Good article by teacher on rethinking homework

Here is an article by a teacher who has rethought homework. His comments are good and worth reading. I have a few comments of my own, regarding the points that he makes.

In his first point, Mr. Spencer talks about giving after school help to students who are struggling. I have no question that, in today’s environment, struggling kids go home with assignments they cannot manage. They stare at them blankly and end up getting zeros for the work they cannot done. So to move “homework” into the school with a teacher present, is a major step forward to helping kids out. But it is also important to keep in mind that people generally put their energies into the things that they do best. We ask, in fact demand, that children go to school and learn things they may find hard. To expect that they will give up time and stay in after school is over, and learn, is a large expectation. If we are going to ask them to stay after school, it is incumbent that the time be planned and well spent. I think a lot of “after school” help is unfocused. It comes at the end of the school day when the teacher may be tired and ready to go home, and may require that the student be able to articulate what he does not understand and finds hard to do. There may be several students there and the teacher may not have considered what each student needs before he has arrived. There is risk that the extra help is not helpful at all. Before acting on point one (a point with which I generally agree), it is important for the teacher to consider how that time will be used, and what is needed so that a short period of time with a tired student (and possibly a tired teacher) is truly productive. If the student does not experience the time as helpful, it will feel like a detention and become counterproductive.

It is also important when considering this point that some students are not going to come to the after school help session. Do we fail them? Or do we consider, educationally, how to best teach them (even if they learn less than other students) with the time we have them in class? This calls for a professional consideration of how to help, in class, students who lag behind.

The other point that generates a comment from me is Mr. Spencer’s last point, “Empower parents with the skills to push for authentic learning at home.” This sentence is followed by “Teach them …” I think Mr. Spencer’s point would have been stronger if he stopped with the first sentence. There may be some parents who are open to being taught, but parents are adults with lots of things to do. They know what they know, and that may be enough. So I would keep the emphasis on “empower,” which, for me, carries the notion that the parent is the one in charge of the home. If teachers accepted the fact that parents were the ultimate authorities on all matters in the home, they would have to rethink homework, in particular, and teaching, in general, with that concept in mind. Once teachers accept that they have no right to enforce behaviors in the home, they will adapt and come up with superior teaching techniques that bank, primarily, on the time they have with the students in their class.

Those points notwithstanding, this is a find article and worth your read.

For more information on Dr. Goldberg's model, read other postings on this blog, visit his website, The Homework Trap, or read his book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.

Yea or Nay About Homework

Today's blog comment was stimulated by a simple blog post I read called "Homework: Yay or Nay?" The article goes to the fact that parents and teachers differ in their opinions and that some children are left to play while some get stuck on homework. Here is the comment I left to the blog:

I think the key issues highlighted here are that parents vary in what they think is an appropriate amount of homework for their children to have, and teachers vary in their views as well. Add the fact that teachers are vested with unusual degrees of authority over the home (that they can both assign and require that the homework be done), and you will naturally see a system develop in which some kids get their work done handily and are free to play, and other kids are “stuck,” as the author says here, or “trapped,” as I say in my book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.
In the end, we must recognize that teachers and parents are all operating on their opinions of what is in the best interests of their students and in their children. This variety of opinions would be fine if we did not create systems in which homework can be given and children can then fail, if they don’t follow through. To emphasize the issue of “opinions,” we all understand that parents have different ideas about what is in the best interests of their children and how to raise them, and we honor those differences. We don’t demand that parents base their ideas on scientifically sound reasoning or through professional training, but we should expect that of our teachers. Instead, it’s a little known fact that teachers receive virtually no training in the theory, research, and practice of homework-giving. I have never seen a course called homework in a catalog of a school of education. I have never seen a continuing teacher development course on homework. I see very few articles on homework on teacher development websites.

The question is not just Yea or Nay, as the author poses it here, but do you have the power to act on the yea or nay that you believe?

