Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / 10 Reasons For Ditching Homework

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10 Reasons For Ditching Homework · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: On the Happy Families podcast, we love to slay sacred
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: cows and one of my favorites to take potshots at
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: is homework, particularly homework in primary school. Today in the
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: pod ten reasons your children don't need homework at least
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: in primary school, stay with us. Hello and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the Happy Families podcast, where you get real parenting solutions
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  Speaker 1: every single day. This is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast,
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  Speaker 1: where Justin and Kylie Coulson. Kylie received the following voice
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: note via Happy Families dot com dot Au.
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  Speaker 2: My name's Maxine and I've got a question about homework.
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  Speaker 2: I am a teacher and I am a parent, and
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  Speaker 2: sometimes I have difficulty articulating why I feel so strongly
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  Speaker 2: about not giving homework. As a teacher, I find it
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  Speaker 2: easy to advocate for children and have strong opinions about
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  Speaker 2: why homework is not effective up until a certain age,
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  Speaker 2: much like yours, the ones that you've talked about before. However,
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  Speaker 2: when I'm in a professional capacity, I find it difficult
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  Speaker 2: to articulate why homework is not beneficial to a lot
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  Speaker 2: of children at a young age. And I'm talking primary school.
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  Speaker 2: I wonder if you can help me to find a
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  Speaker 2: way of sharing with my colleagues in a professional but
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  Speaker 2: assertive way, why homework might not be what we think
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  Speaker 2: it is. Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Can we help with this question? Kylie? Can we help?
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  Speaker 1: I've had a lot to say about homework over the years.
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  Speaker 1: I was just online hunt and twenty seventeen we posted
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  Speaker 1: something called his Homework Helpful, the homework letter I send
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  Speaker 1: to school each year. Just google Happy Families Doctor Justin
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  Speaker 1: Coulson homework letter and you'll find it. We will link
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  Speaker 1: to it in the show notes Today, Kylie, We're going
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  Speaker 1: to talk about ten reasons that I think homework is
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  Speaker 1: not helpful. All of them are evidence backed. But what's
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  Speaker 1: your initial response when you hear the question.
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  Speaker 3: I love that she's acknowledged not only is she a teacher,
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  Speaker 3: she's a mum and she would go to the hill
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  Speaker 3: to defend her child, but as a teacher is struggling
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  Speaker 3: to be the minority voice in the room as a
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  Speaker 3: really tough place to be for anyone, and homeworks seems
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  Speaker 3: to be I don't understand why, but it seems to
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  Speaker 3: be one of those conversation pieces in the classroom that
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  Speaker 3: really gets people's heckles up.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, people love homework, parents love homework. Most teachers actually don't,
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  Speaker 1: although in Maxine's case, she's right in the staff. And
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  Speaker 1: there's this expectation that, well, we've always had homework, so
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  Speaker 1: therefore it's institutionalized, so therefore it must work, it must matter.
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  Speaker 1: Before we jump into my ten reasons, I want to
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  Speaker 1: quickly highlight. First off, there's a book by Alfie Kohen,
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  Speaker 1: who is a podcast favorite. Alfie Can't wrote a book
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  Speaker 1: called The Homework Myth. It's exceptionally well researched. There's so
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  Speaker 1: much in there. It's probably about ten twelve years old now,
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  Speaker 1: maybe even more, but it's a very very strong book
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  Speaker 1: in this area. There is also a parliamentary inquiry that
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  Speaker 1: was conducted by the Victorian government around about I think
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  Speaker 1: it was twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen something like that. They
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  Speaker 1: found that homework has absolutely no benefit, none whatsoever to
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  Speaker 1: children in primary school. And yet, and yet you're not
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  Speaker 1: going to say the Education Department said, well, we think
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  Speaker 1: that it's still worth doing. Just struggle with this.
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  Speaker 3: We actually have knowledge, right, it's not speculation. We actually
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  Speaker 3: have proven knowledge that this doesn't work, that this actually
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  Speaker 3: is not a beneficial. If you want to do homework.
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  Speaker 3: Give kids projects that bring them to life. They don't
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  Speaker 3: even realize they're doing homework because they're having so much fun.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: In other words, let them play. In other words, let
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  Speaker 1: them play quickly. I should add as well, homework is
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  Speaker 1: better than sitting there scrolling TikTok or Instagram reels, or
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  Speaker 1: playing rogublocks or Fortnight or something like that. So I
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  Speaker 1: mean there is a hierarchy. There are some stuff that's
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  Speaker 1: just not good for kids, full stop, end of story.
