On Homework: Busy Work

Ben Wildavsky:

Perhaps homework really is out of control in certain (generally affluent) schools and districts. But that would be a far narrower problem than the national epidemic these authors describe. Their books are best understood as part of a broader ideological struggle over the direction of American education. From his approving invocation of Noam Chomsky to his denunciation of testing and other accountability-based reforms, it’s clear that Kohn sees homework as just one more instrument of social control. Even the valid points he makes (for instance, that the correlation between homework and academic achievement in some grades doesn’t necessarily imply causation) are undercut by his tendentious approach. There’s no small irony in a professional provocateur like Kohn accusing respected researchers of being “polemicists” who cherry-pick studies to buttress their preexisting views. Bennett and Kalish, though less overtly political, are just as apt to cast children in the role of an oppressed class.
It’s a shame these volumes aren’t more credible. Averages notwithstanding, some kids certainly do get buried in assignments of dubious worth — and in those cases Bennett and Kalish’s lobbying tips could prove useful. Similarly, Kohn’s insistence that schools justify both the quantity and quality of the work they’re assigning is perfectly reasonable. But in the absence of more persuasive evidence that American kids are plagued by excessive, rather than insufficient, academic rigor — homework included — parents and policymakers should look elsewhere for a nuanced and reliable guide to this eminently worthy subject. ·

6 thoughts on “On Homework: Busy Work”

  1. I just read last weeks Newsweek that covered this very topic. I was going to write a blog on the article but I’ve been too busy helping my kids with their homework…..just kidding.
    I do find it an interesting cultural issue. Many parents are so concerned that Johnny doesn’t have homework because Sally across the street is doing homework every night and she therefore is what?…smarter, more tired, accelerated, burned out? Which is it? I know as a parent I love the “find something fun out questions” that my kids bring home. I hate the “There is a report due in 3 weeks and I expect footnotes” for a fourth grader that has no idea and will not receive any info on what a footnote is homework.
    I also have an ongoing comedy skit on the stupid Flat Stanley. I have way too many neices and nephews and I have lived in Alaska for 7 years prior to Wisconsin…so I can tell you I was everyone’s favorite Aunt. The funny thing is by the time I got the 10th Flat Stanley I was ready to shred him in our shredder. I was to again take him with me everywhere, take photos, and write a discription of what he did with me all day and I realized I was doing this child’s work and not this kid who could look it up on the internet or the old fashion encyclopedia. Homework is only useful if the child is learning. I went to school already. I don’t need more work. And amazingly enough neither my kids, myself or my husband want to work two more hours time three kids a night after a full day! Homeschooler’s get their stuff done in a morning and we send our kids on the bus at 8 and they come home at 3:45 and they still didn’t get enough. Really? What did they do all day at school? Perhaps we need to rethink the school year, school day and find a better system.

  2. The “excessive” homework I’ve seen is the homework that is hands-on without being minds-on — busywork, with little or no relevance to the what I would expect to be the core subject matter. I’ve seen, and my daughter has experienced too many assignments like that
    Perhaps this is a reflection of the current vogue of the “7 Intelligences” — do the same things 7 different ways.
    Even when homework was not excessive for a course, often it is not clear what the homework was meant to accomplish. And Mary’s citation of footnotes-required-without-instruction is a good example that the teacher was supposed to “cover” certain material and used that age-old methodology of “teaching by mentioning it.”

  3. There is nothing wrong with homework, and the arguments by the authors of the two books reviewed seem a tad extreme, e.g., homework as a cause of childhood obesity.
    The problems with homework is when educators come to view the amount of homework assigned as an indicator of academic rigor. Piling on homework doesn’t necessarily lead to more learning. Another problem with homework is when teachers assign work without any real purpose except to keep students busy. We had an elementary school teacher who required students to do 30 minutes of homework each night regardless of whether or not they could complete the assignment in a shorter amount of time, in which case they had to find their own busy work to fill the time.

  4. Ah, Alfie Kohn.
    I hope all of you have seen the Alfie Kohn article that someone (on the inside) distributed to the West English faculty last year.
    http://tagparents.org/papers/kohn.htm
    As I wrote to MMSD Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools Pam Nash when I sent her the link, “When you read it, I trust you will understand why parents are feeling so hurt and angry, knowing that someone over there passed this article out. It’s really a very ugly, vicious piece. If it were about any other group of parents in the District, well, can you imagine?”
    Meanwhile, Jeff heard at the West PTSO meeting tonight that some of the English 10 teachers are discouraging students from taking the embedded honors option, telling them that a) the class is difficult enough, b) the honors option only exists because people outside the school want it, and 3) it’s going to be hard doing small group work if you’re reading a different textbook than your group mates.
    So much for differentiation.
    Meanwhile, I invite you to savor this quote from a 12/23/05 email from Mary Ramberg (former Director of Teaching and Learning) to U.W. Professor Adam Gamoran (who presented on grouping strategies to the BOE Performance and Achievement Committee last January): ” … I think the chapter makes a great case for how tracking is detrimental for those in the low achievers track. And you present evidence of strategies that seem to work to mitigate those negative effects. … Given what you say about how difficult it is for teachers to challenge the high achieving students in heterogeneously grouped classrooms, and that it is possible to create tracked classes that don’t have those negative effects, what do you recommend?”
    Certainly not a one-size-fits-all curriculum, complete with teacher efforts to undermine students who want whatever minimal greater challenge they can get!

  5. Laurie,
    The article includes this quote from someone: [TAG parents] are concerned that their children learn.
    Isn’t it bizarre that a parent would be criticized for wanting his or her child to learn? Would it be better if [TAG parents] weren’t concerned?
    Would anyone criticize an African-American parent who is “concerned that their children learn?”
    This education stuff makes Wonderland look logical.

Comments are closed.