No More Homework

My daughter brought home some homework this afternoon that was actually pretty cool. She has to interview us about how we chose her name. That's nice because it fosters creativity, family history, and literacy all at once.

On the other hand, I'm kind of opposed to homework for first graders. Slate reviewed three new books that take on the controversy about homework this week and writer/mama Emily Bazelton concludes that, for elementary school students, homework is at best, just something to do instead of turning on the T.V.

Alfie Kohn, in his new book, The Homework Myth , argues that the elementary level, homework is mere drudgery and kills intellectual curiosity. I tend to agree a little -- would you rather help your kid memorize the multiplication table or support his avid interest in learning all he can about yucky bugs? Even more damning, Kohn seems to believe that the only thing homework is good for doing is instilling the unquestioning obediance and tolerance for drudgery to turn our kids into the 60-hour-a-week worker-drones that are the necessary engine for our fading economy.

Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish's The Case Against Homework makes many of the same points as Kohn, but its authors also offer stragegies for dealing with the homework, and with the school.

The third book, Harris M. Coopers The Battle Over Homework crunches the numbers of a 700-family study to find out shocking facts like the fact that in younger students there is a negative corelation between the amount of homework a student does and his grades.

Everyone seems to agree, however, that the best homework a kid can do is to (voluntarily) curl up with a good book.