Alfie kohn homework

For a more detailed look at the issues discussed here — including a comprehensive list of citations to relevant research and a discussion of successful efforts to effect change– please see the book the homework myth. Many parents lament the impact of homework on their relationship with their children; they may also resent having to play the role of enforcer and worry that they will be criticized either for not being involved enough with the homework or for becoming too involved. For starters, there is absolutely no evidence of any academic benefit from assigning homework in elementary or middle school. For younger students, in fact, there isn’t even a correlation between whether children do homework (or how much they do) and any meaningful measure of achievement. Meanwhile, no study has ever substantiated the belief that homework builds character or teaches good study habits. Homework in most schools isn’t limited to those occasions when it seems appropriate and important. Ve heard from countless people across the country about the frustration they feel over homework. And teachers who have long harbored doubts about the value of homework feel pressured by those parents who mistakenly believe that a lack of afterschool assignments reflects an insufficient commitment to academic achievement. They need principals who question the slogans that pass for arguments:  that homework creates a link between school and family (as if there weren’t more constructive ways to make that connection! All, principals need to help their faculties see that the most important criterion for judging decisions about homework (or other policies, for that matter) is the impact they’re likely to have on students’ attitudes about what they’re doing. Most of what homework is doing is driving kids away from learning,” says education professor harvey daniels. Let’s face it:  most children dread homework, or at best see it as something to be gotten through. Make sure you know what the research really says – that there is no reason to believe that children would be at any disadvantage in terms of their academic learning or life skills if they had much less homework, or even none at all.

Alfie kohn homework myth

Requiring teachers to give a certain number of minutes of homework every day, or to make assignments on the same schedule every week (for example, x minutes of math on tuesdays and thursdays) is a frank admission that homework isn’t justified by a given lesson, much less is it a response to what specific kids need at a specific time. Many parents are understandably upset with how much time their children have to spend on homework. As one mother told me, “it’s cheating to say this is 20 minutes of homework if only your fastest kid can complete it in that time. Then work on reducing the amount of homework irrespective of such guidelines and expectations so that families, not schools, decide how they will spend most of their ty, however, is not the only issue that needs to be addressed. Teachers should be invited to reflect on whether any given example of homework will help students think deeply about questions that matter. This, of course, is a reversal of the current default state, which amounts to an endorsement of homework for its own sake, regardless of the content, a view that simply can’t be justified. Find out what students think of homework and solicit their suggestions – perhaps by distributing anonymous questionnaires. Many adults simply assume that homework is useful for promoting learning without even inquiring into the experience of the learners themselves! On those days when homework really seems necessary, teachers should create several assignments fitted to different interests and capabilities. But it’s better to give no homework to anyone than the same homework to everyone. Students should have something to say about what they’re going to learn and the circumstances under which they’ll learn it, as well as how (and when) their learning will be evaluated, how the room will be set up, how conflicts will be resolved, and a lot is true of education in general is true of homework in particular. A reasonable first question for a parent to ask upon seeing a homework assignment is “how much say did the kids have in determining how this had to be done, and on what schedule, and whether it really needed to be completed at home in the first place? Discussion about whether homework might be useful (and why) can be valuable in its own right.

Teachers who consult with their students on a regular basis would shake their heads vigorously were you to suggest that kids will always say no to homework – or to anything else that requires effort. When students are treated with respect, when the assignments are worth doing, most kids relish a , on the other hand, students groan about, or try to avoid, homework, it’s generally because they get too much of it, or because it’s assigned thoughtlessly and continuously, or simply because they had nothing to say about it. As the eminent educator martin haberman observed, homework in the best classrooms “is not checked – it is shared. If students conclude that there’s no point in spending time on assignments that aren’t going to be collected or somehow recorded, that’s not an argument for setting up bribes and threats and a climate of distrust; it’s an indictment of the homework itself. Ask teachers who are reluctant to rethink their long-standing reliance on traditional homework to see what happens if, during a given week or curriculum unit, they tried assigning none. Surely anyone who believes that homework is beneficial should be willing to test that assumption by investigating the consequences of its absence. Considerable gumption is required to take on an issue like homework, particularly during an era when phrases like “raising the bar” and “higher standards” are used to rationalize practices that range from foolish to inappropriate to hair-raising. But of course a principal’s ultimate obligation is to do what’s right by the children, to protect them from harmful mandates and practices that persist not because they’re valuable but merely because they’re anyone willing to shake things up in order to do what makes sense, beginning a conversation about homework is a very good place to are awash in articles and books that claim homework is beneficial – or simply take the existence or value of homework for granted and merely offer suggestions for how it ought to be assigned, or what techniques parents should use to make children complete it. The case against homework:  how homework is hurting our children and what we can do about it (new york:  crown, 2006). The homework myth:  why our kids get too much of a bad thing (cambridge, ma: da capo press, 2006). The end of homework: how homework disrupts families, overburdens children, and limits learning  (boston:  beacon press, 2000). Brand-new study on the academic effects of homework offers not only some intriguing results but also a lesson on how to read a study -- and a reminder of the importance of doing just that: reading studies (carefully) rather than relying on summaries by journalists or even by the researchers 's start by reviewing what we know from earlier investigations. 1] first, no research has ever found a benefit to assigning homework (of any kind or in any amount) in elementary school.

