it went to the HuffPo site.
http://twitter.com/alfiekohn if you want to check for yourself.

Just sayin.

most of the time, they don't.

magnitude by the corrosive impacts of family life. imho, it only shows the difference between a kid who has a strong healthy family behind him and one that doesn't. period. better they are left to follow their own curiosity.

I hate homework. The kids who aren't doing it in 1st grade are still not doing it in 12th grade.

You learn by practice. Ask any neurologist, ask any guy working with artificial intelligence.
You start with a pre-determined set of brain-parameters and slowly vary their values until you achieve a sufficient degree of efficiency/proficiency in a particular field.



Let's take a set of linear equations.
You don't have to solve it, because we need the values of those variables.
You have to solve it, to prove that you understand the METHOD for solving this kind of problems.

Or solving a path-integral.
That's ugly. Really ugly. But: You have to solve it to prove that you are capable of abstract thinking, of imagining geometric relations in your head and of juggling differentials/fractions.

Or writing a pro-contra-discussion of a thesis.

Or writing a proper short-story.

Or knowing the differences between a good book/movie and a bad book/movie.

Or actually thinking and reasoning why the utopia of "Brave New World" is no utopia at all.





Homework is all about forcing to students to employ methods and patterns. Why? Because those patterns get inscribed into their brains and when they encounter a similar problem later in real life, they hopefully have a moment of "Wait, there's a trick how to do that."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network

Read it and weep.

need to be developed through what is traditionally homework? Why does that network need to be developed at home?

What happens when you do a math problem incorrectly 10 times at home while doing homework? Does that incorrect process not create a network? Wouldn't it be better for them to develop that network while someone trained to get them to do it the right way is there to help them?

If the result delivered by the NN is equal to the demanded outcome, then there's a positive feedback and the NN is modified in a way to get a similar positive outcome next time.
If the result isn't equal to the demanded outcome, then there's a negative feedback and the configurations that led to the result are weakened.
(It's a little bit more complicated in fuzzy-logic. The neurons do not operate on true/false, but have a continuous scale from true to false.)

In practice, it's important to know when to stop educating a neural network and keep its configuration from changing again:
If you don't give them enough experience, they will think too broadly and might react wrong.
If you give them too much experience, they won't be able to think "outside of the box" and might react wrong as well.
IIRC the human brain enters this stage in the mid-twenties and knowledge/abilities/character become more and more fixed over time.



And why homework? Because the brain of a child is learning all the time. It's just a matter of priorities WHAT to give it for learning.

Few kids can retain something they went over briefly in class. They NEED to read about it and think about it. There isn't enough time in the classroom. As a former educator I say this is total BS.

that supports your point?

Edited to add: current educator (22 years) and Nationally Board Certified.

"Why Is Homework Important?

Research in the last decade has begun to focus on the relationship between homework and student achievement and has greatly strengthened the case for homework. Although there are mixed findings about whether homework actually increases students' academic achievement, many teachers and parents agree that homework develops students' initiative and responsibility
"

I don't believe that grades are the only reason to assign homework though I definitely know that homework improved my grades and my students' grades as well as my children's grades.

Other quotes

"Assigning homework serves various educational needs. It serves as an intellectual discipline, establishes study habits, eases time constraints on the amount of curricular material that can be covered in class, and supplements and reinforces work done in school. In addition, it fosters student initiative, independence, and responsibility and brings home and school closer together".


"Practice assignments reinforce newly acquired skills. For example, students who have just learned a new method of solving a mathematical problem should be given sample problems to complete on their own. Preparation assignments help students get ready for activities that will occur in the classroom. Students may, for example, be required to do background research on a topic to be discussed later in class. Extension assignments are frequently long-term continuing projects that parallel classwork. Students must apply previous learning to complete these assignments, which include science fair projects and term papers".


"The right kind of homework increases student achievement"

Yes I definitely read it. Saying there are "mixed findings" about the impact on academic achievement doesn't negate the value of homework. Enough damage has been done to our education system. Don't further undermine it.

when it is part of the grade. That's a tautology.

If there are studies which show causation between homework and improved understanding, let me know. Showing me a website that is trying to show homework is good isn't a study. And that website saying "The right kind of homework increases student achievement" is also not a study.

As to this:

I guess you're choosing to ignore the facts along with parts of sentences.

It teaches responsibility, it makes neural connections, it helps you to get further during CLASS time because you're doing work outside the class, projects allow for hands on experience, etc.

The website said "mixed findings" meaning there is a difference of opinion and not a clear cut case, but you're ignoring the parts where it talks about MANY parents and teachers seeing the value in a number of ways.

You can believe whatever you prefer. It doesn't matter to me but my experience, along with quite a few others here is that it DOES have value.

What studies have you shown which prove causality between homework performance?

"It teaches responsibility" For some it does. Obviously it isn't a fantastic motivator because plenty of students don't do it. And there are probably plenty of other ways to teach responsibility. And what does responsibility have to do with performance and test scores?

"It makes neural connections" Life makes neural connections. And if homework does make neural connections, it doesn't make connections that any study ever has been able to show causation to performance and test scores.

"it helps you to get further during CLASS time" Where is the study that shows that is true. I don't believe there is one and you have linked to a study that shows that. You have linked to a website that makes that claim, but that isn't a double-blind study.

Many parents and teachers seeing a value in it does not mean that it really makes a difference. If we are going to start basing our educational decisions on best practices and what is shown to actually work, there has been no study in the past two centuries that shows a benefit to homework beyond simple correlation that can be explain with other variables.