*****

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

 I recommend giving copies of the book to the teachers at your child's school. Discount purchases are available through Wyndmoor Press. Single copies can be purchased at Amazon.

Well meaning teacher

Here's a link to a blog post by a teacher who obviously means well. She is trying to come up with ways to encourage kids to get their homework done in a positive way. Her report of the frequency of homework noncompliance matches what I've said in my book. Here is the comment I left to her blog:

In my opinion, those 20% of your students who don't complete their homework is an expected number (I always estimate that 10 to 25% of all students have serious homework problems). For those students, continued efforts to make them do all their work and the practice of continuing to mete out low grades is causing harm that they will carry with them far beyond the third grade. I daresay that many kids who end up highly dysfunctional and on drugs in their teen and early adult years have problems that were fueled by unrelenting homework policies. I explain this issue in my book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Teachers and Students. I know you are a caring teacher and do not want to harm the children you teach, but the reality is that you have to back down on the demands or you will harm them.

Here's the follow-up comment I left after reflecting on my first comment and concerned that she might find my thoughts harsh. I certainly support teachers who care about students. I'm just concerned that they don't understand the reality which is that some kids are going to get harmed by the homework system if they don't get relief:

By the way, I did not mean to discount the value and creativity in the plan you describe in your article. I'm just saying that, push come to shove, you have to be ready to back down from the requirement if your incentive plan does not work, or does not work for some of the kids. Perhaps, half the kids will do okay, but you'll still have that 10% who won't and have to have homework relief.

*****

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

 I recommend giving copies of the book to the teachers at your child's school. Discount purchases are available through Wyndmoor Press. Single copies can be purchased at Amazon.

 

Math homework issue in Great Britain

There is a newsitem going on in Britain at this time relating to parental involvement in math homework and methods by which math should be taught. The article indicates that education policy-makers in Britain are alarmed that large numbers of parents are unable to help their children with math homework. They attribute this to new methods of teaching math and to the possibility that the parents, themselves, were inadequately trained in math when they were young. It suggests there is a social “badge of honour” that some people wear regarding their difficulties with math. It also notes that many of these math-deficient parents have quite successful careers, but run into difficulties with ordinary math functions, such has handle budgets, calculating change, and reading transportation schedules. This claim seems anecdotal and not research based. It claims that studies in the United States have shown a connection between parental involvement and higher test scores. The references to the United States do not appear specific to math, or involvement in the form of helping with homework.

I find this article interesting in that it focuses on parental math skills rather than on teaching children math in the class. It suggests that homework completion is an end in itself, not a method toward achieving success. I don’t know all the factors involved in how to best teach a child math, but that seems like this is the purview of the education profession. This article could be easily read as an indictment of the overdependence on homework as a teaching method. If children are going home with homework they cannot do on their own without the help of their parents, and if parents lack the skill and training to give them the help they need, why would we continue to bank on that resource to teach our children what they need to know? I’m a psychologist. People come to me for help with mental and emotional problems. I don’t get calls for people needing help with their teeth (Well, that’s not completely true. As it is, for a long time there was a dentist, Dr. Kenneth Goldberg, who had an office across the street from mine, so I would get calls from dental surgery patients. I was wise enough to turn them away and not take a stab at pulling their teeth).

But think about. Some people are not good at math. They still work and have successful careers. They may have some difficulty with day to day tasks, and that may or may not be related to math (I’ve never been good at budgeting and I have a master’s degree in mathematics in addition to my doctorate in psychology). We have teachers who are trained to teach our children. We understand that teaching is a tough job and that the profession needs to continue to research its techniques and advance its skills. We know that parents are vitally important to children. They offer children different types of lessons they cannot learn at school. Their involvement and support of education is helpful to children. Battling over homework or struggling with things they don’t do well is not be the type of involvement that helps education.

*****

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

 I recommend giving copies of the book to the teachers at your child's school. Discount purchases are available through Wyndmoor Press. Single copies can be purchased at Amazon.

