Homework: A Very UNnecessary Evil

Kids Doing Homework

One day about 10 years ago, I stopped assigning homework. It was an easy decision; I have had no regrets, and no complaints.

I didn’t advertise it at first and sometimes students would ask, “Do I need to finish this for homework?” Lately, though, I just say outright that I don’t believe in assigning homework. I love hearing the students sigh in relief as they beg me to share my opinion with all their other teachers. Homework is evil.

As a high school world language teacher in the public system for 27 years, my career has taken me to two countries, two states, four school districts and seven different high schools. Each school’s administration promotes variations in homework policies, but they all have expectations of the teachers to assign homework daily. As a rule follower, I respected the various policies and regularly doled out the recommended amount of homework to all my students for many years. I tried all sorts of grading and accounting strategies to make the homework seem important enough for the students to actually complete it. Nothing was ever very successful and it all felt so futile.

What led me to stop assigning homework in my classes years ago was one student in particular. He had been coming into my class without saying a word to anyone and putting his head down on the desk for the duration of the block. Of course, he never had his homework done. One day I was frustrated with him and I began to question him in anger. He picked his head up and looked at me with very sad eyes and said, “I haven’t eaten in three days. Your homework is the least of my worries.”

What that showed me was that I really don’t know what kind of life my students have outside of my classroom. I don’t know what they go home to. I don’t know what awaits them at the door or even if they avoid home because of what is behind the door. Many students have jobs and many more are charged with the responsibility of being a second parent to younger siblings.

One thing I have learned since my no homework policy has been established is that I still get the same results. Researchers have consistently shown that homework really doesn’t have a huge impact on student success. Go ahead, Google it. You’ll see there is nothing to support those endless vocabulary lists.

So I have changed my approach and I really like the results I have seen. Instead of assigning a worksheet for practice on a particular verb tense for a grade, I will say to the class, “You need to be comfortable with the use of this verb tense for our assessment tomorrow. Do you think you would have time to do some online practice quizzes tonight?” This puts the accountability in the students’ hands for something that will directly impact their success. They feel some power in the outcome of their learning. That’s a good thing.

My students will at times voluntarily do homework if they have the time. They see it as getting “ahead“ or simply doing practice work with resources I’ve given them to sharpen their skills. To me this is much more useful in advancing the child’s performance in the subject area.

Now that I have my own middle and high school students at home, I can see firsthand how difficult it is to squeak in even the smallest amounts of homework. My children are straight A students, and for that I’m grateful. They are very involved in sports, which is their choice, and we know that sports should never come before schoolwork. But many days a week they go directly from school to practice, then home to change and switch gears, eat in the car on the way to the second practice, and don’t get home until 9:30pm. I am happy that my boys are not spending their evenings in front of the television or playing video games, or worse, out with friends and up to no good. It kills me that my 8th grader has to start homework at 10pm but I am proud of him for caring enough to do it.

I wish their teachers would adopt a no-homework policy too.