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9134 in the collection
An Interview with Alfie Kohn: About the Homework Book
Ohanian Comment: I wish I had a dollar for every parent and grandparent who has written me, complaining about homework. Family life is terribly distorted and deformed by the homework imperative.
Interviewer: Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales , New Mexico
Alfie Kohn is the author of eleven books on education, parenting, and human behavior, including PUNISHED BY REWARDS (1993), BEYOND DISCIPLINE (1996), THE SCHOOLS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE (1999), WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WELL EDUCATED? (2004), UNCONDITIONAL PARENTING (2005), and, most recently, THE HOMEWORK MYTH (2006). He has written for most of the leading education periodicals and has appeared twice on "Oprah." Time magazine described him as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores." Kohn works with educators and parents across the country and speaks regularly at national conferences. He lives (actually) in the Boston area and (virtually) at http://www.alfiekohn.org.
1. You have recently written a book about homework. What have you found?
AK: Well, I began with the premise that, as parents know, homework is often responsible for stress and family conflict, that it gets in the way of other things kids would like to do after they finish six or seven hours of school, and that homework is viewed so negatively by children that it may diminish their interest in learning. But teachers continue to assign homework (in ever greater amounts, in fact, at least in the elementary grades) and parents continue to put up with it – presumably because they assume that the benefits outweigh the costs. Specifically, it's assumed that homework helps kids to learn better, or at least raises achievement levels as measured in conventional ways. So that's where I began. And, amazingly, it turns out that the evidence simply doesn't support this belief.
2) You're saying that homework doesn't help at all?
AK: For starters, there are no data whatsoever to show that elementary school students benefit from doing homework. None. And even in high school there's only a modest correlation between time spent on homework and achievement – with little reason to think that the achievement was caused by doing more homework. Then there's other evidence, including a brand-new study of TIMSS data from 50 countries, and it shows no positive effects from homework, even for older students. I wasn't able to find any reason to believe that students would be at any sort of intellectual disadvantage if they had no homework at all.
3) Timothy Z. Keith has done the most research (to my knowledge) on homework. If you have reviewed his work, where do you see the pitfalls or shortcomings?
AK: Keith's work is an interesting case in point, as a matter of fact. In the early ‘80s, he looked at survey results from a huge sample of high school students and concluded that homework had a positive relationship to achievement, at least at that age. But a funny thing happened ten years later when he and a colleague looked at homework alongside other possible influences on learning such as quality of instruction, motivation, and which classes the students took. When all these variables were entered into the equation simultaneously, the result was “puzzling and surprising” (as they put it): Homework no longer had any meaningful effect on achievement at all. In other words, a set of findings that served as a prominent basis for the claim that homework raises achievement turns out to be spurious. Oops.
4) Does homework develop any sort of study skills or self-discipline?
AK: The idea that doing homework provides non -academic benefits has become the fallback argument for people who seem to want kids to have to take academic assignments home regardless of what the research shows. Unfortunately, the news isn't any better here. To the best of my knowledge, there's simply no evidence to support claims that homework helps children develop good work habits, independence, self-discipline, responsibility, or anything of the sort. And when you look more carefully at these characteristics, rather than just accepting such claims on faith, it becomes clearer why homework is unlikely to produce these results. The more concerned we are about nonacademic effects, in fact, the more reason there is to conclude that homework does more harm than good.
5) If the research is so clear, why does homework persist?
AK: Well, that's exactly the question that occupies me through most of The Homework Myth . I see homework as a case study, really – one of many possible examples where our practices are strikingly inconsistent with the data. I propose half a dozen answers. One has to do with widespread misconceptions about learning, including a naďve belief that more “time on task” produces greater success, and a residual acceptance of behaviorist orthodoxy that leads us to talk about “reinforcing” learning through drill and practice. Then there's the whole Tougher Standards mindset that still has education in its grip, with an emphasis on intensification, test scores, and competitiveness. It's not about helping kids to understand ideas; it's about being able to chant “We're number one!”