 

Homework noncompliance is viewed as a problem

Here's is an article regarding a school district that is concerned that homework compliance is down, yet the students are learning quite well. I submitted the following comment:


Reading this article, I get concerned that the failure to complete homework is being viewed as a "problem," when, perhaps, the homework requirement may be the problem. Research gives very little support for homework, and teachers are virtually untrained in the theory, research, and practice of homework-giving. Yet, we hold on so tightly to this "sacred cow," that we run the risk of assuming that homework must be good and that homework noncompliance is a problem, overlooking what is reported, that the students here are learning well. If homework has value, it should be viewed as a tool in education, not as an end in itself.

*****

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

 I recommend giving copies of the book to the teachers at your child's school. Discount purchases are available through Wyndmoor Press. Single copies can be purchased at Amazon.

 

Friday or Sunday Homework

I read this article that poses the question of whether students should do their weekend homework on Friday or Sunday night. The homework appears to apply to long term projects and ones done at the high school level, where homework is more appropriate than at the younger grades. Here is the link to the article, and below is the comment I posted to the article.

I don't think the issue is when your child does the homework, but whether or how the homework impacts family life. In reality, people function in different ways. Some are planners. Some do things the last minute. Despite those different styles, people still live good and productive lives. As long as your child is managing his work in a reasonably independent way, you're okay and you're better off supporting him doing it his way than adopting yours or some other seemingly "right" way.
You know you have homework problems when things seem grossly out of sync. Family life fails to match what you think it should be, and you find yourself acting in ways you would rather not. That's what happened in my family. For my oldest two kids, things went well. Once was more industrious than the other. One was more planful than the other. Both graduated from college and are successful in their careers. My youngest child, in contrast, had persistent homework problems. For him, I made the mistake of thinking that homework "had" to get done and that it was my job to get on his case. In retrospect, I wish I had insisted on homework relief. He would have gotten far more done if he had been given clear limits on the amount of time he had to spend on his assignments. I think one key factor that gets overlooked with homework is that parents are the rightful heads of their homes, and should make decisions that may overrule the teachers, when homework causes problems. I discuss this further on my website, www.thehomeworktrap.com.

*****

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

 I recommend giving copies of the book to the teachers at your child's school. Discount purchases are available through Wyndmoor Press. Single copies can be purchased at Amazon.

 

A Sad Story

A follower of The Homework Trap sent me a link to this story of a depressed boy who took his own life. The story starts by depicting him as a happy child at one time, and reports the first signs of things changing with homework and school problems. The story goes on to criticize the mental health profession, but what catches my attention is that homework battles and the ways in which they turn the school and home into a negative experience are central first steps in the story that has been told. Here's the link. http://www.depressedchild.org/Personal_Stories/daniel.htm

Where power should lie

I came across this article, “Utah teacher: assigned homework does not benefit kids.” The article reports on a teacher’s transformation over the course of his career from believing in homework to questioning its value. His points are well taken and worth noting. But let’s consider the question from a different angle, one of power and control.

I’m a clinical psychologist and, over the course of my 35 year career, my thinking has evolved. There are concepts I learned in graduate school I continue to use. There are things I was taught that I have since put aside. I’ve made mistakes along the way, and like Mr. Stoddard, the teacher featured in this article, some of my ideas have dramatically changed.

Yet throughout, my zone of influence was restricted to the places where I worked: hospitals, day hospitals, clinics, and my private office. Beyond that, my client’s retained complete control of what they did in the privacy of their homes. I might offer suggestions, but it was up to them whether to follow my lead or do something else.

The problem with homework is not just that there are differences of opinions or that some teachers truly believe that it is important for students to learn. The problem is that teachers have excessive authority to enforce these points of view.

Homework penalties are severe. In general, a struggling student will not fail for difficulties he has with classroom work. The same student will fail if he does not get his homework done. Similar difficulties – different consequences. This threat of failure looms so large that it forces parents to make decisions that may not follow the best judgments they have. And what do kids need more than authoritative parents, in charge of their homes, who make decisions with their children in mind?

