No More Homework, Says This Third Grade Teacher

Homework is a heated topic whether you’re talking to kindergarteners, high school students (or any grade between them) or their parents. Everyone’s got an opinion. I do too, especially after 21 years of teaching elementary school and raising twin 16-year-olds.

I grew up in Palo Alto, CA. In my early elementary school I went to an “open” school. Of course, this was the 1970’s. Classrooms had pillows and beanbag chairs rather than desks, a reading loft where you could go and read for hours.

You worked at your own pace, called your teachers by their first names and studied what interested you.  Homework was unheard of. After school we were supposed to build tree houses, make mud pies, play kick the can, participate in team sports do our chores and, of course, read for half an hour.

This didn’t last long. My father’s success drove us to the “better” side of town which meant a change of school for me and my sister. We were rapidly introduced to desks, rules, Miss So-and-So, and purple, smelly, mimeographed homework packets.

What??? Homework!! Ugh. When would we have time to play, practice, and rest for God’s sake?  These packets were crammed with drill and kill math facts, hundreds upon hundreds of equations, word searches, word banks, crossword puzzles, word scrambles. Wait…this was kind of fun….for about a week! Packets were assigned on Monday and turned in on Friday.  Did they ever even get graded? We’ll never know as they disappeared into the circular file never to be seen again.

High school and middle school were a bit different. It seemed as though the homework I had was mostly unfinished class work and reports. If I’d goofed off in class, then I had loads of homework that night. If I paid attention, used my work time appropriately I’d maybe have an hour of schoolwork, including reading, to complete by the next day. After all, I played three sports each school year, worked part time and had a boat-load of chores being the eldest of four children.

Guess what? I turned out OK without tons and tons of homework. I got into college then got a full-ride scholarship to graduate school. I’ve had the same job for over twenty years. 

That brings me to now. Every year at Back To School Night parents at De Laveaga Elementary School ask me what my homework policy is. I look at them very seriously and say, “I don’t believe in homework.” 

But these parents insist that Susie or Bobby needs HOMEWORK. Even though I tell them that homework will not make your child “smarter” or do better in school, they still want it.

I find this shocking. So, I’ve come up with the canned answer that they can go to Kalaidescope, the parent teacher store in Capitola and pick up as many workbooks as they’d like.

You should see the look on their faces…especially now in 2011 when we’re all so in a “Race to Nowhere.” Each student in my third grade class has a weekly contract, due Friday. This is class work, what’s not finished is homework. In addition to “unfinished business” I require that they read for twenty minutes every weeknight.  If the families in my class do this, their child will have success in third grade, guaranteed. 

Looking back on my own children’s experience in elementary school I wish they’d had an experience similar to mine or the one my students have.

We got caught up in that race, the Internet, generation now, or whatever. Too many tears were shed over homework assignments that were given without explanation, projects that were way above their heads. I wish we’d just slowed down, played and read as a family. Studies have shown that homework for elementary school students does not improve test scores, so why are we continuing to assign it?