Alfie Kohn, _The Homework Myth_
Mar. 4th, 2008 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI like Alfie Kohn. I have for years. And years. And years. And I've never been particularly impressed by the idea of homework before high school, so it was relatively inevitable I would like this book.
Kohn (as usual) spends so much time reviewing the eductional literature, you wonder how he stays sane. Educational research is not, after all, particularly well-executed at its best, and he demonstrates clearly how often the conclusions and policy directives diverge sharply from what little evidence there is.
The set up is simple. Homework does not help and probably does harm in younger children. More homework is not better. Practicing stuff wrong is really pointless and disrupting the limited amount of time families have to spend together is an undesirable effect even if it did improve academic performance, which it does not.
Kohn is sane enough to realize that individuals -- whether parents, educators or administrators -- can't change things unilaterally. Some parents demand a heavy homework load. A lot of educators and administrators believe it is necessary. He does have a number of suggestions for mitigating harm, and pulls out all the stops in identifying which aspects of the current advice/practice can be used to move things in a better direction (e.g. using the 10 minues/grade level as a maximum, not having homework every day, offering time in class to do the work so feedback is available, assigning pleasure reading and trusting the kids to do it without putting time or page requirements or requiring book reports).
A lot of what he talks about ties in well with his earlier work on intrinsic/extrinsic motivation. He also pulls in social justics issues and identifies how political rhetoric tends to drive homework policy.
Good stuff. I suppose if you don't have kids now and never expect to, you wouldn't necessarily need to read this, but even if your kids are grown, there is, presumably, a future generation.
Kohn (as usual) spends so much time reviewing the eductional literature, you wonder how he stays sane. Educational research is not, after all, particularly well-executed at its best, and he demonstrates clearly how often the conclusions and policy directives diverge sharply from what little evidence there is.
The set up is simple. Homework does not help and probably does harm in younger children. More homework is not better. Practicing stuff wrong is really pointless and disrupting the limited amount of time families have to spend together is an undesirable effect even if it did improve academic performance, which it does not.
Kohn is sane enough to realize that individuals -- whether parents, educators or administrators -- can't change things unilaterally. Some parents demand a heavy homework load. A lot of educators and administrators believe it is necessary. He does have a number of suggestions for mitigating harm, and pulls out all the stops in identifying which aspects of the current advice/practice can be used to move things in a better direction (e.g. using the 10 minues/grade level as a maximum, not having homework every day, offering time in class to do the work so feedback is available, assigning pleasure reading and trusting the kids to do it without putting time or page requirements or requiring book reports).
A lot of what he talks about ties in well with his earlier work on intrinsic/extrinsic motivation. He also pulls in social justics issues and identifies how political rhetoric tends to drive homework policy.
Good stuff. I suppose if you don't have kids now and never expect to, you wouldn't necessarily need to read this, but even if your kids are grown, there is, presumably, a future generation.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 08:58 pm (UTC)I honestly do not see why it should be so difficult to understand that someone else may simply have a different idea about the best way from A to B, rather than having a horrible agenda in mind to keep anyone else from getting to B. I don't think *he* has a horrible agenda, after all. I think he wants kids to be happy and well educated, just like I do. (Incidentally, there are plenty of people who think reform math is a tool for keeping down the masses, since none of the kids can do it without support from math-literate parents ... I wonder what AK thinks of that notion?)
Helen S.
racist, etc.
Date: 2008-03-05 09:31 pm (UTC)"But we cannot discount, at least in some instances, the presence of more malign motives. One is racism (or its twin, classism)."
That doesn't sound to me like he's assuming those objecting to detracking are necessarily racist -- just that one needs to allow for racism or classism as a possible factor.
As for the math issue, Kohn specifically identifies the availability of help at home (or lack thereof) as a social justice problem, saying that homework at times seems design to amplify class/race/etc. differences. He talks a bit about the possibility of after school assistance with homework provided at community centers as one solution, but figures that until then, it's best to do the work in class where at least the teacher (and possibly student mentors) would be around to provide feedback and assistance.
I was really shocked when he described a California school that kept a girl in from recess because of errors on a homework assignment. A parent was to sign off on complete-and-correct and the mother had missed a spelling error and, IIRC, a period.
Kohn spends a chunk of the book discussing why the arguments in favor of homework are so weak, and describing what else might be the true underlying reasons for the persistence and escalation of homeowrk. I could imagine it would be easy to read this as a direct attack on people who find value in homework for their children (just as the link you pointed to).
These are, indeed, issues characteristic of Alfie Kohn's rhetorical style, choice of topic, and advocacy of unusual positions.