Is Homework Killing Our Elementary Kids' Love Of Life And Learning?

Homework for elementary students is a hotly debated topic right now. While some parents loudly call for an end to it, citing research that found "homework has no proven benefits", when a school in New York did decide to no longer assign any homework, parents reacted angrily. Some threatened to remove their kids from the school, while others made it clear that they'd be assigning homework of their own if their children's teachers didn't.

What's going on? Are piles of homework stressing our children out, robbing them of the chance to just be kids, and keeping them from spending time with their friends and relatives? Is homework actually a crucial part of the learning process? Or does the truth lie somewhere in the middle?

Does Homework Have Any Proven Benefits? How Much Is Too Much?

Imagine you're an elementary-aged kid, or just think back to your own childhood for that matter. You are stuck in a classroom with 30-odd same-age peers a good portion of the day, perhaps enjoying learning exciting new things and perhaps simply looking forward to recess — if you have one, that is: you could also be the "victim" of silent lunches, depending on your school's policy.

You just got out of school, so of course you want a break first. Procrastinate enough, arguments with parents perhaps included, and you'll soon find yourself doing homework right before bedtime. Boring homework, probably, about things you aren't actually that stoked about. As you're trying to drift off to sleep, that material may still be floating in front of your eyes.

You're not an elementary-aged kid though; you're an adult. You know, unlike your former younger self, that homework is a necessary evil, crucial for kids to retain the materials they have learned in school. Or do you?

Salon, in an article titled "Homework Is Wrecking Our Kids", quoted "homework research guru" Harris Cooper from Duke University as saying that "there is no evidence that any amount of homework improves the academic performance of elementary students".

They didn't mention that he also said that around 10 to 20 minutes of homework would be appropriate in first grade, followed by an additional 10 minutes a day for every grade thereafter. These are guidelines that the National Education Association (NEA) endorses.

Homework does have proven benefits: it was found to enhance the academic performance of high school students. It doesn't have any proven benefits among elementary school children, but around 10 minutes for each grade (so 30 in third grade, 40 in fourth grade, and so on) is still believed to be "appropriate" for kids. Confusing, much?

How Much Homework Do Our Kids Have?

Much less than alarmist articles might have you believe, and if you are a parent yourself, you will probably be aware of this yourself. Research data conclude that most US kids spend no more than an hour a day on completing homework. Depending on their grade, that may still mean they are doing more than they "should be" if you agree with the "10 minute per grade rule", but not nearly by as much as you may have believed. This is not true for everyone though. Students attending schools in wealthier areas are actually getting more homework than their poorer counterparts.

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Senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education Denise Pope, who co-authored research into the negative effects of homework, focused her recent research on 10 top-performing schools in upper-middle class neighborhoods in California. The 4,317 students she and her colleagues surveyed engaged in much more homework than most American kids — coming from families whose annual incomes exceeded $90,000, they spent  about 3.1 hours on homework each night. That's well above the recommended time for K-12 students of any age. What impact did that amount of homework have on these students? We'll take a look on the next page.

Homework: Curiosity-Killing Stress Trigger Or Useful Learning Tool?

Denise Pope, the researcher who delved into the effects a heavy homework load had on wealthy children, found that "current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students’ advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being".

Namely, 56 percent of the students her team surveyed cited homework as a major source of stress. When asked about their general health and wellbeing, many students shared that they had experienced headaches, stomach problems, sleeping difficulties, and were exhausted. Spending over three hours on homework every day also led students to forfeit social time with relatives and friends, and to drop extracurricular activities. 

Other effects of large amounts of homework in elementary school could include:

• Parental pressure and parent-child conflict. Early elementary kids aren't always developmentally ready to manage their own time and complete assignments by themselves. Many parents find themselves sitting alongside their kids, some not just helping with homework but actually completing it. While taking an active role in your child's education can be fulfilling for both of you, that picture easily changes if the homework your child is assigned falls into the "pointless busywork" category. Your kid's teacher might think the busywork creates work ethic. You, on the other hand, probably believe that the same could be achieved by giving your child chores they now don't have time for.
• Hindering passion-finding. All humans are curious beings by nature. It's not learning that kids don't like, but learning things they don't see the need to learn. A heavy homework load prevents kids from spending time learning those things they are passionate about, and could kill their love of learning.
• We all need time to just relax. The fact that adults who are forced to take work home are stressed is well-documented. Why should kids be any different?

What's The Answer?

In Finland, which is consistently shown to have top-quality schools with test scores far beyond those of the United States, children don't spend more than three hours a week on homework — and some don't have homework at all. Creating an environment in which homework simply isn't necessary, because children complete their school work at school, is possible, then.

On the other hand, the fact that higher-performing schools in high socio-economic status areas assign more homework is fascinating. Causation might not equal correlation, and the stress these students experience as a result of that heavy homework load may ultimately cancel out the benefits of their superior academic performance, but it's interesting nonetheless. Could homework be having benefits we do not yet know about, after all?

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It isn't difficult to believe. Developing time-management skills, a strong work ethic and a sense of responsibility could all be benefits of homework.

Imagine again that you were an elementary aged kid. Would homework still stress you out if you could choose what you'd be doing? If submitting stop-motion videos, nature study journals, reports of interesting inventions you came up with or book reports about books you actually read for pleasure counted?

I'm guessing not.

Not only would you be able to develop skills in areas you might not otherwise have time to, but devising your own academic plans, approved by teachers before completing them, would allow you to learn to take initiative. As the school's scope and sequence would still be covered at school, you'd get the benefit of learning both what others believe is important and what you believe is important, and still having the latter acknowledged on grade report cards. The best of both worlds?