Oh homework, how we loathe you in my house.

You take us away from family time and dinner conversations and walks around the neighborhood and play time and even recreational reading time. You invade car rides and take away sleep. You diminish social time with friends. You make us question participation in Boy Scouts and youth groups and service learning. You cause arguments and frustration. You add stress. You cause tears.

Sometimes you aren’t valuable. Sometimes you aren’t necessary.

There is plenty of research on you. Cooper and Patall and Robinson. Fernández-Alonso and Darling-Hammond and Ifill-Lynch.

Research that says its about quality and not quantity. Research that says that giving too much of you actually hinders performance.

I would suggest you read those studies, homework. You need a reality check.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/12/12/stress-and-the-high-school-student/homeworks-diminishing-returns

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/00346543076001001

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb06/vol63/num05/If-They%27d-Only-Do-Their-Work!.aspx

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775711000549

Here’s the thing homework. When I was teaching I didn’t assign much of you. I wanted…