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  Speaker 1: But this is a discussion today about homework. Let's go
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  Speaker 1: through it. Honey, I've got ten things. Kick me off,
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  Speaker 1: let's get it going.
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  Speaker 3: Number one.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, there's no academic benefit decades of research, so homework
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  Speaker 1: in primary school has zero correlation with academic achievement. Let
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  Speaker 1: me say it again. It doesn't matter where you look,
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what data you pull up, you will
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  Speaker 1: not find research that supports any relationship between doing homework
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  Speaker 1: in primary school and your child's academic achievement. The only
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  Speaker 1: evidence that we've got about homework being positively related to
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  Speaker 1: academic achievement is doing a little bit of homework in
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  Speaker 1: high school. But even then, the relationship between academic outcomes
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  Speaker 1: and homework is small. Now, there's probably two things that
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  Speaker 1: we need to talk about here. We need to talk
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  Speaker 1: about tutoring, and we need to talk about reading.
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  Speaker 3: Reading has been a non negotiable in our house, but
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  Speaker 3: not in the way that everybody would think.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's not homework.
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  Speaker 3: It's not about how many pages she reads. It's not
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  Speaker 3: about how long she reads for. It's finding text that
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  Speaker 3: her to light perfect and then letting her read for
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  Speaker 3: as long as you want.
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  Speaker 1: And you don't bribe them unless you're going to say,
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  Speaker 1: once you finish, that will get your line.
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  Speaker 3: She doesn't have to color in a square at the
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  Speaker 3: end of it.
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  Speaker 1: No, don't worry.
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  Speaker 3: Just and if she doesn't want to read, then you
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  Speaker 3: read to her, and you read and you read and
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  Speaker 3: you read.
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  Speaker 1: Yep, totally sorry.
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  Speaker 3: I've got six girls.
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  Speaker 2: I know.
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  Speaker 1: The other thing is tutoring. So I don't have a
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  Speaker 1: problem with tutoring. If you've got a child who's struggling.
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  Speaker 1: Here's the thing. If you've got a child who's struggling,
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  Speaker 1: doing homework will only make them struggle more because they
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  Speaker 1: are already struggling, and now they're doing it on their
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  Speaker 1: own rather than in a classroom where there's support. So
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  Speaker 1: homework will not help a struggling student, But tutoring is different.
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  Speaker 1: Why because tutoring means that you've got somebody who's died
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  Speaker 1: in individual correctness process as practice, and so that's helpful.
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  Speaker 3: If you think about what we're actually sharing in the classroom.
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  Speaker 3: It's supposed to be a personalized program, but then homework
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  Speaker 3: goes home and it's the same for twenty five, thirty
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  Speaker 3: two kids, whatever. How does that become personalized.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that's actually one of my ten things, and that
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  Speaker 1: is that it assumes one size fits all. This is
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  Speaker 1: the second thing that I want to highlight. Homework ignores
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  Speaker 1: the individual characteristics and difference as educationally of each student.
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  Speaker 3: We've got one child who's like flying ahead and they're
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  Speaker 3: totally bored and can't understand why they have to go
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  Speaker 3: through this again. And then you've got the other end
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  Speaker 3: of the spectrum with a child who is struggling desperately
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  Speaker 3: and none of this makes sense and they just go
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  Speaker 3: home and every night gets reinforced that they're not good enough.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, whether they're slower learning, like you said, sometimes it's ability,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes it's just interest, and sometimes you've got to consider
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  Speaker 1: the home circumstances as well. Not every child goes home
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  Speaker 1: to a supportive environment where they could sit down at
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  Speaker 1: the dining table and do it. And Kyle, as you've said,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes it takes one kid twenty minutes, might take another
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  Speaker 1: kid two hours, which does not go well.
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  Speaker 3: Number three.
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  Speaker 1: The third one that I jotted down was this, I
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  Speaker 1: think that it displays more important activities. So there's play,
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  Speaker 1: particularly unstructured play. I'm like, that's what we want more
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  Speaker 1: than anything. But there's also family time home, there's just
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  Speaker 1: moving your body, there's getting enough sleep, unstructured exploration. These
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  Speaker 1: are all the developmentally required, developmentally important elements of childhood
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  Speaker 1: that homework sometimes replaces and crowds out, meaning that they're
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  Speaker 1: not getting the social skills, the creativity, the physical health benefits.
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  Speaker 1: Homework doesn't provide those benefits.