6) Tough question- if homework is not assigned, then doesn't the child run to the television, to the Internet to the video games or even worse to sexual behavior or juvenile delinquency?
AK: Ah, yes, and there we have one of the other reasons that homework persists despite the lack of supporting evidence: a fundamental distrust of children. Many of us are suspicious of what kids would do with more free time. Homework on this view is, quite literally, busywork -- a way to “keep the young ones moral after school.” Moreover, we're doubtful that kids would learn anything if they weren't given very specific assignments. This cynical view of children has been around for millennia, of course, and it proves as misguided as it is disrespectful. Interestingly, schools that have eliminated traditional homework tend to find that their students are freed up to pursue challenging and deeply gratifying learning activities in the afternoons and evenings. And that's to say nothing of organized extracurricular activities.
7) Speaking of which, some kids go to basketball, football, soccer and other practices after school. Are you saying this is more important than homework?
AK: Personally, I'm not a big fan of competitive sports (for reasons I've explained elsewhere), but I'm not sure that my judgment here necessarily ought to carry the day. I think families ought to have the right to decide what they want to do with their afternoons. For what it's worth, a fair amount of research suggests that extracurricular activities more generally can be enormously beneficial. But I'm not sure we need research here. I think when school is over kids should be able to get some exercise, make friends and socialize with them, get some rest, hang out alone, read something of their own choosing, or just be a child. If they want to just chill, that's fine, too. Heaven knows most adults after a busy day relish the chance to do nothing. Why should children have to work a second shift? The case for letting kids play ball or surf the Internet is strengthened, I think, by the failure to find any research showing that homework is necessary for intellectual growth, to say nothing of its effects on social or emotional development.
8) So are you saying we should get rid of all homework? That it's all equally worthless?
AK: To answer the latter question first, no, it's not all equally worthless. An in-depth project that helps students understand ideas from the inside-out is a hell of a lot better than a packet of worksheets or a requirement to read another chapter of a dull, committee-written textbook and answer the questions at the end. An experiment that needs to be conducted in a kitchen makes more sense than something that could just as easily be done at school. An assignment that the kids together have decided, during a class meeting, ought to spill over to the evening is probably going to have more beneficial effects than an assignment that the teacher unilaterally comes up with and imposes on them. (Or worse, an assignment that the teacher didn't even come up with but just photocopied.)
My primary suggestion is that we should change the default. Right now, most teachers and administrators aren't saying, “It may be useful to do this particular project at home.” Rather, the point of departure seems to be: “We've decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several times a week). Later on we'll figure out what to make them do.” That commitment to homework in the abstract – irrespective of its content -- strikes me as indefensible. So what I propose, very simply, is that educators should have to opt in -- make a point of deciding to assign homework in a given instance when it's really appropriate -- rather than opt out. In other words, students should be asked to take schoolwork home only when a there's a reasonable likelihood that a particular assignment will be beneficial to most of them. And any assessment of its effects should take into account its impact on their interest in learning.
What I'm proposing is controversial, I realize – and that's nothing new for me. If people disagree strenuously, or want to challenge the evidence I cite, that's fine. Let's get a discussion going. What drives me crazy is the absence of discussion, the reluctance to challenge the status quo, the tendency to fall back on folk wisdom (“practice makes perfect”) rather than examining the data. And then there's the preference for asking only peripheral questions (“Is an hour of homework too much?” “Should students be able to consult the Internet?”) rather than the questions that matter: “What reason is there to think that any homework on this topic is necessary?” “How much say did the kids have in deciding what to do?” “Who should decide how children spend their evenings?” “If kids who attend schools that give no homework at all are doing just fine academically, then why do we assume it's necessary?”
You and I may end up with different answers, but let's at least have the courage to ask the questions.
— Michael F. Shaughnessy interviews Alfie Kohn
Education News
2006-08-14
INDEX OF OUTRAGES Pages: 366
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