Homework: Too Much, Too Soon?
After-hours school work doesn't always benefit budding brains.
Schools impose a substantial after-hours regimen on school children to intensify learning and heighten achievement. But does homework work?
As anti-homework advocates love to point out—and by this we mean educational psychologists and educators, not kids who'd rather be playing Wii—100 years of research have failed to prove conclusively that homework administered prior to middle school increases academic performance, improves skill sets, or leads to higher levels of achievement.
Back to front
Why is middle school the turning point? The answer may lie in how the brain develops over time.
In the initial stages of development, most of the gear-turning goes on in the back of the brain, where sensory cortices process the information absorbed from a child's environment. As a child grows and learns, the bits of information stored throughout the brain's memory become interconnected, resulting in a broadening set of skills and intelligence.
Come the teenage years, the sensory posterior becomes increasingly interconnected with the front of the brain, where more complex thoughts and emotions are managed.
"Once the frontal lobes start to develop, teenagers start being able to handle higher-level, more abstract concepts," says Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, research neuroscientist at the UCLA Semel Institute's Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity.
"The fiber tracts—highways that carry information from the sensory areas of the brain to the frontal lobes, and back again—have to be paved for information to travel."
Molnar-Szakacs explains that the paving, known as myelination, is the process by which the fiber tracts are insulated. With more learning comes more paving, and as the pathways become more efficient, the brain gets better at integrating information. There's a kind of built-in mnemonic device for understanding how myelination relates to learning: reinforcing lessons puts "miles" on nerves fibers, and information in the brain moves most easily along a well-traveled road.
However …
Myelination begs the question of whether the brain works best when lessons are repeated time and time again, as they are in homework assignments. The answer is a qualified yes.
Those students who have absorbed a lesson well in class and can recreate it faithfully on their own will reinforce neural paths and create new associations in the brain. In this respect, and for these particular students, the brain really can be worked like a muscle, trained to flex and make a good show of its strengths on request.
Moreover, Molnar-Szakacs explains, the brain builds in chemical rewards for students who take well to this method of learning, much like the body rewards exercise with endorphins.
"The system will release a certain amount of neurotransmitter to reinforce the feeling of accomplishment that studying brings," he says. "It's essentially the brain saying, 'This feels good, do it again.'"
The problem is, not every student does absorb or re-create the lesson well.
"There's a disconnect between cause and correlation," says Kalman M. Heller, Ph.D., a retired family and child psychologist* who practiced for more than 40 years in Massachusetts. "Students who do their homework and get better grades are generally more organized and may be very eager to succeed. It fits their 'student personality.' They do their homework and get better grades because it's natural for them to do so."
Heller and Molnar-Szakacs both touch on the notion of multiple intelligences. Academic skills, and the homework used to sharpen them, simply do not cover the range of possible ways in which kids can shine.
Says Heller, "Students may excel at making personal connections, being creative, or having athletic ability. Generally they are not good fits for the traditional educational model, even though there are so many people whose success is based on those same talents."
Free to be
The narrow focus of many homework curricula can strand those kids. Brilliant creative thinkers who struggle through piles of math and science assignments may complete high school without ever putting the appropriate number of miles on their neural pathways. They will experience all of the stress and little of the reward, neural or otherwise.
Unrecognized and unpotentiated, their intellect is put on hold, delaying their success and their happiness. Many will not blossom until their adult life when, of their own volition, they pursue a career that plays to their strengths.
"Children come to school thinking the world is their oyster and that anything is possible," concludes Molnar-Szakacs, "and then every year we essentially limit their vision by teaching them how to narrow their thinking."
If homework can't be more universal in drawing on student strengths, the least our schools can do is allow a kid more time to be a kid. After all, the most respected thinkers in history are noted for their exploration of unconventional ideas.
Some of the hours now spent hogtied to a chair, trying to solve for x and y, would be better spent thinking outside of the box…or even simply outside of the house.
Correction, February 25, 2009: This article originally stated that Dr. Heller as a psychiatrist. That is incorrect; he is a psychologist. It also incorrectly identified his middle initial. The text has been corrected to reflect these changes. Return to the corrected sentence.
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Rich Maloof's award-winning writing has covered subjects ranging from soda pop to stem cells. He has written for MSN, CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo!, Women’s Health, and various other publications. He is the published author of 12 books to date, including several instructional titles for musicians. His latest title, This Will Kill You, is being released by St. Martin's Press in May. Rich is a regular contributor to Brain & Body.
As an elementary teacher, I disagree with "homework". Families need time to be families. Students go to school 8 hours a day, sit in hard chairs and "build brain power". It is my responsibility to teach my students. Parents did not choose to become the primary educator or they wouldn't have sent their child to school. They would be homeschoolers. Over the years of teaching, I have found little to no benefit to long hours of homework. I believe no more than 10 minutes per grade. For example first graders have 10 minutes.
