the end of homework

Review: The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning

(An updated version of this piece is available at this link.)

The End of Homework by Etta Kralovec and John Buell offers a succinct and researched account of why homework does little to actually improve academic performance, and instead hurts a family’s overall well-being. Kralovec and Buell analyze and dissect homework studies over the last few decades, finding that most research supports their claims or, at-best, makes dubious claims on the affects of homework. Although written in 2000, The End of Homework makes arguments that are only strengthened today: homework is discriminatory toward the poor (and the wealth gap has grown), it separates families from their children (and families work longer hours, and homework assigned has increased), and academic results are mixed (and recent studies reflect this.)

At Human Restoration Project , one of the core systemic changes we suggest is the elimination of homework. Throughout this piece, I will include more recent research studies that add to this work. I believe that the adverse affects of homework are so strong that any homework assigned, outside of minor catching up or incredibly niche cases, does more harm than good.

Summarized within The End of Homework , as well as developmental psychologists, sociologists, and educators, are the core reasons why homework is not beneficial:

Homework is Inequitable

In the most practical terms, calls for teachers to assign more homework and for parents to provide a quiet, well-lit place for the child to study must always be considered in the context of the parents’ education, income, available time, and job security. For many of our fellow citizens, jobs have become less secure and less well paid over the course of the last two decades.

Americans work the longest hours of any nation . Individuals in 2006 worked 11 hours longer than their counterparts in 1979. In 2020, 70% of children live in households where both parents work. And the United States is the only country in the industrial world without guaranteed family leave. The results are staggering: 90% of women and 95% of men report work-family conflict . According to the Center for American Progress , “the United States today has the most family-hostile public policy in the developed world due to a long-standing political impasse.”

As a result, parents have much less time to connect with their children. This is not a call to a return to traditional family roles, or even to have stay-at-home parents. Rather, our occupational society is structured inadequately to allow for the use of homework, and Americans must change how labor laws demand their time. For those who work in entry level positions, such as customer service and cashiers, there is an average 240% turnover per year due to lack of pay, poor conditions, work-life balance, and mismanagement. Family incomes continue to decline for lower- and middle-class Americans, leaving more parents to work increased hours or multiple jobs. In other words, parents, especially poor parents, have less opportunities to spend time with their children, let alone foster academic “gains” via homework.

In an effort to increase engagement in homework, teachers have been encouraged to create interesting, creative assignments. Although this has good intentions, rigorous homework with increased complexity places more impetus on parents. As Gary Natrillo, an initial proponent of creative homework, stated later:

‘…not only was homework being assigned as suggested by all the ‘experts,’ but the teacher was obviously taking the homework seriously, making it challenging instead of routine and checking it each day and giving feedback. We were enveloped by the nightmare of near total implementation of the reform recommendations pertaining to homework…More creative homework tasks are a mixed blessing on the receiving end. On the one hand, they, of course, lead to higher engagement and interest for children and their parents. On the other hand, they require one to be well rested, a special condition of mind not often available to working parents…’

Time is a luxury to most Americans. With increased working hours, in conjunction with extreme levels of stress, many Americans don’t have the necessary mindset to adequately supply children with the attention to detail for complex homework. As Kralovec and Buell state,

To put it plainly, I have discovered that after a day at work, the commute home, dinner preparations, and the prospect of baths, goodnight stories, and my own work ahead, there comes a time beyond which I cannot sustain my enthusiasm for the math brain teaser or the creative story task.

Americans are some of the most stressed people in the world. Mass shootings, health care affordability, discrimination, sexual harassment, climate change, the presidential election, and literally: staying informed have caused roughly 70% of people to report moderate or extreme stress , with increased rates for people of color, LGBTQIA Americans, and other discriminated groups. 90% of high schoolers and college students report moderate or higher stress, with half reporting depression and lack of energy and motivation .

Perhaps the solution to academic achievement in America isn’t doubling down on test scores or increasing the work students do at home, but solving the underlying systemic inequities : the economic and discriminatory problems that plague our society? Kralovec and Buell note,

Citing the low test scores of American students has become a favorite cocktail party game. However, some scholars have offered a more nuanced explanation for the poor showing by U.S. students in international academic performance comparisons, suggesting that it may have more to do with high levels of childhood poverty and a lack of support for families in the United States than with low academic standards, shorter school days, and fewer hours spent on homework.

Finland, frequently cited as a model education system, enjoys some of the highest standards of living in the world:

• Finland’s life expectancy is 81.8 years, compare to the US’ 78.7 years and a notable difference exists in the US between rich and poor . Further, America’s life expectancy is declining, the only industrialized country with this statistic .
• Finland’s health care is rated best in the world and only spends $3,078 per capita, compared to $8,047 in the US.
• Finland has virtually no homelessness , compared to 500,000 homeless in the United States .
• Finland has the lowest inequality levels in the EU , compared to the United States with one of the highest inequality levels in the world . Research has demonstrated that countries with lower inequality levels are happier and healthier .