Homework can throw parents into a powerless frenzy. It is not fair, and it is not good for children.

*****

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

 I recommend giving copies of the book to the teachers at your child's school. Discount purchases are available through Wyndmoor Press. Single copies can be purchased at Amazon.

 

What's the deal about homework?

Today's comment is in response to a blog by a teacher on the homework debate.




The "deal" with homework is actually quite different from what the current debate suggests. It's not just a question of what the research says, and what's good and bad homework, but one of individual capabilities and lines of authority. There is no doubt that some subjects lend themselves more to having homework than others, and there are differences in the impact of homework in elementary, middle, and high school. Unfortunately, we make erroneous assumptions about why children don't do their homework and, because of these misunderstandings, engage in strategies that cause considerable harm.

One underlying fact regarding homework is that, unlike schoolwork, it is defined by the assignment, not by the clock. The school day begins with a bell and ends with a bell, so the teacher and the student learn to work together within that context. Homework usually involves a time-estimate, but then has to be done until it gets done. It is touted as a way of teaching time-management, which it is not, since the time is not contained and defined, and hence, there is no clear time interval to manage. The slow working student necessarily must spend more time to get the work done, and inevitably finds himself with a choice of either putting in large amounts of time for mediocre grades, or not doing the work and getting bad grades.

By high school, that student has reached an age where he is more capable of dealing with his teachers, separate from his parents, and he may also have choices in the courses he takes that will require different amounts of homework. But in the lower grades, the student is really dependent on his parents to set the tone in the home, and, unfortunately, homework policies strip that parent of the authority to make those decisions. This is not always a problem. Certainly, there are many families for whom their children can manage the homework and the policy is in sync with what the family believes. But for homework-trapped children, the end result is a loss of authority on the parents' part and this is a devastating state of affairs for any child. Regardless of how "good" the parent is, we all have a need, when young, for our parents to be in charge. Homework policy that allows teacher judgment to override parental decision-making upsets the natural hierarchies of the family, and this can be extremely damaging to kids.

The other major issue is that teachers are not adequately taught the theory, research, and practice of homework-giving. This leads to wide variation among teachers regarding homework policy, but no place to go to learn what makes sense. Schools of education do not have courses on homework. Professional development resources for teachers are quite lacking in courses that teach them about homework. As a community, we expect that our teachers are trained in what they do, and, sadly, they don't get trained enough in how to give homework.

*****

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

 I recommend giving copies of the book to the teachers at your child's school. Discount purchases are available through Wyndmoor Press. Single copies can be purchased at Amazon.

Homework policy

I came across this homework policy for a middle school in Nebraska. It seems quite similar to the policies that affected my kids when they were in school. The policy was a non-issue for two of my kids, and was a disaster for my other child. Just as happened with our school, the policy proved highly punitive, as if strong armed tactics and coercion could produce a positive result.

The principal who posts this blog prefaces his policy by saying, "There are a myriad of reasons for this (increased social life, athletics, extracurricular commitments and simply more homework)" [note: this refers to homework completion problems], while overlooking the most important reason why middle school children do not do their work. In general, it is an under-the-radar learning problem that causes the problem. The supposed ten minute assignment takes the homework noncompliant student twenty, twenty -- forty, and so forth. By middle school, the student gets homework from five different teachers which he manages at the start by doing all of his work for some of his teachers, none for the others. Eventually, as pressure to do the work increases and consequences as described here kick in, the student turns off and does nothing at all.

Once we realize the nature of these underlying learning problems (usually in working memory and processing speed), we realize that we have to forego the concept of "homework completion," and replace it with time-bound homework that is accepted whether finished or not it is done.

