quote on no homework

Are You Down With or Done With Homework?

• Posted January 17, 2012
• By Lory Hough

The debate over how much schoolwork students should be doing at home has flared again, with one side saying it's too much, the other side saying in our competitive world, it's just not enough.

It was a move that doesn't happen very often in American public schools: The principal got rid of homework.

This past September, Stephanie Brant, principal of Gaithersburg Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Md., decided that instead of teachers sending kids home with math worksheets and spelling flash cards, students would instead go home and read. Every day for 30 minutes, more if they had time or the inclination, with parents or on their own.

"I knew this would be a big shift for my community," she says. But she also strongly believed it was a necessary one. Twenty-first-century learners, especially those in elementary school, need to think critically and understand their own learning — not spend night after night doing rote homework drills.

Brant's move may not be common, but she isn't alone in her questioning. The value of doing schoolwork at home has gone in and out of fashion in the United States among educators, policymakers, the media, and, more recently, parents. As far back as the late 1800s, with the rise of the Progressive Era, doctors such as Joseph Mayer Rice began pushing for a limit on what he called "mechanical homework," saying it caused childhood nervous conditions and eyestrain. Around that time, the then-influential Ladies Home Journal began publishing a series of anti-homework articles, stating that five hours of brain work a day was "the most we should ask of our children," and that homework was an intrusion on family life. In response, states like California passed laws abolishing homework for students under a certain age.

But, as is often the case with education, the tide eventually turned. After the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, a space race emerged, and, writes Brian Gill in the journal Theory Into Practice, "The homework problem was reconceived as part of a national crisis; the U.S. was losing the Cold War because Russian children were smarter." Many earlier laws limiting homework were abolished, and the longterm trend toward less homework came to an end.

The debate re-emerged a decade later when parents of the late '60s and '70s argued that children should be free to play and explore — similar anti-homework wellness arguments echoed nearly a century earlier. By the early-1980s, however, the pendulum swung again with the publication of A Nation at Risk , which blamed poor education for a "rising tide of mediocrity." Students needed to work harder, the report said, and one way to do this was more homework.

For the most part, this pro-homework sentiment is still going strong today, in part because of mandatory testing and continued economic concerns about the nation's competitiveness. Many believe that today's students are falling behind their peers in places like Korea and Finland and are paying more attention to Angry Birds than to ancient Babylonia.

But there are also a growing number of Stephanie Brants out there, educators and parents who believe that students are stressed and missing out on valuable family time. Students, they say, particularly younger students who have seen a rise in the amount of take-home work and already put in a six- to nine-hour "work" day, need less, not more homework.

Who is right? Are students not working hard enough or is homework not working for them? Here's where the story gets a little tricky: It depends on whom you ask and what research you're looking at. As Cathy Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework , points out, "Homework has generated enough research so that a study can be found to support almost any position, as long as conflicting studies are ignored." Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth and a strong believer in eliminating all homework, writes that, "The fact that there isn't anything close to unanimity among experts belies the widespread assumption that homework helps." At best, he says, homework shows only an association, not a causal relationship, with academic achievement. In other words, it's hard to tease out how homework is really affecting test scores and grades. Did one teacher give better homework than another? Was one teacher more effective in the classroom? Do certain students test better or just try harder?

"It is difficult to separate where the effect of classroom teaching ends," Vatterott writes, "and the effect of homework begins."

Putting research aside, however, much of the current debate over homework is focused less on how homework affects academic achievement and more on time. Parents in particular have been saying that the amount of time children spend in school, especially with afterschool programs, combined with the amount of homework given — as early as kindergarten — is leaving students with little time to run around, eat dinner with their families, or even get enough sleep.

Certainly, for some parents, homework is a way to stay connected to their children's learning. But for others, homework creates a tug-of-war between parents and children, says Liz Goodenough, M.A.T.'71, creator of a documentary called Where Do the Children Play?

"Ideally homework should be about taking something home, spending a few curious and interesting moments in which children might engage with parents, and then getting that project back to school — an organizational triumph," she says. "A nag-free activity could engage family time: Ask a parent about his or her own childhood. Interview siblings."

Instead, as the authors of The Case Against Homework write, "Homework overload is turning many of us into the types of parents we never wanted to be: nags, bribers, and taskmasters."

Leslie Butchko saw it happen a few years ago when her son started sixth grade in the Santa Monica-Malibu (Calif.) United School District. She remembers him getting two to four hours of homework a night, plus weekend and vacation projects. He was overwhelmed and struggled to finish assignments, especially on nights when he also had an extracurricular activity.

