Kohn claims ‘no evidence of any academic benefit’ for homework in elementary or middle school and a weak link in high school. Change the default to ‘no homework except when truly necessary’.
Proposals (to principals)
- Educate staff on the research; drop minutes-per-night policies.
- Reduce the amount; check how long tasks really take.
- Only set work teachers would design themselves: “better to give no homework to anyone than the same homework to everyone”.
- Involve students in decisions; try a homework-free week and measure.
Counter-evidence (Claude)
Cooper, Robinson & Patall (2006, Review of Educational Research): positive homework–achievement associations, strongest at secondary and weak in primary. So Kohn is roughly right for primary and overstated for teens.
Apply in my context (Claude)
- Language learning is a partial exception: out-of-class exposure (extensive reading and listening) is a different thing from worksheet homework. Nation’s meaning-focused input strand argues for it.
- Recast homework at Rahimov as: primary → reading/listening for pleasure plus short retrieval; teens/IELTS → targeted, individualised tasks.
Connections
Nation’s Four Strands - balance input, output, language focus and fluency · Spaced retrieval is the best-supported technique