Homework as the job of childhood

Theory Into Practice, Summer, 2004 by Lyn Corno, Jianzhong Xu

The authors undertook a series of empirical studies to examine how students experience homework at various grade levels. The research casts a different light on the century-old practice of doing homework, suggesting it is the quintessential job of childhood. Homework creates a situation where the child must complete assigned tasks under minimal supervision and after little initial training. Doing well on that job gets one further along in school. As in the workplace, when children move from beginners to experts with homework, they demonstrate responsibility and become skilled at managing tasks. These positive outcomes enhance the intended deepening of students' subject matter knowledge. However, the authors assert that another virtue of homework is that it can prepare children for jobs they will have one day; it may develop an aptitude for gainful employment.

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RARELY, IT SEEMS, do teachers speak of an interest in how their students experience homework. Just as productive output matters most to an employer, teachers seem to value the outcomes of homework more than its processes. One conclusion from research on how employees actually experience work is that some people are remarkably good at infusing even the most mundane jobs with personal meaning, and supervisors are advised to examine their techniques (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). In our research we have asked how students experience homework; we found that homework and job situations have much in common.

A series of empirical studies began with videotapes of third graders doing homework. Our goal was to capture the full range of emotions, distractions, and issues that arise in the homework experience at this young age. We then conducted interviews with these children and their parents while they watched the videotapes, giving interpretations for the record in conjunction with our own. A second study surveyed students in urban and rural middle schools to understand their concerns about homework and how they manage it. Finally, we talked with high school students to increase our knowledge about relatively more mature perceptions of homework, including the extent that older students use homework management strategies deemed effective by research.

In this article we focus on the practical conclusions and implications of our research. We conceive of homework at the level of a job--that is, how students experience it in relation to other forms of work. We discuss homework as the quintessential job of childhood. Our research suggests that features of homework sufficiently overlap with job-related activities to conclude that viewing homework as a job has important benefits.

Comparing Homework to a Job

How they are alike

To begin with, homework is work, not play. In contrast to what some might hope, students rarely finish their homework exclaiming that they had great fun. Nor is homework an activity that students elect to undertake. It is assigned by a teacher for students to complete on the teacher's schedule, with the teacher's requirements in mind. So it helps to have the right attitude. Homework means business and the student should expect to buckle down. As in the workplace, careless efforts and a laissezfaire attitude are likely to make the wrong impression.

Second, teachers assign homework for a variety of purposes (Warton, 2001). In some cases, teachers seek to review and solidify material being covered in class; homework is also designed to extend student learning beyond class lessons (Cooper, 1989). As students mature, teachers often assign homework nightly in several subjects. Homework is also used to prepare students to handle new work, as in the case of summer reading. Increasingly, school reforms call for homework to take the form of course projects or a culminating term experience, thus increasing its connection to "authentic" job-related activity (Epstein & Van Voorhis, 2001).

Homework is multifaceted, benefiting from planning and preparation. As with tasks in the workplace, homework should be broken down into parts, and students should tackle some of the more difficult aspects of their homework while they are fresh. They can then use easier tasks to break up the load, interspersing quickly handled elements with those requiring more time, and multitasking when possible.

Like jobs, homework can be engaging when its resources are well managed. Resources include sources of information--textbooks, of course, and increasingly, the Internet--but they also include a quiet space to work, materials and equipment such as calculators, paper or a computer, and others who cohabit the homework environment. The external resources needed for homework can be viewed as a kind of home office for the child with features like those needed in the workplace.

As with other aspects of schooling, homework is, in part, an exchange of performance for grades (Becker, Geer, & Hughes, 1968). Good grades lead to advancement in school in much the same way that a job offers an exchange of performance for financial compensation and career promotion. Thus, through homework, the idea of a performance exchange becomes appropriated by and cultivated in children at a young age; in doing homework, children begin to practice working for external rewards. In this case, we use practice to mean the extra diligence and vigilance that comes with self-observation, as opposed to conditioned reinforcement of less mindful responses. The mindful practicing of homework ensures follow-through just as mindfulness does on the job.