Debates rage on about the degree of value (or harm) that homework has on kids. Almost everybody reading this article has muscled through countless hours of homework, some hating it, some loving it, while most perhaps consider it a benign, boring necessity.
On the one hand, homework has survived centuries of education reform, and is still thriving, so it must have at least some significant value. However, modern research in education has shattered these past norms producing hundreds of schools that focus on the student's overall development, leaving traditional homework assignments out of their system all together.
Why Traditional Schooling Advocates Homework
It seems the value of homework in traditional education is to bridge the gap between school and home. Teachers can cover far more material in a given year, and it's also believed to develop disciplined study habits and inculcate a feeling of independence through student initiative. By being held to account for concrete assignments, a student experiences personal responsibility and sense of accomplishment. Personally, I very much remember and appreciate the sense of accomplishment, even though I hated every aspect of homework.
Finishing was awesome!
An Argument Against Homework
Getting more work done in a given year is wonderful as long as the work itself has value to the individual. Many (if not most) students feel their school assignments have little "real world" value to them.
Those feelings are proven true by the TV Show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" where fully functioning, productive adults are challenged to answer the types of questions traditional 5th graders are expected to know. When the adult answers incorrectly, there is a sense of embarrassment and humor. Yet the lesson I get from that is 5th graders are learning PURE trivia. They're learning facts that lose their value after the 5th grade. So does it make sense to request kids learn even more of this trivia in a given year, by taking on homework?
In regard to accountability, that's developed equally well by ALL activities that involve other people. Every act of communication will only be understood by a listener, if the speaker expresses themselves clearly enough. If the words are mumbled, for example, the listener will hold the speaker to account, by saying something like "Huh? I didn't hear what you said" and now the speaker gets a second chance to communicate. This is real-world accountability and it happens naturally in human interactions.
There is more to Life than Homework
If the child is cooped up in his room completing assignments which seem meaningless to him, just so he gets a grade in school, he's learning less about the subject and more that life is drudgery. At schools without traditional curriculums like The Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, MA, the kids still learn all the basics of human knowledge: reading, writing, math, they just learn that at a pace and in a style that fits for them.
I was once volunteering at a school in Los Angeles, CA called Play Mountain Place where they too are free to create their own learning paths. The kids had friends in traditional schools who would have homework assignments, and a few of the kids felt left out. "WE WANT HOMEWORK!" They demanded. The staff members asked them if they were serious and the kids assured them they were. The staff promptly assigned them homework in their preferred are of study, and off the kids went with their assignments. The next they came back, assignments were finished, although they lost interest in having another assignment. I asked one student why and she said "Because I would rather do other things."
New Thoughts on Education
The Industrial Age required students to be mostly focused on values like obedience. Work that felt like drudgery was the most many could expect or even hope for. In the Industrial Age, there is no job security, the web has drastically shifted entire industries, nearly killing some and creating fertile ground for the rise and reach of thousands of new ones. Kids today need to be agile, intuitive, and open to a faster rate of change than ever before in human civilization. Homework is device leftover from an outdated learning system and its value for the future leaders of our world should be seriously questioned.
(c) 2008,
Brooks Elms All rights reserved. Reprint rights granted so long as article and by-line are published intact and with all links made live.
Brooks Elms fiercely writes, directs and produces films, winning awards and thrilling audiences around the globe for the last 20 years. His latest film, "Schooled" is like "Kid Nation" meets "Dead Poets Society" and it fundamentally changes the way people think about education.
www.SchooledTheFilm.com