"Ultimately, we felt compelled to have Bobby quit karate — he's a black belt — to allow more time for homework," she says. And then, with all of their attention focused on Bobby's homework, she and her husband started sending their youngest to his room so that Bobby could focus. "One day, my younger son gave us 15-minute coupons as a present for us to use to send him to play in the back room. … It was then that we realized there had to be something wrong with the amount of homework we were facing."

Butchko joined forces with another mother who was having similar struggles and ultimately helped get the homework policy in her district changed, limiting homework on weekends and holidays, setting time guidelines for daily homework, and broadening the definition of homework to include projects and studying for tests. As she told the school board at one meeting when the policy was first being discussed, "In closing, I just want to say that I had more free time at Harvard Law School than my son has in middle school, and that is not in the best interests of our children."

One barrier that Butchko had to overcome initially was convincing many teachers and parents that more homework doesn't necessarily equal rigor.

"Most of the parents that were against the homework policy felt that students need a large quantity of homework to prepare them for the rigorous AP classes in high school and to get them into Harvard," she says.

Stephanie Conklin, Ed.M.'06, sees this at Another Course to College, the Boston pilot school where she teaches math. "When a student is not completing [his or her] homework, parents usually are frustrated by this and agree with me that homework is an important part of their child's learning," she says.

As Timothy Jarman, Ed.M.'10, a ninth-grade English teacher at Eugene Ashley High School in Wilmington, N.C., says, "Parents think it is strange when their children are not assigned a substantial amount of homework."

That's because, writes Vatterott, in her chapter, "The Cult(ure) of Homework," the concept of homework "has become so engrained in U.S. culture that the word homework is part of the common vernacular."

These days, nightly homework is a given in American schools, writes Kohn.

"Homework isn't limited to those occasions when it seems appropriate and important. Most teachers and administrators aren't saying, 'It may be useful to do this particular project at home,'" he writes. "Rather, the point of departure seems to be, 'We've decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several times a week). … This commitment to the idea of homework in the abstract is accepted by the overwhelming majority of schools — public and private, elementary and secondary."

Brant had to confront this when she cut homework at Gaithersburg Elementary.

"A lot of my parents have this idea that homework is part of life. This is what I had to do when I was young," she says, and so, too, will our kids. "So I had to shift their thinking." She did this slowly, first by asking her teachers last year to really think about what they were sending home. And this year, in addition to forming a parent advisory group around the issue, she also holds events to answer questions.

Still, not everyone is convinced that homework as a given is a bad thing. "Any pursuit of excellence, be it in sports, the arts, or academics, requires hard work. That our culture finds it okay for kids to spend hours a day in a sport but not equal time on academics is part of the problem," wrote one pro-homework parent on the blog for the documentary Race to Nowhere , which looks at the stress American students are under. "Homework has always been an issue for parents and children. It is now and it was 20 years ago. I think when people decide to have children that it is their responsibility to educate them," wrote another.

And part of educating them, some believe, is helping them develop skills they will eventually need in adulthood. "Homework can help students develop study skills that will be of value even after they leave school," reads a publication on the U.S. Department of Education website called Homework Tips for Parents. "It can teach them that learning takes place anywhere, not just in the classroom. … It can foster positive character traits such as independence and responsibility. Homework can teach children how to manage time."

Annie Brown, Ed.M.'01, feels this is particularly critical at less affluent schools like the ones she has worked at in Boston, Cambridge, Mass., and Los Angeles as a literacy coach.

"It feels important that my students do homework because they will ultimately be competing for college placement and jobs with students who have done homework and have developed a work ethic," she says. "Also it will get them ready for independently taking responsibility for their learning, which will need to happen for them to go to college."

The problem with this thinking, writes Vatterott, is that homework becomes a way to practice being a worker.

"Which begs the question," she writes. "Is our job as educators to produce learners or workers?"

Slate magazine editor Emily Bazelon, in a piece about homework, says this makes no sense for younger kids.

"Why should we think that practicing homework in first grade will make you better at doing it in middle school?" she writes. "Doesn't the opposite seem equally plausible: that it's counterproductive to ask children to sit down and work at night before they're developmentally ready because you'll just make them tired and cross?"

