Last week, I was having a conversation with Dustin, a 5-year old, who attends a preschool in Lewis Center, OH. I was watching my daughter play at a park when Dustin came up to me and started talking to me about his school work. He started talking about the homework he had and what he was “studying.” I was a little taken aback that he had “homework” at this age and it triggered an interest in researching the value of it, especially in young children.

One of the key elements of 360 Academy is that we believe learning happens best with no homework, no tests, no grades, and no lectures. These aspects are aligned with our principles of education. Each of the principles is backed by research and best practices. However, I hadn’t detailed out why Homework isn’t valuable. This post is my attempt to detail the research I have been doing over the past week to learn more about (lack of) the correlation between homework and learning.

I recently finished reading Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. In it, Kohn talks about how grades are a demotivating factor for students. This is something that is backed by research and I’ve highlighted this in other posts regarding learning in schools. Kohn has also written another book (one which I have yet to read), The Homework Myth.

In blog posts on his website, Kohn comments on what the research tells us about the value of homework.

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. none), or more (vs. less), and, on the other hand, any measure of achievement. 

That’s an incredible statement. “No research has ever found a benefit to assigning homework in elementary school.”

Is it that straightforward? As you would expect, this topic is controversial and the debate has been ongoing for a century. The counterargument is, according to Harris Cooper, a neuroscience professor at Duke University, that the amount of homework correlates with performance on in-class tests. His research indicates that this is especially evident among older children in 7th - 12th grade.

Does that mean we don’t given younger students much homework? There is a “10 minute” rule of thumb that is popular in the education community. It states that for every grade, starting in first grade, students should get 10 minutes of homework. So, for example, a second grader should get 20 minutes and a third grader should get 30 minutes of homework.

Is that what actually happens? Not exactly. A 2015 study shows that each night kindergartners were spending 25 minutes, first graders 28 minutes, and second graders 29 minutes, on homework.

So the study shows that we’re giving our kids way too much homework. And whether it’s beneficial or not, what’s the downside of keeping them busy? Sure, it may “keep them busy” but that shouldn’t be our goal as educators and parents. What are the implications of forcing them to do something that they have little interest in and what are the costs to it?

• For students, the stress of homework kills the love of learning. Students begin to associate homework with learning and, very soon, the joy of learning becomes “having to do homework”. To put it another way, it kills curiosity. Completing homework becomes about the homework, not about learning. Students at the earliest age begin to realize the reward is to complete the homework. It’s not about continuing to grow and learn something new.

• For students, homework is hurting their creativity and critical thinking skills. Our minds are naturally curious. We explore the unknown and discover new ways to overcome challenges. This goes for all of us, including children who spend a lot of time on video games. They are looking for ways to overcome hurdles. Homework requires you to “stay in the box”, to think “within the box” and conform to the “rules of the box.” Follow the rules and you’ll meet the criteria that schools have laid out for success. That kills our natural creativity and critical thinking.

• For families, homework can kill valuable family time. We, as parents, are our children’s biggest influence, at least before they turn 8, according to research. Despite that, over time, we get limited time with our children. Between school, extracurricular activities, and personal time, it becomes hard to find quality time with our children. Add on homework and it makes it even worse.

• For teachers, homework reduces quality of instruction. Creating assignments and grading them is a time drain. It’s exhausting and, often, one of the most time consuming activities teachers have to do. At Acton Academy, we allow students to drive their own learning but in traditional schools, teachers have to balance their time on grading homework vs. building instructional material for the next day’s topic. For every moment, they’re spending on homework, they’re less focused on quality of instruction.

So we’re left with one argument for assigning homework (improvement of in-class test performance) and a bunch of downsides. Kohn perfectly responds to the supposed upside by stating, “If all you want is to cram kids’ heads with facts for tomorrow’s tests that they’re going to forget by next week, yeah, if you give them more time and make them do the cramming at night, that could raise the scores. But if you’re interested in kids who know how to think or enjoy learning, then homework isn’t merely ineffective, but counterproductive.”