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  Speaker 3: One of the skills that our children went to One
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  Speaker 3: of our children brought home a biingo sheet for homework
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  Speaker 3: and it was you know, do twenty skips and some
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  Speaker 3: of the activities they were physically based. Can you skip
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  Speaker 3: twenty times down the road? Can you take the dog
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  Speaker 3: for a walk, Can you jump on the trampoline? Can
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  Speaker 3: you go for a swing have a swim, like just
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  Speaker 3: active things where the kids are getting out. There's no
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  Speaker 3: timeframe around it. It's just getting them to move their bodies.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there were some stuff about going to the
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  Speaker 1: shops with your parents and.
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  Speaker 3: Reading a book, having cuddle time with mum and dad.
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  Speaker 1: And those things aren't homework. Those are just called being
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  Speaker 1: a child. But the teacher was prescribing it because those
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  Speaker 1: things are going to be helpful and maybe parents might
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  Speaker 1: get on board with those things. So I do like
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  Speaker 1: that before. Yeah, I don't think it's good for parent
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  Speaker 1: child relationships. The research does indicate that all too often
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  Speaker 1: parents and children start having battles because parents become enforces
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  Speaker 1: and become nags, and they become coaches, and it creates
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  Speaker 1: conflict and stress and it kind of can transfer the
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  Speaker 1: home into an extension of school, which is not good
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  Speaker 1: for relationships. And anyone who lived through COVID will remember
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  Speaker 1: that well.
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  Speaker 3: And you think about it, Mom and dad, they've got
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  Speaker 3: a whole lot of other things they're doing, and then
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  Speaker 3: we're trying to add that to witching hour.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's be honest, Like, no parent needs the extra stress.
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  Speaker 1: And yet parents, when you talk to teachers, they will
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  Speaker 1: tell you it's the parents that are.
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  Speaker 3: Actually pushing for it.
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  Speaker 1: Banging and banging and banging that drama. What about homework?
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  Speaker 1: Just stop it, seriously, just stop it. Number five, this
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  Speaker 1: is the last one before the break. Research shows that
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  Speaker 1: giving kids homework kills intrinsic motivation to learn, because when
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  Speaker 1: you force children to do academic work at home when
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  Speaker 1: they're often tired, and often that not in truest in.
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  Speaker 1: What it does is it teaches them that learning is
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  Speaker 1: a chore that they have to endure. It's not about enjoyment.
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  Speaker 1: They've just got to get it done. So it will
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  Speaker 1: extinguish that flame of curiosity, that love of learning. After
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: the break, another five reasons that homework will not help
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  Speaker 1: your child in primary school. Stay with us, We're back.
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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. Let's keep going. The next
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  Speaker 1: one around homework is quite a social justice one, and
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  Speaker 1: that is that it exacerbates inequality. What do I mean
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  Speaker 1: by that? We've sort of touched on this earlier, Kylie.
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  Speaker 1: Children from disadvantaged homes are usually going to lack the
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  Speaker 1: quiet study space that they need. They're going to probably
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  Speaker 1: have a lack of parental help and resources and support,
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  Speaker 1: which means that giving homework if it did work, and
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't. But let's take the alternate view for a second.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine that there was a relationship between doing homework and
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  Speaker 1: academic consequences. Homework would then become a tool that widened
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  Speaker 1: the achievement gap, which is exactly the op sort of
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  Speaker 1: what we're trying to do. Homework would punish kids for
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  Speaker 1: circumstances that are be on their control. And even if
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  Speaker 1: it's not having a relationship with academic outcomes, which it doesn't,
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  Speaker 1: kids still do get punished because when they show up
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  Speaker 1: at school the next day and they haven't done their homework,
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  Speaker 1: the teacher gets them in trouble for not having done it.
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  Speaker 1: So not a fan from that point of view. Number seven, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we kind of touched on this, but let's just recognize
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  Speaker 1: we've got higher levels of mental health challenge than ever before.
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  Speaker 1: And my experience, our experience with homework has been that
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  Speaker 1: it creates additional stress and anxiety for children and for parents,
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  Speaker 1: like it just adds to the cognitive load. It adds
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  Speaker 1: to the burden that everyone's carrying. You've got a child
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  Speaker 1: who's just done six hours or more at school. Now
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  Speaker 1: you're going to get them to do overtime when they
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  Speaker 1: come home do an extra shift. It's burnout, Its anxiety,
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  Speaker 1: the sense of being overwhelmed. There's no downtime there for
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  Speaker 1: the kids. I just I don't see how it advantages them.