Kohn writes in the American School Board Journal that this "premature exposure" to practices like homework (and sit-and-listen lessons and tests) "are clearly a bad match for younger children and of questionable value at any age." He calls it BGUTI: Better Get Used to It. "The logic here is that we have to prepare you for the bad things that are going to be done to you later … by doing them to you now."

According to a recent University of Michigan study, daily homework for six- to eight-year-olds increased on average from about 8 minutes in 1981 to 22 minutes in 2003. A review of research by Duke University Professor Harris Cooper found that for elementary school students, "the average correlation between time spent on homework and achievement … hovered around zero."

So should homework be eliminated? Of course not, say many Ed School graduates who are teaching. Not only would students not have time for essays and long projects, but also teachers would not be able to get all students to grade level or to cover critical material, says Brett Pangburn, Ed.M.'06, a sixth-grade English teacher at Excel Academy Charter School in Boston. Still, he says, homework has to be relevant.

"Kids need to practice the skills being taught in class, especially where, like the kids I teach at Excel, they are behind and need to catch up," he says. "Our results at Excel have demonstrated that kids can catch up and view themselves as in control of their academic futures, but this requires hard work, and homework is a part of it."

Ed School Professor Howard Gardner basically agrees.

"America and Americans lurch between too little homework in many of our schools to an excess of homework in our most competitive environments — Li'l Abner vs. Tiger Mother," he says. "Neither approach makes sense. Homework should build on what happens in class, consolidating skills and helping students to answer new questions."

So how can schools come to a happy medium, a way that allows teachers to cover everything they need while not overwhelming students? Conklin says she often gives online math assignments that act as labs and students have two or three days to complete them, including some in-class time. Students at Pangburn's school have a 50-minute silent period during regular school hours where homework can be started, and where teachers pull individual or small groups of students aside for tutoring, often on that night's homework. Afterschool homework clubs can help.

Some schools and districts have adapted time limits rather than nix homework completely, with the 10-minute per grade rule being the standard — 10 minutes a night for first-graders, 30 minutes for third-graders, and so on. (This remedy, however, is often met with mixed results since not all students work at the same pace.) Other schools offer an extended day that allows teachers to cover more material in school, in turn requiring fewer take-home assignments. And for others, like Stephanie Brant's elementary school in Maryland, more reading with a few targeted project assignments has been the answer.

"The routine of reading is so much more important than the routine of homework," she says. "Let's have kids reflect. You can still have the routine and you can still have your workspace, but now it's for reading. I often say to parents, if we can put a man on the moon, we can put a man or woman on Mars and that person is now a second-grader. We don't know what skills that person will need. At the end of the day, we have to feel confident that we're giving them something they can use on Mars."

Read a January 2014 update.

Homework Policy Still Going Strong

Ed. Magazine

The magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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86 Homework Quotes To Inspire You

Following is our list of homework quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about inspirational homework.

Famous Homework Quotes

Short homework quotes, no homework quotes, inspirational homework quotes, more homework quotes.

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You will never get anywhere if you do not do your homework. — Jim Rogers 34

Study your lessons, don't settle for less. — Tupac Shakur 53

No kid should be getting three or four hours of homework a night. There's no breathing time, there's no family time, there are just extracurriculars and homework and then go to bed. — Ross W. Greene 42

The worst thing a kid can say about homework is that it is too hard. The worst thing a kid can say about a game is it's too easy. — Henry Jenkins 46

The business of schools is to design, create, and invent high-quality, intellectually demanding schoolwork that students find engaging. — Phillip C. Schlechty 22

If you want to work with me, you have to work harder than the others and do well in school. — Bernard Arnault 72

You're an idiot. Study harder. — Hideaki Anno 43

To increase student engagement and ownership of learning, we should give students opportunities to do meaningful work - work that makes a difference locally, nationally, and globally. — Eric Williams 26

Education begins at home. You can't blame the school for not putting into your child what you don't put into him. — Geoffrey Holder 46

You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room. — Dr. Seuss 76

Every day I lugged my backpack through the halls, waiting for the final bell. Then I'd race home and hole up in my room, playing the drums and the piano, composing music. — Josh Groban 50

Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results. — John Dewey 236

The only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics. — Paul Halmos 90

In school, my favorite subject was math. That's where I learned to count money. — French Montana 91

The bitterness of studying is preferable to the bitterness of ignorance. — Filipino Proverbs 71