The other key piece involves recognition of parents as the heads of their homes. There is an arrogancy in this policy in that it presumes to tell parents what they are required to do rather than suggest options that might be helpful. In the end, homework takes place in the home, not in the class, and this is borrowed time and space. While most parents will agree to homework and support the schools, when problems arise, it is critically important that the parent be the one who has the final say.

A final word that is separate from this article is that teachers have an obligation, if they are to assign it, to study homework. To the best of my knowledge, no school of education has a class called "homework." There is a dearth of continuing education programs for teachers on homework. It is imperative that teachers teach themselves the theory, research, and practice of homework giving. It is the minimum that we require of all professionals. I'm a psychologist who does therapy and psychological testing. You can be assured that when I went to graduate school, I took several courses in therapy and testing, and that I have access to numerous courses in my field for continuing education. Why don't we find this in teacher education?

*****

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

 I recommend giving copies of the book to the teachers at your child's school. Discount purchases are available through Wyndmoor Press. Single copies can be purchased at Amazon.

New Year's Day Party

Yesterday, I attended an annual New Year's Day party that a friend of ours gives. I met some old friends who asked me how things were going with my book and my efforts to effect homework reform. As we talked, two teachers came up and joined the conversation. Obviously, they had their own opinions about how homework fits in.

I told them that I was interested in homework, not as a teacher but as a psychologist, and that my concern was not homework per se, but how homework impacts some kids. I ended by pointing out that I consider education in the purview of educators, and should be developed by professionals, not parents or politicians. I then added my observation that homework appeared to me to be the most highly utilized and highly weighted technique that was not covered at all in schools of education and hardly covered at all in professional development forums, and that my major concern was that teachers are not trained in the theory, research, and practice of homework-giving.

The reaction was tremendous. It was an "ah-ha" moment for one of the teachers. I point this out because I could have argued my opinion on homework, yet, I believe it had more impact to point out the lack of training (and in the end professionalism) inherent in homework policy, rather than just pushing the policy I believe to be right.

This is not the first time I've had this experience. I should also mention that I know people who have come to schools, trying to protect their children, with mounds of documentation about what is wrong with homework, to find their efforts falling on deaf ears.

So this is something to consider when you enter discussions with your child's school about homework, prefacing your concerns with a recognition of the professionalism of teachers, and placing blame on schools of education, more than the individual teacher.

*****

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

 

New York Times Science Times Article

In today's Science Times section of The New York Times, there is an article: Motor Skills May Predict Success in School. The article coincides with core concepts from my model, The Homework Trap. Here is my comment on that article:

The concepts raised here are extremely important in understanding why many seemingly bright children fail to do well at school. But first, let me draw a distinction between the types of motor deficits raised in this article. The article seems to blend weight, exercise, and athleticism with other motor deficits, such as handwriting and shoelace tying. I don’t know about the former, but the problems with fine-motor coordination are central to understanding the difficulties many children have at school. Here’s the connection and here’s what needs to be done.

Poor handwriting affects work pace, and impacts the child from elementary school on. In class, the effect is limited because the school day is bound by the clock. Regardless of how quickly the child works, the bells rings and the child goes home. Further, the teacher is present so, regardless of what that child was able to do, the teacher observed the effort, could come over to offer assistance, or even waive parts of the assignment and accept what was done.

At the end of the school day, the child is expected write down the assignments from the board, with the expectation that he’ll get the work done.

Even if that child can read what wrote down, he is now in a setting with no bell to end the homework day. The teacher is not there, leaving the parent in the role of frustrated taskmaster. Before long, parents and teachers talk, operating on the misconception that the child is unmotivated, failing to see the difficulties caused by the handwriting problem. Faced with unrelenting pressure, the child acts out, and gets turned off to school.

This child needs time-bound assignments, penalty reductions, and for his parents to have authority to limit what he does.

I don’t know if there is another neurological explanation that connects handwriting difficulties with educational problems, but I am certain that unrelenting demands for homework to get done by handwriting deficient children over twelve years of schools is a setup for disaster that essentially robs them of an education.

*****

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