My Take on Homework

My first year teaching Middle School left me with many questions that went something like "Do we really have to ..." or "Why do we do ... if everyone agrees it's not useful," or "Is this really the way this goes?" Now that I'm in my fifth year teaching, I feel a bit more confident taking a firmer stance against stale practices and a status quo that is clearly, demonstrably inequitable, and teaching in a way that is more responsive to what my students say and feel than it is deferential to the performative expectations of "good" teachers (which many agree aren't the best practices). As a result, I have many opinions about school that may seem controversial when viewed in relation to the traditional ideas of teaching we're all accustomed to, and one of them is that I am firmly against assigning homework (in the sense of work specifically designated to be completed outside of class).

I am against homework for a number of reasons, not limited to:

1. I believe that school should respect students' free time, simply because they deserve to have their free time respected, period. Kids deserve to play and do whatever they want as much as adults do (and many have other responsibilities). It is harmful to presume that our class is more important than their free time.
2. With regards to academic growth, my own experience tells me that true learning is most likely to occur when I am having a discussion with a student or a group during class, and while it's important to ensure our content is accessible to students who may miss in-person classes (for whatever reason), tacking on extra work feels inauthentic and less useful than finding ways to work directly with the kids to support their learning
3. We can use the already-preset blocks of class time to proactively teach students to better manage their time by compartmentalizing the work they need to do into their daily schedule. You do your math work during math class. You do your music work during music.
4. We can teach kids that, if they mismanage their time in class, the consequence is that their classwork becomes homework, and the lesson is very clear - you borrowed against your future free time by doing non-class activities during class (I myself will sometimes borrow against my future free time if I'm not feeling up to a task on a given day, but I do so knowingly; this is a type of reflective understanding I'm working to impart to my students).

I have never met a student who wanted more homework. Even students who enjoy doing schoolwork for it's own sake (and these students are clearly not the majority) aren't asking for more because they also have other things to do; they live a life of which school is only one part. As a parent myself, I want my daughter's afternoons and evenings free so we can spend time together.

When so many are in accordance in not liking something, it's often a cue that there may be an opportunity for critical reflection around whether that something is necessary. If an adult wouldn't appreciate being asked to do something, I can think of no reason why, as a society, we would decide to impose it on students. There are excellent ways to support students that are empathetic, welcoming, and strengthen their academic self-concept, but presuming to fill up their personal free time with more schoolwork sends the message that school is more important than whatever they want to do, which alienates students, silences their identities, and underplays (or overlooks) their out-of-school responsibilities.

As an adult who lives in a world of self-help books and advice on achieving and maintaining a solid "work-life balance," I know that we (adults) struggle to disentangle our jobs from our personal lives. Students are not exempt from being treated with basic human decency (i.e., respect for their free time) just by virtue of being students or children; if everyone agrees that something is not useful, the fact that school isn't a quote-unquote "job" doesn't justify forcing kids to do something no adult would tolerate. My hot take on this is that homework is conditioning our students to expect some of their non-school time to be taken up with extra schoolwork, which clearly sets up an antagonistic mindset toward school, and maybe even instills a sense that school should be the driving force in one's life and identity (even during free time), and that work is something that crosses personal boundaries - they will carry this mindset into their careers as adults, rather than learning the self-management and organizational skills we purport to teach them.

But putting aside what attitudes homework may or may not be subconsciously conditioning into our students, my primary concern is that homework continues to exist in a modern world where adults are striving to leave their work at work and enjoy their free time without anxiety or stress. I struggle to see why we would impose this anxiety and stress on our students, especially when there are opportunities for actively teaching time management skills by limiting the work in our class to our actual class period.

This is an opinion I hold strongly. I am interested to hear from teachers who do assign homework how they find it beneficial; but for my part, I currently see no benefit that could be gained in my class by sending extra work home with my students, and I do not intend to.