• I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework. — Lily Tomlin
• A genius is just a talented person who does his homework. — Thomas A. Edison
• I’m going to do what I want, get my money and go home. — Amanda Nunes
• College is about three things: homework, fun, and sleep...but you can only choose two. — Andy Stern
• Focus on fewer but higher impact tasks. — Leo Babauta
• Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life. — Lawrence Kasdan
• Inspiration comes in the middle of the night when you should be doing homework. — Amy Lee
• Millennials grew up realizing that they can get the job done without having to go to the office. — Eric Yuan
• I’m a guy who doesn’t really care about glamour and big markets; I like to be home all day. — Giannis Antetokounmpo
• I’ve always liked home-cooked meals. — Kawhi Leonard

Homework Image Quotes

The Wright brothers committed themselves to do what no one else had ever done before. They took time to do their homework. They were humble and smart enough to appreciate and learn about the work of others who went before. And they tackled the problem line upon line, precept upon precept. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf 6

A child too, can never grasp the fact that the same mother who cooks so well, is so concerned about his cough, and helps so kindly with his homework, in some circumstance has no more feeling than a wall of his hidden inner world. — Alice Duer Miller 0

I will just say, no matter where you buy the car, do your homework. When I purchase a car I come in with a folder an inch thick. In fact, one time the auto sales person asked if he could copy my research! — Michelle Singletary 0

They asked us to draw pictures of what we thought men and women look like naked and so I was like, "Get away, I'm doing my weird homework, drawing a naked man and woman." And I can't even draw. That's all I remember. I have no memory. — Jen Kirkman 0

The best thing about baseball is there's no homework. — Dan Quisenberry 0

Do your homework or hire wise experts to help you. Never jump into a business you have no idea about. — John Templeton 0

There is no Dubai and Abu Dhabi; we are one. Whoever doesn't understand this should do their homework before they start talking. We will be there for each other when we need it. — Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum 0

Homework is not an option. My bed is sending out serious nap rays. I can't help myself. The fluffy pillows and warm comforter are more powerful than I am. I have no choice but to snuggle under the covers. — Laurie Halse Anderson 0

Nothing is more powerful for your future than being a gatherer of good ideas and information. That's called doing your homework. — Jim Rohn 73

The more you do your homework, the more you're free to be intuitive. But you've got to put the work in. — Edward Norton 40

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. As a result, a genius is often a talented person who has simply done all of his homework. — Thomas A. Edison 5

When I come home, it's about my kid, who needs to eat, needs to do homework, and needs to get to basketball. I don't have a lot of time to think about me. — Taraji P. Henson 1

That's my fun time so, to me, doing my homework, studying on what I do, watching the movies, listening to music, all that inspires me so I focus a lot on that and practice. — Christina Milian 0

To overcome stress you have to find out something. You've got to do some research and homework. You need to find out who you are today. — Frederick Lenz 0

Most people think it's all about the idea. It's not. EVERYONE has ideas. The hard part is doing the homework to know if the idea could work in an industry, then doing the preparation to be able to execute on the idea. — Mark Cuban 0

Where do I go from here? — Nicholas Sparks 0

People Writing About Homework

If you're passionate about what you do, then go for it wholeheartedly. Be prepared that if anytime, you may be surprised by a phenomenal opportunity that may come your way, and that's when I say, do your homework. Be ready. — Julie Andrews 75

When I was growing up, my parents told me, 'Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving.' I tell my daughters, 'Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.' — Thomas Friedman 71

Usually, I’ll give them homework—a small, doable task. I’ll give you an example. There was an artist I was working with recently who hadn’t made an album in a long time, and he was struggling with finishing anything. He just had this version of a writer’s block. But I would give him very doable homework assignments that almost seemed like a joke. ‘Tonight, I want you to write one word in this song that needs five lines, that you can’t finish. I just want one word that you like by tomorrow. Do you think that you could come up with one word? — Rick Rubin 64

Like most parents, I've been stumped by homework, the big questions, such as: 'What is the point of geography - the pilot always knows where we are going?'. Answer: 'If you didn't know any geography, people would think you were an American, and you wouldn't be able to put them right because you wouldn't know where they live.' — A. A. Gill 61

Do not rush into a business just because you have the capital. You'd lose your shirt if you jump into it recklessly. Do your homework first. Study the market and look for that golden opportunity. Whatever business you choose to go into, it must be something that you can pursue with passion. — Andrew Tan 60

