WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at dougbelshaw.com...
BoingBoing, a website which proves to be an interesting diversion at times, has a post Homework sucks in which they look at the findings of a book entitled The Case Against Homework. It’s argued that homework stresses children and is a factor in childhood obesity. Now there’s an interesting link. As many of you will be aware, I’m pretty much completely against compulsory homework, so I may be purchasing this book… 
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An open letter to Cory D.—
As a kid of teachers, I’m surprised you’d so swimmingly pitch tent with the StopHomework camp. Full disclosure; I am a teacher. Not a Trotskyite, but an anarchist-atheist English teacher who –gasp—gives homework. Some say a lot of homework. In fact, I give homework precisely because I want to interrupt my students’ lives as much as possible.
Why?
It is every teacher’s duty to erase the distinction between play and work, between learning and doing, between daydreaming and wakeful endeavor. Homework is an archaic term, and it occurs to me that you may have been befuddled by it. Let me clarify something by example. I ask my students to do three kinds of assignments.
(1) Read. While your argument (that kids need "a childhood's measure of doing nothing, daydreaming and thinking"
sounds righteous, you need to weigh some facts that Bennett’s statistics don’t consider. It’s, like, hella easy to watch TV or play Wii. I’ve got a 7 year old, and I’ve watched him like a zoologist. He will invariably follow the path of least resistance. Yes, I did worry that it was just him. For about 4 seconds. Conversations with other parents (and more… um… “field time” with other 7 year olds) bore out my theory: Kids slack. Kids cannot be left to simply daydream, since commercial forces have a bigger impact than a socialist Canadian born in the ‘70s might realize. If you don’t force a kid to daydream, someone else will, because they get paid shitloads to do it. My thesis advisor in college – a chicken-farming poet named Robert Creeley – taught me that those who suckle the nurturing teat of literature ought never be ashamed to push books on kids, and that has been my guiding principle as a teacher. If my students aren’t forced to read David Berman poems, they’re totally gonna watch American Idol. Daydream? Pfft. More like get subsumed by hegemonic Capitalism. But you can call it “daydreaming” if it makes you sleep better. Me? No.
(2) Question people. At the dinner table, ask you family __(insert thought experiment here)___. This is a common assignment. I chuckle to myself when I picture 128 kids toying with a fork-full of brussel sprouts and asking their parents “Is the universe friendly?” Or, “let’s cut our pizza like a pie chart of how long the Greeks, the Romans, and the United States claimed themselves to be the world’s superpower… but before we do, which piece of pie would you want?”
(3) Make something better. This assignment has a million permutations, but in general, the idea is that no project is complete. Ever. That essay on Mankind’s civilizing impulse as illustrated by T. C. Boyle’s “Jubilation” and The Epic of Gilgamesh? Find another story/song/picture that completes the triptych. That mimicry of Thoreau you wrote? Make it a satire. Your Dadaist treehouse? Work it!
I oppose the Bennett/Kalish movement for two reasons, neither one of which is as radical as you might think. First, the teachers I know are pro-intellectual, anti-NCLB educators for whom standardized testing is a non-issue. They do not give test prep homework because they teach far beyond a standardized test’s parameters. Maybe that isn’t true elsewhere, but it ought to be, and I assume it is only Bennett’s cultural superiority complex that keeps her from waging that war. Second, I oppose any political group dictating curriculum and pedagogy to teachers. By joining their crusade, Mr Doctorow, you cast a very wide net of officious legislating that (seriously!) seems very out of character for someone who tends to champion intellectual freedom. For you to decide what I may teach seems unnecessarily autocratic. And egomaniacal.
I teach in a public school. If I am hired by my community to teach its students, then I will teach them according to my lights, which the community better have investigated and determined to be bright and beneficent. If my lights are dim – and here I’d entreat you to break ranks with the company you’ve chosen and resist the tenure argument – if they prove too dim to teach, then freaking fire me. Yes, it can be done, and no union will support a dumb teacher.
Please reconsider. I don’t care what you do – become a teacher, campaign for higher wages for teachers, assert that Capital has no authority over children, whatev – but please don’t unthinkingly wage war on teachers. There are a million things wrong with education, starting obviously with heavy-handed micromanagement from unfunded mandates like NCLB. These Republican tactics sound good to simple-minded fokes, but don’t be one of them.
Sincerely,
Chandler Lewis
Suffern, New York
First of all, I doubt this is the only blog you've posted the above comment on, but hey - I always respond to comments on my blogs…
Chandler, unfortunately you've taken the homework issue personally and in isolation. Homework exists as a control method, and as an 'anarchist-atheist' I'm surprised you missed that. It exists as a sop to politicians (who want 'better grades' to boost their campaign) and pushy parents (who want 'better grades' because they have competitiveness issues).
To my mind, there is absolutely no reason why after c.6 hours of schooling per day children should have to come home and be forced to spend more time learning things for a test. Granted, if they're doing a homework assignment akin to those you describe above, then that's a different matter. And that's why I distinguish between compulsory and voluntary homework. The latter is stimulated by interest and a desire to know more. This is true learning. Compelling students to complete homework just smacks of bad teaching and an outdated view of learning, as far as I'm concerned…
I'm with Doug on this. I'm a teacher and the last thing I want to do when I go home is work. I have kids and the last thing I want them to do when they get home is work. I would encourage them to read for pleasure not for pain.
We need to focus more on using the school day appropriately by maximising the available time. There is too much non-learning time in school. Teachers are caught up in admin and classroom management issues and not enough time is spent actually teaching and learning. There are also too many instances of students totally disengaged from subjects because they have little or no interest. I agree students need to learn the difference from business and pleasure but its currently not working. Too many of them see school as an opportunity to impress their peers by doing just about anything other than learning. The classroom is where the business should take place.
Although I would make the school day slightly longer and build school clubs into the curriculum. This could be anything - sports, dance, car mechanics. There are too many teenagers out and about on the streets and I don't think homework is the answer. A good, full, active day at school could see a kid come home at 6, tired but satisifed with their days efforts and ready to relax in the evening.
Andy Blair
Don’t know if this has been said before but I’ve only just glanced at the articles. I’ve been researching ’stop homework’ sites since my junior school (7-11 in the UK) kids have both been given 30 minutes per night.
My children both attend 2 after school clubs (3.30 to 4.30), educational in content and project based, they both research material if they find classes interesting and make notes of their findings, they attend the Music Academy on a Saturday as well as gymnastics, karate and swimming. I used all of these as arguments against my children having generalized worksheets based exercises (with punishment if they did not complete them).
However, the killer argument is very simple. Ask your teachers (or anyone that supports homework) how they would feel if they paid for and attended a professional class
where half the materials are handed out and expected to be completed at home without any assistance. The reaction of every single person I have asked this is the same. They wouldn’t pay for it and they would complain that the course should have adequate time in class to be completed. No adult would put up with the way that children are treated, and neither should they.
homework sucks cuz home is for play not work!!!!!!!!