Good homework advice

Dr. Kenneth Barish has written an excellent article on homework on the Oxford University Press blog. Click here to read "The battle over homework."

I posted the following comment on the blog:

This is extremely good advice and coincides quite well with what I say in my book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.

The point I want to emphasize the most is “Set aside a specified and limited time for homework.” It is as important to let the child STOP doing homework as it is to have the child start doing homework. This is a difficult step for parents to take since they fear that incomplete homework with garner poor grades.

But Dr. Barish is 100% right in his contention that children do not learn much through homework battles, and most children will do more in a time-bound homework session than they will accomplish battling over homework all night long.

The only other comment I have is that Dr. Barish quips that if homework were banned, education would suffer and he might be out of clients. I agree that we are creating huge numbers of behavioral problems through our homework policy and that the need for child psychologists would be less if we banned homework. The other side of the statement that education would suffer is not completely supported by the research on homswork.

Anyway, thank you, Dr. Barish, for an excellent article.


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Dr. Kenneth Goldberg, is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Teachers, and Students, published by Wyndmoor Press.