There are cases where a child does not finish "schoolwork" . Unfortunately, that child must finish at home in order to be ready for the next day. That is beyond the control of the teacher. However, the student must be able to complete the work independently. The work should not be parent homework.
To Disneymomof3:
Since your comment seems to be directed at my original post let me clarify things for you since you seem to think you know everything.
When I say I HAVE to sit down and do my childrens homework, I don't mean that I have a choice, I HAVE TO. The homework all revolves around a parent doing the homework with their child. Need an example? ok lets take my 2nd grader...
She has what's called math mad minutes. This is a nightly assignment that is timed. She has 3 minutes to attempt to get 30 math problems solved. What she doesn't finish must be circled and then completed. Then what she did finish needs to be checked, and any incorrect answers corrected. So...I have to first time her, then correct her paper.
She then has spelling. She does not have a spellling workbook like we had when we were kids. No, she has nightly spelling projects. Much the same way as the mad minutes, these projects revolve around me sitting there doing the homework with her.
Then there's guided reading. This is where every night she has to read me a book of the teachers choosing, some of them pretty lengthy for a 2nd grader. Then there's a small project that goes along with each story. She and I have to both write down what we thought of the story, did we like it ect..
So...since you seem to know it all, how am I supposed to NOT sit down with my kids and help them do their homework every night?? Don't tell me it takes time to learn to prioritize, I've been doing it for the last 13 years. For you to say that I'm being selfish..**** are you talking about??? I never ONCE said in my post that it was taking up MY precious time. You said that!! And what right do you have to tell me that I shouldn't have had kids in the first place???
You miss your bedtime by 10-15 minutes? lol don't I wish. I usually get to bed somewhere around 2 am after getting all my housework done at night, then get up again at 6 am. And that dear woman is my life, which you know nothing about, so don't presume to know what I go through on a daily basis. Maybe you should try getting some facts before you start running your mouth. What works for you doesn't work for everyone so don't try to play the supermom card with me lady.
Captoad ,
I am wondering if you ever went to school before being a teenager. I still remember the things I was taught in the second grade, foundations that paved my learning to high school. However, I was able to learn that without 5 hours of homework, as I have now. Although I did have to practice, lets say division, about 15 minutes a day back then, I believe that that did reinforce my learning. I don't think homework is the problem, but the amount.
Dang it cut me off lol
We take things for granted. Those children would had killed for homework and did their homework with pleasure. Our main goals are fitting in being like everyone. We are followers not leaders. Leaders create their on ways and have their own style. Fashion is a necessity and homework is irrelevant to the student. Priorities are centered around everything but school and homework. And people wonder why children neglect homework. It's because they care about material things.
One last thing. Parents if you want your child to do better and do homework quicker. You have to teach them to be positive and realize its going to help them in the future. My parents always told me before i started kindergardent that if I work hard I will be successful, get money and buy them a house. LOL. But it worked. I am ranked number four out of a class of 315. Parents you also have to be patient with your kid. I have 4 younger sisters and I know from experience too that homework is frustrating at any age but sitting down and helping them (not giving the answer) will ultimately lead to a faster completion of homework. My mom, who had two jobs, raising a 6 and a 8 year old by herself, knew that she had to sit down all night if she had to with her children, even if she has to get up early to work, because she did not want them to live the hard life she had and my father had.
So people instead of complaining about the system be active. Do something go to to the Board of Education, the teacher, the principal. See what you can do.
Homework engenders a bright future.
ps. to all the parents i was making a suggestion.
A lot of the parents in this discuss needs to emotionally detach themselves from the fact that they feel bad for their kids. A lot of you put your child in extracurricular activities at young ages and try to make them balance school and sports, dance etc. This adds to stress and frustration. Now not all parents do it but a lot of them do. Parents, you need to look at homework at a more broader way. Homework helps for practice hence the aphorism "Practice makes perfect." The homework they do now to review will help create, but not limited to, a lawyer, doctor, teacher, entrepreneur and engineers. If your child wants to work at McDonald's for the rest of their life then okay whatever forget all the homework. But if he or she wants to succeed then they need all the practice they can get.
I know homework is hard. I'm almost 17 and do homework from 5-9 sometimes longer each night. Nevertheless, this is due to the fact that I, the student, chose my hard classes. It was my decision and I have to face all the homework because of my decision. Do I get stressed? Yes, of course I do. Part of the reason why I do not finish quickly is because I'm distracted. When we, the student, do our homework, half of the time we are thinking "Oh my god, I can't wait until I'm done. I can go outside, play with my friends" or if we are teenagers we think "I can finally talk to my friends, text, chill, go on myspace and facebook, talk to my baby...." Our heart and minds are put into other things that we think are more important. Another reason why homework is not finished quickly is that in school we do not always pay attention. Parents your child may say they are attentive in school but until you see it first hand at school,you don't know. In my honors physics class, my peers constantly say they don't understand the work and sometimes I don't either. This is because we spend all 45 minutes of class talking about our weekend, doing other homework we did not feel like completing the night before and complaining how we don't understand. Hm, how counterproductive.