In fact, there isn't even a positive correlation between, on the one hand, having younger children do some homework (vs. If we're making 12-year-olds, much less five-year-olds, do homework, it's either because we're misinformed about what the evidence says or because we think kids ought to have to do homework despite what the evidence , even at the high school level, the research supporting homework hasn't been particularly persuasive. There does seem to be a correlation between homework and standardized test scores, but (a) it isn't strong, meaning that homework doesn't explain much of the variance in scores, (b) one prominent researcher, timothy keith, who did find a solid correlation, returned to the topic a decade later to enter more variables into the equation simultaneously, only to discover that the improved study showed that homework had no effect after all[2], and (c) at best we're only talking about a correlation -- things that go together -- without having proved that doing more homework causes test scores to go up. When homework is related to test scores, the connection tends to be strongest -- or, actually, least tenuous -- with math. If homework turns out to be unnecessary for students to succeed in that subject, it's probably unnecessary comes a new study, then, that focuses on the neighborhood where you'd be most likely to find a positive effect if one was there to be found: math and science homework in high school. Thousands of students are asked one question -- how much time do you spend on homework? When kids in these two similar datasets were asked how much time they spent on math homework each day, those in the nels study said 37 minutes, whereas those in the els study said 60 minutes. They just move right along -- even though those estimates raise troubling questions about the whole project, and about all homework studies that are based on self-report. They emphasized the latter, but let's get the former out of the way there a correlation between the amount of homework that high school students reported doing and their scores on standardized math and science tests? Yes, and it was statistically significant but "very modest": even assuming the existence of a causal relationship, which is by no means clear, one or two hours' worth of homework every day buys you two or three points on a test. Thus, a headline that reads "study finds homework boosts achievement" can be translated as "a relentless regimen of after-school drill-and-skill can raise scores a wee bit on tests of rote learning. They were proud of having looked at transcript data in order to figure out "the exact grade a student received in each class [that he or she] completed" so they could compare that to how much homework the student did. There was no relationship whatsoever between time spent on homework and course grade, and "no substantive difference in grades between students who complete homework and those who do not.

When you measure "achievement" in terms of grades, you expect to see a positive result -- not because homework is academically beneficial but because the same teacher who gives the assignments evaluates the students who complete them, and the final grade is often based at least partly on whether, and to what extent, students did the homework. Even if homework were a complete waste of time, how could it not be positively related to course grades? The study zeroed in on specific course grades, which represents a methodological improvement, and the moral may be: the better the research, the less likely one is to find any benefits from homework. We got a hint of that from timothy keith's reanalysis and also from the fact that longer homework studies tend to find less of an effect. 6] like others in this field, they seem to have approached the topic already convinced that homework is necessary and potentially beneficial, so the only question we should ask is how -- not whether -- to assign it. The assumption that teachers are just assigning homework badly, that we'd start to see meaningful results if only it were improved, is harder and harder to justify with each study that's experience is any guide, however, many people will respond to these results by repeating platitudes about the importance of practice[8], or by complaining that anyone who doesn't think kids need homework is coddling them and failing to prepare them for the "real world" (read: the pointless tasks they'll be forced to do after they leave school). Those open to evidence, however, have been presented this fall with yet another finding that fails to find any meaningful benefit even when the study is set up to give homework every benefit of the doubt. It's important to remember that some people object to homework for reasons that aren't related to the dispute about whether research might show that homework provides academic benefits. Evaluating the association between homework and achievement in high school science and math," the high school journal, october/november 2012: 52-72. Other research has found little or no correlation between how much homework students report doing and how much homework their parents say they do. View a small, unrepresentative slice of a child's life and it may appear that homework makes a contribution to achievement; keep watching, and that contribution is eventually revealed to be illusory. See data provided -- but not interpreted this way -- by cooper, the battle over homework, 2nd ed. Even the title of their article reflects this: they ask "when is homework worth the time?

