Homework: Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t

By Alan Haskvitz - June 27, 2009
Columnist EducationNews.org

Homework Help Sites

http://www.reacheverychild.com/homework.html

Outside of dealing with parents whose children can do no wrong there is probably no more contentious issue between a parent and school than homework assignments. The issue is clouded with research that indicates that proves that homework hurts students, doesn’t make any difference, helps students, or all of the above. In other words there clearly is no final word on the benefits or harm done by asking a student to work outside of school.

The reason that homework has been an issue may not have anything to do with education, but with power. Who controls a student’s time? Is it the child, the parent, or the school?  This power struggle is further hampered by No Child Left Behind in its test driven mandates. Thus some schools find there isn’t enough time in the day to cover the required materials and pile on homework in the hopes that some will stick and add another point to the final tally. As Daniel Willingham points out in Why Don't Students Like School, proficiency requires practice.

There have been a wide variety of studies about homework, ERIC alone has 3660 listed. But many ignore a basic value of homework and that is as a meeting point between school and home. Active parents can provide help, and keep track of their child’s progress. They can quickly inform a teacher of concerns and seek remediation. Homework is where the teacher, student, and parent come together. However, this does require a respect for the system. A parent who sees education as a means to an end promotes homework completion as part of this inculcation of values and watches with interest the assignments and results. The parent who does not care or sees such out of school work as an infringement on their rights as a parent to deal with their child's time outside of school as the wish is another matter. These parents my feel that playing sports, taking music lessons, or even school time vacations are better uses of their child’s time and who can argue with that belief.

So what is a teacher to do? First, give as many homework assignments as you wish, but make them important to the topic, not as punishment. The main reasons teachers appear to assign homework are to practice work done in the classroom,  add depth and variations, instill time management and responsibility values, and finishing work not completed in class. All of these could be done if a teacher was given enough time in the school day and if the class sizes were not overwhelming. On the other hand, if this were the case there would be no important meeting of the school and home. This latter concept cannot be emphasized enough.

Parents have a complicated task when homework is involved. They have to make sure there is a place for it to take place free from distractions and yet not so private that supervision is not convenient, especially if the Internet is involved. Next, the parent needs to insure consistency. Placing a calendar on the refrigerator and having a student write down the homework assignments when they are given makes it easy to check. As well, an appointment calendar is important for the pupil to carry. Finally, and perhaps the most difficult, the parent must not be afraid to find help if they don’t understand the homework. This usually happens with math. There are an abundance of homework help sites and all major textbooks have help sites as well.

It is no surprise that the research suggests that the more parental support the higher the standardized test scores. Of note, that support is not doing the homework for the child, but letting the youth learn self-reliance. A youth who develops the habit of doing their homework first and playing secondly is learning to make an important decision in terms of time management. The youth who does not see that connection will use a variety of tactics to avoid it.  This includes being too tired, sick, or “not understanding” the homework. Using classical propaganda techniques such as “no one likes the teacher” is another tactic designed to draw the parent into the battle. It is very difficult for a parent to master the pluck to insist that the work be completed versus reverting to a mothering position in the face of this barrage of rationalizations.

 It is mindless to have a formula for the amount of homework by grade level. It simply depends on the curriculum being covered and the need for remediation. The rule of thumb should be that the homework assigned reflects the maturity of the student and their attention span. What is missing are the types of homework given. Everything from reading and taking notes to creating castles to Internet research are all lumped into the homework category. That is why homework has drawn  flies from all types of researchers and others who want to put an objective stamp on this fluid subject. Even brain research that shows the maturation of a child’s thinking process has been used to take a position in the homework battle. Add to that Willingham's claim as a cognitive scientist that the mind is not designed for thinking and that the best teacher is memory through experiences and you have yet another extension of the homework argument.

Despite all this work, the problem is that the research tends to link homework to success in school. It overlooks, for example, that homework  may also help forge a connection between school and home (O'Rourke-Ferrara, 1998).

Sadly, despite all the brouhaha about homework I failed to find any research that homework hurts a child’s success. Yes, some families rightly point out that it is hurting their family togetherness and that some youngsters don’t have parents that can help them, but where is the research that it impedes a child’s future? http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=ee4e7067-eb11-4414-8748-4d42fd6dcd0d

Furthermore, the completion of homework creates in the child an intrinsic reward and these types of rewards have shown to be far more beneficial than extrinsic ones.
Alfie Kohn writing in his work, Punished by Rewards, lays out arguments against extrinsic rewards as they fail to produce any long term learning commitments. In other words, correctly doing a homework assignment helps build confidence and self-respect.

Of course, none of this really helps the teacher when confronted with the decision to give homework that is based on the educator’s years of training, education, and instincts. Experienced teachers know full well that assigning homework creates more work for them and yet they clearly see the value in helping a student become better prepared for the next day and for life. And that is the ultimate goal of every educator.

Helping Your Students With Homework: A Guide for Teachers

http://www.ed.gov/pubs/HelpingStudents/index.html

Increasing Student Engagement and Motivation: From Time-on-Task to Homework

http://www.nwrel.org/request/oct00/textonly.html

 
Hints for new teachers about homework

http://www.ed.gov/pubs/HelpingStudents/index.html

Research on Homework

http://search.nces.ed.gov/search?output=xml_no_dtd&site=nces&client=nces&proxystylesheet=nces&q=homework

NEA Summary

http://www.nea.org/tools/16938.htm

Willingham, Daniel, Why Don't Students Like School, Jossey-Bass, 2009, San Francisco,.