I want to make music and songs about things that real musicians and artists aren't able to make songs about - you wouldn't hear Justin Bieber making a song about homework, or, like, you wouldn't see someone make a song with their parents on the track. — Jake Paul 56

Sometimes we have to put our foot down, ... but before we deliberately make children unhappy in order to get them to get into the car, or to do their homework or whatever, we need to weigh whether what we're doing to make it happen is worth the possible strain on our relationship with them. — Alfie Kohn 51

You look in excellent health to me, Potter, so you will excuse me if I don't let you off homework today. I assure you that if you do die, you need not hand it in. — J. K. Rowling 51

I don't want to deal with problems, and so you want to make sure that you don't give yourself problems by not doing your homework and maybe trying to take a kid that's got great ability but isn't going to get it done in the classroom. — Mike Candrea 50

In my home state of Delaware, we've done our homework and worked hard and, as a result, we've made great strides in cleaning up our own air pollution. Unfortunately, a number of the upwind states to the west of us have not made the same commitment to reducing harmful pollution by investing in cleaner air. — Thomas Carper 49

90% of the people in the stock market, professionals and amateurs alike, simply haven't done enough homework. — William J. O'Neil 45

A miracle is a single mom who works two jobs to care for her kids and still helps them with their homework at night. A miracle is a child donating all the money in their piggy bank to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. That's where you'll find the hand and face of God. — Cathie Linz 43

It is not that we had any unfair knowledge that other people didn't have, it is just that we did our homework. People just don't want to believe that anyone can break away from the crowd and rise above mediocrity. — Paul Tudor Jones 39

Can’t be starting all these problems if you cannot solve them. — Cardi B 29

I hate homework. I hate it more now than I did when I was the one lugging textbooks and binders back and forth from school. The hour my children are seated at the kitchen table, their books spread out before them, the crumbs of their after-school snack littering the table, is without a doubt the worst hour of my day. — Ayelet Waldman 22

Everyone has days where they don't get their way, where you have to go to bed early or you have too much homework to do or you can't eat the candy that you want or you miss your favorite TV show and, in those moments, you just want to tear the whole world down. — Alex Hirsch 20

Homework strongly indicates that the teachers are not doing their jobs well enough during the school day. It's not like they'll let you bring your home stuff to school and work on it there. You can't say, 'I didn't finish sleeping at home, so I have to work on finishing my sleep here. — Jim Benton 20

Do your homework and know your business better than anyone. Otherwise, someone who knows more and works harder will kick your ass. — Mark Cuban 19

One of life's most painful moments comes when we must admit that we didn't do our homework, that we are not prepared. — Merlin Olsen 18

The team that is going to win is the one that does its homework the best by studying its opponents. — Imran Khan 18

Homework is a term that means grown up imposed yet self-afflicting torture. — James Patterson 18

Parents make sure homework is returned without error, drill their kids on upcoming tests to the saturation point, and then complain if teachers do not give the grades they think their kids deserve. By that point, it's hard to tell whose grades they are. — John Rosemond 17

For me, being a writer was never a choice. I was born one. All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers. I wrote on everything. I didn't do my homework so I could write — Laura Hillenbrand 17

The tree I had in the garden as a child, my beech tree, I used to climb up there and spend hours. I took my homework up there, my books, I went up there if I was sad, and it just felt very good to be up there among the green leaves and the birds and the sky. — Jane Goodall 16

I get her to school, we do homework at night, and at this age, their social calendars are really quite hectic. She's not driving yet, so I end up chauffeuring her around. — Charlene Tilton 15

This is what I tell, especially young women, fight the big fights. Don't fight the little fight... Be the first one in, be the last one out. Do your homework, choose your battles. Don't whine, and don't be the one who complains about everything. Fight the big fight. — Barbara Walters 15

In high school, a teacher once suggested that I be a math major in college. I thought, 'Me? You've got to be joking!' I mean, in junior high, I used to come home and cry because I was so afraid of my math homework. Seriously, I was terrified of math. — Danica McKellar 14

I will not go into a story unprepared. I will do my homework, and that's something I learned at an early age. — Ed Bradley 14

I don't believe in sampling some Tibetan music just to make it sound groovy, but you do your homework, you understand what you're doing with it. — Jessica Hagedorn 14

It takes tremendous will to compete in any athletic endeavor, so it meant going to bed early and getting my homework done in advance. I had to sacrifice things, like a social life, to be a skater at 15. But I loved skating so much that it was worth everything to me. — Vera Wang 14

In Conclusion

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