I was delighted to read this spirited discussion launched by my article about research and homework.  It’s only fair, of course, that people should read what I’ve written with a critical eye, since that’s the approach *I* propose as a general rule.  And what’s good for the goose is good for the . . . guy who’s goosing everyone else. 

     There’s much more here than I can respond to in a brief message, of course, but I should point out that a number of issues raised in this exchange are considered at some length in The Homework Myth, the book from which the Kappan article was excerpted, which contains a lot more analysis and evidence as well as some pretty interesting testimony from teachers and parents.  In particular, the book offers a critical look at claims that homework is necessary for creating a link between school and family and that homework helps kids develop independence, self-discipline, or good work habits (beliefs that are utterly unsubstantiated, incidentally).  In the book, I also dissect the largely uncritical veneration of practice as an instructional strategy, particularly in math, which is often used to justify traditional homework.

The key word here is “uncritical.”  I was delighted to read one comment in this colloquy to the effect that “my own homework policy is thus-and-so, but I could be convinced to do otherwise.”  It’s that openness to critical reevaluation that I find so rare and refreshing.  In the few months since the publication of my book and several articles based on it, any number of people have responded, “Well, *I* think homework is necessary” or simply “Here’s the kind of homework I give *my* students” – apparently indifferent to what the research shows, as though all positions on the matter were equally legitimate.  “I think ‘practice makes perfect’” equals “I think chocolate is yummy.”

(To be sure, there are certain aspects of this topic that are unavoidably based on value judgments.  One might, for example, hold the conviction that even if some forms of homework did help some kids to learn better, the idea of making them work what amounts to a second shift after having spent a full day at school is simply inappropriate.  That’s a claim that doesn’t admit of empirical proof one way or the other.  But it’s also one that probably should be taken more seriously than is usually the case.  It gives us reason to reconsider assigning even the more thoughtful forms of homework.)

In reading or listening to discussions of homework, I sometimes find myself wishing I could steer the conversation back to (what I regard as) the central question:  If no research has found a meaningful academic benefit to assigning homework in elementary school, and if research fails to find that even high school students would be at any sort of intellectual disadvantage if they had no homework at all, then why are we spending so much time talking about the details of the assignments we’re giving, or think we should be giving – particularly to young children?

A few other fragmentary responses:

Should free reading at home be classified as a good kind of homework, or as something other than homework?  I couldn’t care less.  In either case, I think it’s generally a good thing to encourage kids to read books of their own choosing when they’re not at school, as long as we don’t squeeze out all the joy by (1) making them outline chapters or write reports on what they’ve read, or (2) require them to read a certain number of pages, or for a certain number of minutes.  I might add that the idea of having kids do a fair amount of reading during class is not as ridiculous a notion as it may seem at first.  One high school teacher told me he does this so he and the students can “go over the information collectively and immediately.”  (He also told me that he used to give a fair amount of homework when he started teaching but saw less and less need to assign it as the years went by and as he became a better teacher.  Now he gives his students no homework at all – even in A.P. courses – and they’re doing fabulously by any measure.  As a former high school teacher myself, that really got me thinking.)

 It’s hard to understand how someone could read even a small portion of my work and conclude that I’m a Romantic, a libertarian, or a Summerhillian. Folks in those traditions regularly criticize me, as a matter of fact, and with good reason. By the same token, I wrote an essay in Ed. Week a few years ago that explicitly challenged the “work vs. play” dichotomy.  Far from embracing play to the exclusion of work, I argue that learning can’t really be reduced to either of those two concepts.  (See www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/sdwtl.htm.)

Larger educational and political questions, such as NCLB, can be separated from more “micro” questions, such as homework, but to point out the connections isn’t to conflate the issues or to distort the analysis.  Rather, it should help to inform the investigation and illuminate the context.  To be specific: an exploration of the current demand for “tougher standards” doesn’t tell us whether homework is beneficial, but it does provide one answer to the question “If the data generally fail to show that homework is beneficial, why is it assigned anyway?”  (For more on NCLB and the political agenda that helped to give rise to it:  www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/testtoday.htm.)

My take-away position on homework, which may not have been clear from the Kappan piece, is not to urge its complete abolition but to suggest that we change the current default.  I argue that we should give no homework except on those occasions when a good case can be made that a given assignment is so likely to benefit most students in the class that it’s worth asking them to do more schoolwork after school is over.  That strikes me as a rather moderate and common-sense idea:  homework only when necessary.  Right now, by contrast, we’re effectively saying to kids, “We’re going to make you do homework just about every night.  Later on, we’ll figure out what to make you do.”  The premise here is that homework, per se – that is, irrespective of its content – is valuable.  And that’s a position not only unsupported by evidence but really quite bizarre when you think about it.

If you think about it.  Which so many folks don’t.  Which is why I’m so delighted that you have.

-- Alfie Kohn
www.alfiekohn.org

Read the fellows’ spirited listserv discussions on Alfie Kohn's Abusing Research: The Study of Homework & Other Examples.