Let’s take another look at homework

The March 2022 Kappan included an article by Colin McGrath, a junior at a high school in Larkspur, California, titled, “The problem with homework: A letter to my younger brother.” In the letter, Colin tries to warn his brother Dylan, who was about to finish 8th grade, of the workload ahead of him in high school. While there is value in this purpose, the letter paints a bleak picture of what homework has been like for him. Why is this?

Colin describes going through the motions to complete assignments and then having teachers do the same when checking them: “They’ll never look closely at it to see of you actually understood it, and they’ll never reference that material again,” Colin writes. He encourages Dylan, instead, to focus attention on his “real interests” and find things to learn on his own.

As educators, we have to acknowledge that, even though we want to instill in students a love of learning, preK-12 education does — like most long-term undertakings — sometimes include moments of disinterest, tiredness, and maybe even boredom. Surely many of us, no matter our ages, could understand and sympathize with Colin’s point of view. After a six-hour day at school — listening, learning, reading, writing, solving math problems, absorbing history, investigating science anomalies, and the like (even when interesting and taught well) — how many of us were eager to get home, open the books again, and continue our tasks?