Recently, there was a discussion here on homework and Alfie Kohn. As I do with comments that we don’t want to lose access to, I am making Robert Harrell’s comment in that discussion into a blog post below [underlining mine], so that when we click on “homework” in the categories list, this will come up (along with Nathan Black’s great approach to homework), and thank you Robert for making a complicated thing simple for us, as you have done so often in the past:
Robert:
“What I took away from The Homework Myth were the following:
1. No homework should be the default setting.
2. Whenever homework is given, it needs to be justified, i.e. it accomplishes something that cannot be done in class.
3. “Homework” should be things that students are able to do on their own and can enjoy.
“Here are some things I do as a result:
1. Rarely give homework.
2. Assign culture projects as “homework” – students can do them in English, they have a choice of projects, they are doable alone, and they are things we can’t get done in class. (The cultural projects include making target culture food, going to museums to look at target culture exhibits, going to concerts of music from the target culture, and much more.)
3. Each year we inevitably get to likes, dislikes and favorite things in level 1 or 2. When we do, I assign a “worksheet” that asks in German for favorite music, favorite actor/actress, favorite class, favorite book, favorite film etc. The next day I read them in class in German (correcting and editing – and sometimes translating – as necessary), and the class tries to guess who it is. I always have a turn-in rate of nearly 100% on the due date, and those who didn’t get it in then quickly do so. We are, after all, talking about them. What I need to work on is using the answers more effectively as springboards to conversation. I don’t mind taking several days to go through these.
“(We also learn the Uwe Kind song “Was ist denn dein Lieblingsfach?” (What’s your favorite subject?)”
[One more thing on this from Ben: Robert, what you have written here in terms of your reaction to Kohn is very validating to me personally, because this is pretty much the stance I have had on homework for over three decades. Before these heady days of breaking, smashing, destroying, and ripping apart chains in what we do as teachers, I had always felt like I was doing something wrong with homework because I wasn’t playing the role of the “sergeant” John Piazza talks about at https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/07/07/alfie-kohn-vs-fred-jones/comment-page-1/#comment-20329]