Book - the Homework Myth

I have a new author I am reading at the moment, and I like his stuff.

He is an American educator called Alfie Kohn. I've got two books of his off Amazon in the last few weeks. The first was recommended by Bern, who had had it from the library - "Punished by Rewards: The trouble with gold start, incentive plans, A's, praise and other bribes." This book essentially debunks Behaviourism, which is a theory which says that people are only the sum total of their behaviours, and the best way to get them to do something is to train them by offering a 'goodie' for doing what you want, or a 'stick' for failing to do it.

He uses examples from teaching, raising children, and the workplace, and it's very readable. To sum up, he explains how extrinsic motivators (anything that's outside of the task or behaviour itself) only make people do a worse job, and take shortcuts - that is, do the minimum they can to get the 'goods'. Alternatively, if a person is intrinsically motivated (that task is worth doing for its own sake) then people are likely to do better, work longer and harder, and enjoy it more.

(Sounds a lot like me and reading education books!!! But then, I only read the ones I'm interested in.)

I highly recommend it. We own the book, so can lend it when we have finished.

The other book of this author's I'm reading is "The Homwork Myth: Why our kids get too much of a bad thing." Again, this is based on an American schooling model, but I don't think it's so far of what we have in schools here. In summary, 6-7 hours of school a day is actually quite long enough for kids to learn the academic things they need (although the teachers may have to make good use of that time). Time spent doing homework is usually time wasted because: 1) it is often 'practice' work, and either the child already knows how to do that task and doesn't need to practice, or they don't know how and the teacher really needs to be able to give them instant feedback, or 2) it takes up time the child could better use on activities of their own choice (like cooking a meal - in our house anyway - or reading for pleasure, or playing a board game), and especially the chance to make decisions about how to use their time.

Also, the author claims there is absolutely no research evidence that more hours doing homework helps kids to learn more or better. I haven't looked into the research myself.

Here's what I think about homework:
1. When your child is young, read to them every day. And when they get a bit older, keep reading to them every day. Also, let them see you reading (be a role model) and take them to the library so they can choose books. But this must always be pleasant. If it gets to be a chore, take a break and do something else.
2. Talk with your child. And listen. If this is a 'conversation', so much the better. 'Conversation' is a special kind of talking where each person's input depends on what the other person said in their turn. This means it includes so many high level thinking and emotive skills I don't think I could list them. The best time to have a conversation is when you are doing something else.

That's it.

Having said that, my kids' school gives homework, and every year the teachers say that they have some parents who want more homework, and some who want less. I'm in the second group. New entrants bring home a reading book every day, and that's just fine - since we were going to be reading anyway! If the child wants to read it, well and good. If not, just read it to them. That's just as good. (We would also read other books.) After all, they don't have to learn everything about reading this very day.

My favourite kind of homework the kids have had is 'choosing' homework. Sophie and Elanor often had this in year 3 and 4, and its a compromise to appease both sets of parents I suppose. In this, the child chooses a task to complete during the week. A long list of suggestions are given (like, 'bake a cake', or 'make a model', or 'read a book and write about it', or 'learn an instrument') but the kids can alternatively choose anything they like. They do have to write a few sentences about it, and 'evidence' is good (especially in the form of food to share with their table group). Sophie once made fudge, and we took a photo of it for her homework book (and took the fudge to school). Elanor once made a collage. Then she talked about it with her table group. Fabulous!

In high school, Katie and Rowena are also getting homework, but not as much as we were led to believe before they started the school (as far as I know). What is noticeable is that the subjects they like they will do more work for, and we have dinner table conversations about many of their subjects as a matter of course ("what are you doing in Maori lately?") which seems to head off any problems. All good so far anyway.

Highly recommended, and an easy to read book. He may be 'preaching to the converted' though, so I'd be interested to hear the impressions of someone whose kids were struggling.

(This post was a bit of a book chapter in itself - congrats to any reader who is still with it!)