From The Washington Post Answer Sheet edited by Valerie
Strauss | http://wapo.st/1PhEM6t
March 18 at 11:27 AM
:: Anyone who closely follows the
debate about the value of homework at different grades knows about a famous
meta-analysis of previous research on the subject, published in 2006 by
researcher Harris Cooper and colleagues, which found that homework in
elementary school does not contribute to academic achievement. You might think
that educators would have taken that to heart, but because research rarely
informs educational policy, it didn’t.
Today, children in preschool — that’s 3- and 4-year-olds —
routinely get homework in the form of dull worksheets. A February 2016 report
on New York City’s pre-kindergarten program reported this:
● Out-of-school enrichment activities was
another way pre-K programs engage parents in children’s learning at home.
Homework most often consisted of worksheet packets and reading with the child
or instructions to practice with children what they are learning at school.
Parents in the focus groups voiced strong opinions about homework, with some
favoring it and others feeling it was not age-appropriate for preschoolers to
have homework; some felt their children
had too little and others too much. On the positive side, parents enjoyed engaging
with their children and saw homework as a window into what they were learning
at school.
● On the other hand,
some parents felt their children had too much homework and preferred their
children to spend more time at play. Most felt the daily requirement of reading
a book to the child was important and key to their child’s reading and
vocabulary progress. One parent pointed out that some of the content of the
homework is beyond the child’s knowledge so parents are almost “required” to
teach it at home. To encourage children to enjoy reading, one center loans each
child a book every week that parents are expected to read with their child.
In Cambridge, Mass., one principal faced the homework issue
and did something about it. She is Katie Charner-Laird, principal of Cambridgeport School, which
educates students from what it calls “junior kindergarten” through fifth grade.
Charner-Laird is a progressive educator who wrote the following piece about
what happened when she led her team to reevaluate homework and whether it was
important to assign. This appeared on the website of the nonprofit organization
National Association for the Education of Young Children, and I am republishing
it with permission.
____________________________
By Katie Charner-Laird, principal of Cambridgeport School
In 2014, I found myself in one too many meetings with
discontent parents talking about homework.
Some parents felt the homework was not meaningful. Others were upset because they felt there was
not enough feedback from teachers. Still, other parents wanted teachers to be
individualizing homework more. In each
of these meetings, it became uncomfortably clear that I really didn’t know what
was happening across the school with regards to homework.
By the end of that year, I had made one firm commitment both
to myself and to several parents. We
would spend some time as a staff, before the next school year started,
articulating our beliefs and approach to homework, and develop what some might
call a homework policy.
Over that summer, I read a number of articles about how we
have to get better at homework, the argument being that homework is a problem for children and
families because it is tedious and doesn’t ask children to think critically and
creatively. While I didn’t completely
disagree with these articles, I also didn’t find a strong rationale for why we
give homework or how much homework we should be giving.
I had heard of Alfie Kohn’s book, “The Homework Myth,” but
in truth, I was avoiding reading it. As
a former teacher, I had always felt that homework was a critical part of
children learning organizational skills and responsibility and a way to
practice newly developed skills.
Moreover, the idea of getting rid of homework seemed a bit too
unconventional. But when I finally did pick up “The Homework Myth,” I couldn’t
put it down. One by one, my reasons for considering homework an essential part
of the elementary school experience were dismantled.
HOMEWORK: AN UNNECESSARY EVIL? SURPRISING FINDINGS FROM RESEARCH, by Alfie Kohn | http://wapo.st/1TVj2p3]
Time management and organizational skills: Kohn points out
that rather than teaching time management to students, homework actually
requires parents to do more to organize children’s time.
Newly learned skills: Kohn argues that it is rare that all
students need the same practice at the end of a lesson. For some, additional practice may be confusing, while for others, it may be unnecessary.
What the research says: Kohn scoured the research to find
that there is no evidence that homework in elementary school leads to an
increase in student achievement.
At our opening staff meetings last August, I asked teachers
to read excerpts from “The Homework Myth,” and discuss the article with
grade-level colleagues. Many teachers
were as dumbfounded as I was when challenged to think about their long-held
beliefs about homework. I asked each
grade level team to decide on a common homework approach for the coming school
year. While I knew where I stood on the
homework issue at this point, I felt it was important for teachers to make
these decisions themselves after I had provided them with research and the
opportunities to discuss it. As I met with each grade-level team, I also felt
it was my responsibility to ensure that there was some semblance of a
trajectory from kindergarten through fifth grade.
THE SCHOOL’S NEW HOMEWORK POLICY:
Last school year for the first time, I knew the homework expectations for each
class in the school!
● In kindergarten, students dictate stories to
their families on a regular basis, but with no official due dates. Parents were encouraged to read to their
children, but there were no set expectations for how much or how often.
● Starting in first
grade, students were expected to read nightly and this included families
reading to children.
● Most grade-level
teams opted out of reading logs or other accountability structures, noting that
these often devolved into a meaningless checklists lacking accountability
altogether.
● Third graders were
asked to write nightly. Students determine the content and form of their
writing, which is not graded. Third
graders are also expected to practice their math facts based on both grade
level expectations and personal levels of mastery.
In my experiences as both principal and teacher, parents often voice two significant
complaints: homework either took too long, or not long enough; AND parents
didn’t understand the homework, so they couldn’t help their child. These issues have been addressed in our new approach
to homework. All homework is now open-ended enough to avoid these common
complaints.
Teachers give parents information about other elements also
taught in class so they can be supportive of the related homework. When a teacher asks students to read for 30
minutes, some students may read 10 pages, and others may read 30. Parents can help children find a regular time
to do that homework because the time needed is consistent. Moreover, if a parent wants a child to do
more homework, it is quite simple to just have them keep reading. There is no
“wrong way” to do the homework. And this has led to many families reporting
that the level of stress in their household has decreased dramatically.
So in 2014, Cambridgeport became “the school that doesn’t
give homework,” yet I heard repeatedly from students, teachers, and parents
about the significant, meaningful work they are doing at home. A fourth grader begged to take home his
writing notebook on the third day of school so he could keep working on the story
he had started in class. A class of
fifth graders requested additional
practice problems to take home with them.
A father-daughter pair showed me the model they created of the setting
of the book they were reading together.
Our school may be giving less homework but we have more
students engaged in more meaningful learning activities at home than ever
before.
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