I think most people are saying it's the time they should be spending with family or other activities, not that rote learning is nec. bad.

It should be time spent problem solving or reading new, more detailed information. Otherwise, they're watching TV not spending family time in most cases.

As you said, the neuroscience is pretty adamant: To be good at something, you have to practice, practice, practice. (It also may help instill a solid work ethic, which is by far the most important thing a kid can learn from school, in my opinion.) Obviously there can be overkill, but you have to do repetition to learn something. And yes, it's true that for some kids a few problems in class is all they need to get it down--but they are probably a fairly small minority (in the above-average intellect range).

A few other things to consider:

1. Beware the title "education expert", because nearly every person I've heard called this has been little more than an expert salesman, rather than an expert in education. (See: Robert Marzano, Douglas Reeves, Willard Dagget, etc.)
2. #1 Above is probably caused in part by the terrible standards for educational research and education colleges in general. It continues to shock me how easily so many people in charge--most of whom have Masters and Doctorates in education--of our educational system are so easily fooled by the fad du jour.
3. While I do like Alfie Kohn, I have to disagree with his "crusade" against homework; it seems focused on attacking the research opposing his beliefs, rather than providing direct support for said beliefs. I agree (#2 above) the research in education is, generally speaking, poor. But he needs to provide some evidence (research) specifically showing that homework doesn't help, which is not the same as showing that the research showing it is helpful is shaky. To me it seems his argument generally boils down to "I don't believe homework helps, the research supporting homework is inconclusive, therefore homework doesn't help."

If it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in a field, you'll have to do quite a bit of homework to achieve that. Well, unless you don't mind waiting until you're well into late-adulthood to do so.

Are you insinuating that people don't really need a great deal of practice to become experts in their field? That this is some big lie that some unethical propagandist is perpetuating to pressure people to commit to unnecessary practice?

practice. the precise number of hours varies by person and skill; there's no rule of thumb for anything.

You simply cannot argue that one needs a great deal of practice to achieve expertness in any field. Some fields even require more than 10,000 hours.

They mostly used American research, but they went back through many studies that looked at homework, and they found there's a correlation between homework and higher test scores that can't be explained away by other factors.

Just sayin', there's an educational study to prove absolutely anything these days.

What he correctly points out is that it is only a correlation and no study has shown that homework causes the scores. It is FAR more likely that those students who are the best students spend the most time on homework (no shocker there) and they are the ones that will do best on the tests.

There is NO STUDY that shows causation between doing homework and higher test scores.

Sure, they need to spend time in class practicing first so they can utilize good practice techniques, but in all honesty, with as huge as each subject's curriculum is, we don't have the time to have them do all of the practice in class.

I teach Spanish. Kids need to practice their vocab at home every night, and when they don't, trust me, their test scores are crap.

And a student who's engaged and interested is more likely to get high grades.

The homework doesn't necessarily cause the high grades.

Still, a meta-analysis study that looks at many other studies might have a better chance at figuring out the truth.

First of all, it's a bad PR move. We are telling parents 'sorry, we can't do it all during the school day, so you have to make sure your kid does the rest at home'. And if the kid struggles with it (I know, it's supposed to be review, but we all know some kids still haven't mastered whatever concept the homework is covering), then the parent often assumes we haven't done our job.

It's also a huge intrusion on family time and extra curricular activities. Kids need to go home, and be kids. Play, watch TV, go to practice. It's called having a well rounded life.

I also have said for years that some kids just won't do homework, no matter how hard we try. The same kids who don't do homework in elementary school are still not doing it in high school.

Alfie is right. We need to stop this archaic practice. It doesn't have any practical benefits.

It's impossible to learn an instrument without any practice outside of class, let alone learn the music for a concert. It's equally impossible to attain any real level of fluency in a language with less than an hour's practice (ie class) a day. Learning a new language takes time and lots of practice, just as learning a sport takes more than just a couple of practices a week and games once a week.

For English, I would agree with you, but books take longer to read than we have time in class. I will read parts of the books to my students (not the AP kids but everyone else, sure), but I don't have time to have them sit in my class, day in, day out, while I read them the book or they listen to an audio version, or they read silently.

Yet I have students who have graduated from/are now attending the London School, Yale, Stanford, Rice, MIT, just to name a few.

Think of the folks who spent all those thousands of hours mastering how to use the card catalog and search library stacks for information. Then comes the Internet. Zap.

All the people who spent all that time solving all kinds of equations by hand or by using a slide rule (yep, me), when along come cheap graphic calculators, available for $30 or less. Zap.

All those med students who learned to meticulously stitch inside stitches. Medical glue. Zap.

Since it's impossible to know what actual content will be any good in even less than a decade, then the real skill becomes a love of lifetime learning and the flexibility to change. That can easily be taught in the classroom and is.

No great longitudinal study has ever been done to see what parts of school make people happy in their lives, to the end of their lives. So no claim can be laid to the importance of any particular skill or content. So I will not intrude on the rest of their lives to insist my students learn something which may be worthless shortly, or could prevent them from learning social skills from their family that would make their lives happier.

Even burger-flippers don't have to take their work home with them and bring in a few cooked patties next shift. Shouldn't we treat our students at least that well?

If kids need to research and look things up for projects, we do it in class.

I can see working with older kids to get them ready to write papers for college, so writing and research outside of class might be necessary. But younger kids saddled with hours of busywork makes me sad. My own fourth grade teacher was proud of the fact that she assigned three hours of homework a night. I'm pretty sure I hardly remember anything from all of that.