He had contributed earlier to another study whose results similarly ended up raising questions about the value of homework. At first a very small relationship was found between the amount of homework that students had had in high school and how well they were currently faring. The researchers then studied a much larger population of students in college science classes - and found the same thing: homework simply didn't help. Of my book the homework myth (cambridge, ma: da capo, 2006), an adaptation of which appears as "abusing research: the study of homework and other examples," phi delta kappan, september 2006 . 106-18, also available at http:/// alfie kohn on twitter:Homework: new research suggests it may be an unnecessary breaking news are herehome / teen / school / case against than ever, it seems as though being a modern parent means wrestling with thorny social, tech and school issues. That depends on your point of view, and we want to know kids are younger, homework is rarely an issue—a worksheet or two, spelling lists, 20 minutes of reading. Some parents don't mind when teachers pile it on, figuring, plenty of homework must mean my kid is really learning something, right? This arrangement is rather odd when you stop to think about it, as is the fact that few of us ever do stop to think about d of assuming that homework should be a given, or that it allegedly benefits children, i've spent the last few years reviewing the available research and talking to parents, teachers and students. My findings can be summarized in seven words: homework is all pain and no pain is obvious to kids but isn't always taken seriously by adults. Most of what homework is doing," says literacy expert harvey daniels, "is driving kids away from learning. After being away from our children all day, the first words out of our mouths, sadly, may be: "so, did you finish your homework? Even if you regard grades or test scores as good measures of learning, which i do not, doing homework has no statistical relationship to achievement in elementary school. In high school, some studies do find a correlation between homework and test scores, but it's usually fairly small.

And if you're wondering, not a single study has ever supported the folk wisdom that homework teaches good work habits or develops positive character traits such as self-discipline, responsibility or teachers know all this but feel compelled to keep assigning homework for tradition's sake, or because of pressure from administrators or, ironically, parents. In my experience, people with the least sophisticated understanding of how children learn, or the least amount of concern about children's attitudes toward learning, tend to be the most enthusiastic supporters of might forgive the infringement on family time if homework were assigned only when there was good reason to think that this particular task would benefit these particular students, that it will help them think more deeply about questions that matter and create more excitement about learning (and that it can't be done at school). If there's a persuasive defense of that approach, i've never heard only should there be much less homework assigned, there ought to be none at all of the worst types, such as filling out worksheets or cramming forgettable facts into short-term memory. Because most homework can't be justified, some teachers, and even some whole schools, have stopped assigning it altogether, with fabulous parents need to reach out to others in our communities to debunk uninformed assumptions ("homework is academically beneficial"), to challenge silly claims ("homework is needed to provide a link between school and family"), and to help restore sanity and joy to our children's lives. Wiggle one thread and many others will move as ing on from his lecture on the case against competition, which i reflected upon here, and a break for dinner, alfie kohn delivered a lecture on the homework myth, as much as i struggled to reconcile some of what alfie said during his competition lecture, much of what was said during this lecture mirrored a lot of my own thoughts on lecture was introduced using the above quote and then alfie spoke about what would happen if we abolished grades. We also, connecting it to the lecture topic, need to consider the purpose of homework and what it is connected ’s next point was interesting. He pointed out that we as adults have all been on the receiving end of homework and typically the vast majority of us as students neither liked nor wanted (and often did not complete) the assigned homework. I do wonder why so many parents continue to want their children to have homework. I had a few parents asking me about homework this term as i had not sent any home in the first two weeks and i responded with a message to all my parents via class dojo that i wouldn’t be assigning any homework other than some reading of interest and perhaps some sumdog, which they love. The students were relieved and i had a few messages from parents who were relieved as why does homework persist? Has the capability to cause stress and frustration in students, frustration in parents; it can cause conflict between parents and their children, loss of time to other activities that a child would rather be doing and is passionate why does homework persist? Those students who are interested and passionate about a topic,  homework or a unit around that topic has the potential to cast a pall over it and kill the passion and desire for learning (there is still mixed evidence for this either way from what i could see of a very quick search). When even those students who consider themselves academically inclined are pleased to have completed their homework and would rather be doing any one of a number of other things, often involving friends we need to ask ourselves why homework still exists.

