece of its originality.

I believed students needed to practice the responsibility and routine of homework. I gave at least reading and spelling homework nightly and some other subject at least once a week. As time has past, i began wondering what the purpose of homework really was? was i assigning homework just for the sake of homework? was the homework i was assigning teaching anything? providing practice? a means of communication between school and home? i began noticing a shift in behaviors in society. Childrens afternoons and evenings were jammed packed with activities or parents were working late hours, that by the time they got home there was barely enough time for dinner, bath and a decent bedtime. At some point i recognized that my assigned homework was making for a stressful home life for many of my students and i wasnt even sure why i was assigning the homework.

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As i became a gifted and talented specialist, i learned more about childrens brains and i began to drop my passion about homework. Many teachers admitted that they assigned homework because there is so much course work to cover and not enough time to cover the material, therefore, the teachers had no choice but to assign homework just to cover all the material that might be on the test. This means that students were expected to complete work they had not been taught. The documentary showed high school students admitting that they would stay up all night several times a week just to finish homework, middle school students stating that they had up to 6 hours of homework a night and a third graders crying over homework. The truth is most districts or schools have a homework policy and schools feel obligated to give homework because they have a policy that says they give homework.

Many studies have been conducted over the last 50 years and not one piece of research can definitively say that homework improves achievement, test scores or that homework was even beneficial. The most astonishing finding is when college level physics students were asked if their high school physics course homework had any relationship to their success or failure in college level physics course. Researchers sadler amp tai found there was no relationship even after controlling their variables in the study.

The case against homework by sara bennett and nancy kalish has great resources on how homework is hurting our children, a great q amp a section on their website with suggestions on how parents can use their power to win in the battle against homework. Even with all this evidence, the national pta recommends that homework be given for 10 minutes per night beginning in first grade and you add an additional 10 minutes for each grade after. The national education association states that studies find that most children spend less than an hour each day on homework, which simply isnt true. Amp lt a href my nephew charlie just finished his second week of third grade. when i called the other night to find out how he liked his new classroom, he couldn’t speak on the phone.