But let's not blame the student for all the madness. The No Child Left Behind Act messed up the school systems. The teachers cannot teach their students the most important things because they have to teach the information that is in the standardize tests.
The homework is also due to school systems who just give homework and do not explain anything. Now, I'm a great student, I'll admit that. I'm in pre-calc and AP statistics right now and doing well but I remember a time when I was in first grade and I could not add 4+6. Talk about struggling and depressing. This was due to the teachers and the school system not caring at all and they were passing students to pass them.
Now I know there are some problems assigned to students that are hard because they are made to challenge us. (That's why half the time it says "Critical Thinking")
The biggest issue is that the United States has lost sight in the importance of education. Ever wonder why other countries succeed so much? It's because they emphasize the importance of education. They know education and school is a privilege and not some everyday chore. This school year I read a non-fiction novel called "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson and David Relin. It was about how Mortenson found a small village in Pakistan and vowed to build a school for the children. Imagine this: 80 children under the age of 12 who are dirty. Their clothes filthy, faces hidden by all the dirt and they are malnourished. They all work silently on an area in their village which is their "school." There isn't any teacher because it cost too much and their government does not want to fund the money to pay so the teacher is there once a week. Their paper and pencil are dirt and a stick. They don't complain. They are grateful for all that they have. The man that runs the village ask Mortenson one thing "build a school for the children." You see this is all they want. We want high fashion and material things. We take
I have read many of the comments, and found my mind wandering to the beginning of the movie "The Gods must be Crazy". Great movie about an aborigine and the modern world. In the first segment of the movie, is this view of the aborigine in his environment, and how he is able to provide food and shelter for his family daily, with time to relax at the end of each day. Then the movie shows the distant city and how the "modern" man has made a complex world with many "time" saving inventions to make his life easier and allow more time to relax. But he has made the world so complex that he is forced to send his children to school for 10-15 years to be able to operate the complex world.
Now that the movie is more than a few decades old...how complex the world has become is in the examples of how many years we have to go to school. Really, doesn't homework and formal education try to assure a childs grasp on the golden ring...bigger shelter and the ability to have someone else slave over raising our daily food. The quest to achieve the house on the hill does not preclude that someone somewhere needs to raise the food and gather for the population. Why we judge the common worker as "lower" is sad. Many many of us lack the skills to feed ourselves anymore, nor choose to return to the manual labors of such a life. I, like many people like to stop at the store and pick up groceries...I, unlike many people was raised on a ranch, some of the hardest work you will ever do, yet enriching with little monetary compensation. We should respect all people for their contributions and make them feel valued. What type of society would we have if everyone worked in white collar jobs. Who would build our houses on the hill...who would plumb it, who would pour the cement, who...the valued people...the workers. So why aren't they making equal pay for their services...why. The need for homework to grasp the ring shows a perversion in the concept of "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness". What would our lives be without the arts, and open thinkers. No sculptures, museums, music, inventions, paintings, no Disney, no statue of Liberty. Learning is about engaging, exploring, and explaining, and being able to allow the student to soar past the teacher. Not regurgitating.
So we can feed him, let's give him dinner time and a snack after school. Block off 30 minutes and that's hardly generous. We are now down 2.5 hours of his day to be a kid, pursue any other interest. If we add in a sport, the day is gone,... well when exactly does this child decompress and evaluate his day, his thoughts, and forgive me for daring, but when can he just be a kid?
Taking the article into consideration, when and how do these children develop their personalities, skills, artistic abilities or just about anything else? When can they interact with the world in other terms besides listening to instructions. By the way if the instructions were successfully mapped out I wouldn't be chained to a table pulling my hair out after dinner trying to teach my child what they were supposedly taught at school. Isn't homework supposed to be a review??
I don't think it is a balanced lifestyle to have children nor even an adult spend 12hours out of a 15hour slot of life on school. I really think the schools idea of how we should be teaching our children is askew and clearly by the state of how overly medicated and diagnosed children in the mainstream are with adhd, depression, bipolar and so on and so forth the platform chosen is obviously failing us miserably. When is America going to wake up and defend our lives and those of our children's rights of liberty to pursue freedom and enjoyment of life. Education is key, but if it is failing clearly when we medicate the intended recipient because they fail to be able to conform to it, let alone thrive by it. We need to reform the methods. How we expect the education department to join hands with the government to implement an education plan when they clearly have been given failing grades time and time again is insanity. You know what insanity is don't you? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results!
Ban homework! Bring back recess, art, music and sports. Let our kids become superior thinkers and doers as opposed to a medicated nation! It is not the children with learning disorders, it is the education department that has a teaching disorder!
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