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  Speaker 1: And the stress, the stress that it puts on to
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  Speaker 1: parents who quite often double and come homes or both
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  Speaker 1: parents are working dealing with so much already. The last
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: thing that you want to do in between loads of washing, cooking, cleaning,
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  Speaker 1: changing sheets, ironing.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: And getting ready for tomorrow, getting ready for.
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  Speaker 1: The school uniforms and things for tomorrow, is to say, oh,
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  Speaker 1: and by the way, let's have a look at your homework, like,
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  Speaker 1: come on, give me a break. I just I don't
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  Speaker 1: think that it's helpful at all.
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  Speaker 3: What's number eight?
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  Speaker 1: This is the compliance idea. So as we've already said,
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  Speaker 1: the Victorian government in twenty nineteen did their parliamentary inquiry
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  Speaker 1: and acknowledged they recognize that homework doesn't appear to have
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: any benefits for children in primary school. I mean they
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  Speaker 1: literally this government would not budge on it in spite
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: of it, and the reason that they decided to keep
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: homework as an education imperative was and I'm not directly quoting,
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  Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing because it teaches kids work ethic, and they're
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: going to have homework later in life, so they might
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  Speaker 1: as well get used to it now. It doesn't teach
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  Speaker 1: time management, it doesn't teach work ethic. There is no
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  Speaker 1: research to support this idea at all. Responsibility if you
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: want your kids to be responsible and to stand time
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: management and work ethic. First of all, this just happens developmentally.
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  Speaker 1: But secondly, it happens through age appropriate, real world tasks
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  Speaker 1: and not contrived academic exercises. This is just madness.
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  Speaker 3: Why are we asking our children to learn adult lessons
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  Speaker 3: as five, six, seven, and eight year olds?
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  Speaker 1: See you five six, and then you did six seven,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: You did six seven and six seven. So there's two
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  Speaker 1: more that I want to touch on just quickly. Most
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  Speaker 1: primary homework is not really beneficial. It's just worksheets, it's
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: just learning. It's busy work. And what it does is
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  Speaker 1: it rewards compliance and completion much more than rewards creativity
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  Speaker 1: or critical thinking. There's no growth in homework. It's just
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: about following instructions. There's nothing there about intellectual curiosity. You
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: talked about projects before, When the kids have got a
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: model that they're building, or they're designing a home, or
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  Speaker 1: they're well, they're coming.
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  Speaker 3: Home to help mum cook dinner, or who can they help.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all of those things will make a difference, and
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: homework doesn't do it. The last one, this one's actually
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  Speaker 1: one for the teachers. It undermines teacher autonomy. And what
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: don't we mo with that? A lot of teachers are
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: assigning homework not because they want to or because they
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: believe it's valuable. They're assigning it because the school and
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the department expects it of them, and parents expected of them,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: which means that educators are being forced to practice and
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: enforce and defend policies and practices that most of them
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: know don't benefit children at all. So hopefully that's helpful maccine.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: If I was to prescribe anything for kids after school,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the list would be homework. Well, no,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the list would be time on screens.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: But next to that would be homework. I'd be saying,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: get the kids outside, get them moving their bodies, get
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: them spending time with each other, get them playing, get
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: them being creative, give them art supplies, give them anything
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  Speaker 1: resource wise that they need to be moving their bodies
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: or spending time with each other, or reading to a
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: younger sibling, dicking their head in a book. Yep, that's
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the stuff that matters. And you can prescribe that as
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: homework if you need to, and I would imagine that
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: that's probably going to have a better impact on academic
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: outcomes and the well being of kids than anything that
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: you can send home on a busy sheet, Sorry, on
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: a worksheet. I think that's rant over. We'll link in
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: the show notes the homework letter. But Maxine, thanks so
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: much for sending the question through. If you have a
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: tricky question or anything you're curious about, let us know
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: via Happy families dot com dot you just scroll down
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: to the bit where it says record and start talking. Well,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: you've got press a record button first and then start talking,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: or send us a voice note to podcasts at Happy
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: families dot com dot au. Hey, tomorrow on the pod,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: we're going to be getting in depth with missus Happy Families.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Kylie's been on a healthcack. You've been hearing about it
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: bit by bit on the podcast, and we're going to
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: give you an update. The first of what we hope
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: will be many updates as Kylie shares what's working, what's not,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: and what she's learning on this big adventure called Training
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: for Old Age. Can't wait for that one tomorrow on
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the pod. Thanks so much for listening.