There is no better way, stated alfie,  of killing a passion for reading than the enforced use of a reading log to monitor how much a child is reading. If you are not sure about rewards and why they are potentially bad, read the previous article in this  of the alleged reasons that support homework is that it supposedly improves achievement. Before going into what alfie had to say on the matter, the definition of achievement here is very important to this statement. Furthermore, at the high school level, the correlation between increased levels of homework and increased test scores is only a very modest correlation and explains very little of the ing the above graph is perhaps a tad facetious, but the website provides some laughs at the bizarre correlations that can be made between unrelated data. Alfie continued by commenting that the relationship between homework and improved achievement is only measurable in standardised tests which do not measure anything other than a student’s ability to answer that set of questions. Alfie also told the audience that the modest correlation disappeared altogether when multi-variables are taken into ’s next point is an interesting one. He commented that cross-cultural tests, such as pisa and timms show a negative correlation between tests and the amount of homework given. Because a quick google scholar search returned a few articles that allege to have found positive relationships between the amount of homework given and general test scores (such as here, here and here), though that is based on reading the abstract only as they are all hidden behind pay-walls. The smithsonianmag website has one very brief article which indicates that some homework has a positive impact on test above image was sourced from a well-written blog by darren kuropatwa (@dkuropatwa) (though it appears to have been sourced from a pirls document) examining the value of homework based upon the assessment matters! The results, it seems, are still inconclusive when looking at this r reason that is often touted for the ongoing assignment of homework is that it builds character, self-discipline, organisation and other similar non-academic benefits, which i have recently seen referred to as soft-skills. Alfie remarked that no study has ever validated this belief, and to my mind, it is not even particularly logical, and even if it were, there are far better ways of teaching children those characteristics. I do not see it as logical due to the fact that the student has to do the homework, whether that is enforced at home by the parent/s or at school by the teacher and therefore no learning of such characteristics is going to occur. Or have them complete minor age appropriate chores, involve them in conversations about organising the grocery list or the household next argument for homework alfie indicated he hears regularly is that it creates a window into the class which seems completely nonsensical to me.

If you genuinely want to develop a relationship or connection between home and school, invite the parents to visit and help out with reading or maths groups, set up a class twitter account for students to share what they are learning, or a class blog so they can publish their writing, art or audiovisual creations and final argument for assigning homework that alfie spoke about was what he called the beguti argument; better get used to it. This is, again, illogical and is used to justify a range of tools such as competitions, marks and group-work and, remarked alfie, developmentally inappropriate. Children do not get better at dealing with negative things by having negative things happen to them at a younger age and using the beguti argument is, alfie noted, akin to giving up the s are often sent home a homework letter that states something along the lines of your child will receive homework on x days or is required to complete the following tasks each week. Further to this, the audience was told that where schools advertise as teaching the whole child, but then assign homework, that they are paying the whole child lip service by assigning additional academic did hear some of the arguments against homework that alfie has heard regularly. Additionally, homework exists, he has been told, because we do not trust children to occupy themselves without wasting time on facebook, computer games etc and as an argument, implies that homework is merely busy work anyway. I find that an intriguing statement as i know that i, and every other adult i know, likes and needs to spend some time doing nothing, or, wasting time, to relax and unwind after being at work or to deal with qualified his dislike of homework by indicating that he can see some occasions when homework should be assigned, but that there should be some criteria for it:The homework will help students think more in-depth about the topic;. Task cannot be completed in school for some genuine reason other than we did not have ing homework should be done after a class discussion with all students and the teacher agreeing that the homework is genuinely needed and that the default setting for homework should be no homework. Students who can complete a task and understand the task and how they completed it initially do not need to complete the homework, and those students who need the homework are likely unable to complete it and having to try and complete it will result in frustration, googling the answer or a parent/guardian completing it for are your thoughts on homework in general and what i have written about alfie’s lecture in particular? I have reached out to jon bergmann for his thoughts on how flipped learning and the research which alfie spoke about are related and i have also reached out to alfie for feedback on both this article and the previous article and to check the accuracy of my interpretation of what he said. Please try again rd youtube autoplay is enabled, a suggested video will automatically play kohn: the 3 most basic needs of children & why schools to escape education's death valley | sir ken is homework helpful? Sara kutscher | to build you kids' self esteem with alfie grades shouldn't exist - alfie stick kohn - education and r boston video: 'the myth of the spoiled child' bucks conventional kohn at the ofjcc: performance vs. Learning - the costs of overemphasizing kohn full case against homework 1 of kohn - education and stick dilemma: homework - good or bad? Kohn - the (alternative) schools our kids deserve - 2011 maap kohn - unorthodox ideas about brainwaves video permissive parents spoiling their children?

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