A few weeks ago, I was in a meeting where a policy change was being discussed. One of the members of the meeting said, "If we are going to make a change, it should be because it will benefit all or almost all students. We should not design a policy around the few who will take advantage of the current system." This obviously reasonable idea is not as universally accepted as you might think. Most would probably agree with the sentence if you posed it to them, but in practice, they design most of their policies around a few exceptions.
This week, I've been following a fascinating discussion on Twitter about homework that illustrates this idea. There may be no more divisive topic in education than whether homework is a good or bad thing. The research is unclear because the different designs of various studies and types of homework will allow you to claim research is on your side either way. If you hate homework, you can go pick the study in which students were asked to memorize nonsense syllables or color in a worksheet for the sake of having something to do at home and find that it didn't result in increased achievement, giving you permission to say, "See, research shows that homework is bad." If you want to defend homework, you can find the study that was carried out under ideal conditions with perfect questions that don't reflect classroom conditions in any way, giving you permission to say, "See, homework is critical." If you consider that we have been using this tool for decades, it is worth examining its purpose and use because there are some who resist change and others who believe in change for no other reason than the belief that newer is always better.
Well, this week, education blogger and host of the podcast Progressively Incorrect, Zach Groshell, decided to host a Twitter conversation on the topic of homework and homework bans. Now, Zach has a Ph.D. in instructional design and works as an instructional coach, so he has both experience and expertise in this area, but on social media, that doesn't matter. The structure of social media means I can assert that my ignorance is as valuable as your expertise; so despite his best efforts, the conversation didn't remain one of professional debate about research or how to design meaningful learning experiences as homework. It devolved into name-calling and emotional rants. Zach's main premise was that, in addition to homework's function as retrieval practice or extended learning, it was a form of free communication with parents about what is going on in their child's classroom and a tool for parents to assess how their child is doing. I confess that these were not points I had ever considered, but it does make sense that after ten minutes of going over vocabulary words with their 3rd-grader, a parent would know what was being covered in class and know if their child was struggling with those concepts.
What I most noticed, though, was that the theme of the negative responses was about the exceptions. "What about students who have jobs?" and "But my dyslexic child's experience is . . ." and "How dare you assume all parents can help their students." I was impressed by Zach's ability to remain engaged in the conversation (I would have muted it pretty quickly) and to respond rationally and calmly to comments that would have raised my blood pressure and brought out my inner snark. His most common reply was, "We shouldn't remove a tool that is valuable for most because of exceptions; we should design ways to support the exceptions." He suggested ways to support those for whom homework was not a valuable tool that were doable and scalable because he has experience in this area, but that only brought about accusations of burdening teachers. One of his replies was particularly interesting because it tackled the idea that just because something feels equitable doesn't mean it is because if we eliminated this tool, the wealthiest would replace it by hiring tutors for their kids while those who couldn't afford that would have stopped receiving it for free. He also brought up the idea that lowering the standard being met by the top performers will only look like it is closing the achievement gap, giving us a false sense of progress.
That part of this conversation took me back in my mind to a time when "teach to the middle" was a commonly heard phrase. The idea was that you had a range of students in your class, so you had to design your teaching around the center. Thankfully, I don't hear that much anymore because it is kind of crazy; it means you constantly chase a moving target depending on what the range in your particular class is. This is why standards exist. You should teach to the standard and then provide help and scaffolding for those who struggle to meet that standard. What we should be saying is, "Teach the best and support the rest."
Around midnight, Zach thanked everyone for the conversation and provided a link to resources on how to design good homework policies, showing far more grace than I could have. I hope people will respond to his grace by considering what he said rather than just being defensive about their own ideas. I hope they will consider whether we should design policies around the exceptions or whether we should decide what best meets our goals. I hope people will consider designing valuable homework rather than submitting to the two extremes of "ban for everyone" vs. "homework for homework's sake." I hope teachers will use their professional judgment about whether to grade an assignment rather than feeling they must grade them all or grade none of them. I hope people will resist making a change for everyone because of a few but will embrace giving the few what they need.
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