Outside of just convincing you to flat-out move to Finland, these statistics reflect that potentially — instead of investing hundreds of millions of dollars in initiatives to increase national test scores , such as homework strategies, curriculum changes, and nationwide “raising the bar” initiatives — the US should invest in programs that universally help our daily lives, such as universal healthcare and housing. The solution to test scores is rooted in solving America’s underlying inequitable society — shining a light on our core issues — rather than making teachers solve all of our community’s problems.

But Wait, Despite All This…Does Homework Even Work!?

‘Extensive classroom research of ‘time on task’ and international comparisons of year-round time for study suggest that additional homework might promote U.S. students’ achievement.’ This written statement by some of the top professionals in the field of homework research raises some difficult questions. More homework might promote student achievement? Are all our blood, sweat, and tears at the kitchen table over homework based on something that merely might be true? Our belief in the value of homework is akin to faith. We assume that it fosters a love of learning, better study habits, improved attitudes toward school, and greater self-discipline; we believe that better teachers assign more homework and that one sign of a good school is a good, enforced homework policy.

Numerous studies of homework reflect an inconsistent result. Not only does homework rarely demonstrate large, if any, academic gains for testing, there are many negative impacts on the family that are often ignored.

• Countries that assigned the least amount of homework: Denmark, Czech Republic, had higher test scores than those with the most amount of homework: Iran, Thailand .
• Quality of instruction, motivation, and ability are all correlated with student success in school. Yet homework may be marginal or counterproductive .
• Of all homework assigned, homework only saw marginal increases in math and science standardized testing , and had no bearing on grades.
• Homework added pressure and societal stress to those who already experienced the same at home , causing a further divide in academic performance (due to lack of time and financial stress.)

By bringing schoolwork home, the well-intentioned belief of promoting equity through high standards has the adverse affect of causing further inequity. Private and preparatory schools are notorious for extreme levels of homework assignment . Yet, many progressive schools assign no homework and achieve the same levels of college and career success . Again, the biggest predictor of college success has nothing to do with rigorous preparation, and everything to do with family income levels. 77% of students from high income families graduated from a highly competitive college, whereas 9% of students from low income families did the same .

School curriculum obsession in homework is likely rooted in studies that demonstrate increased test scores as a result of assigned homework. The End of Homework deciphers this phenomena:

Cooper’s work provides us with one more example of a problem that routinely bedevils all the sciences: the relationship between correlation and causality. If A and B happen simultaneously, we do not know whether A causes B or B causes A, or whether both phenomena occur casually together or are individually determined by another set of variables…Thus far, most studies in this area have amounted to little more than crude correlations that cannot justify the sweeping conclusions some have derived from them.

If other countries demonstrate educational success (albeit measured through standardized testing) with little to no assigned homework and limited school hours , shouldn’t we take a step back and analyze the system as a whole, rather than figure out better homework schemes?

A Reflection of Neoliberal Society

According to New York State’s Teacher of the Year in 1990:

‘[Schools] separate parents and children from vital interaction with each other and from true curiosity about each other’s lives. Schools stifle family originality by appropriating the critical time needed for any sound idea of family to develop — then they blame the family for its family to be a family. It’s like a malicious person lifting a photograph from the developing chemicals too early, then pronouncing the photographer incompetent.’

Education often equates learning with work. I have to stop myself from behaving like an economics analysist: telling students to quit “wasting time”, stating that the purpose of the lesson is useful for future earnings, seeing everything as prep for college and career (and college is ultimately just for more earnings in a career), and making blanket assumptions that those who aren’t motivated will ultimately never contribute to society, taking on “low levels” of work that “aren’t as important” as other positions.

Since the nineteenth century, developmental psychology has been moving away from the notion that children are nothing more or less than miniature adults. In suggesting that children need to learn to deal with adult levels of pressure, we risk doing them untold damage. By this logic, the schoolyard shootings of recent years may be likened to ‘disgruntled employee’ rampages.

This mentality is unhealthy and unjust. The purpose of education should be to develop purpose. People live happier and healthier lives as a result of pursuing and developing a core purpose. Some people’s purpose is related to their line of work, but there is not necessarily a connection. However, the primary goal stated by districts, states, and the national government of the education system is to make “productive members of society.” When we double down on economic principles to raise complex individuals, it’s no wonder we’re seeing such horrific statistics related to childhood .

Further, the consistent pressure to produce for economic gain raises generations of young people to believe that wealth is a measurement of success and that specific lines of work create happiness. Teachers and parents are told to make their children “work hard” for future success and develop “grit.” Although grit is an important indicator of overcoming obstacles , it is not developed by enforcing grit through authoritarian classrooms or meaningless, long tasks . In fact, an argument could be made that many Americans accept their dramatically poor work-life balance and lack of access to needs such as affordable health care by being brought up in a society that rewards neoliberal tendencies of “working through it” to “eventually achieve happiness.”

Kralovec and Buell state,

Many of us would question whether our fighting with our children for twelve years about homework could possibly foster good habits. In contrast, participating in the decisions of the household and collaborating with others on common chores, from cooking to cleaning to doing routine repairs, are important life skills that also require good work habits. For many children, these habits are never learned because homework gets in the way of that work.

Americans have more difficulty than ever raising children, with increasing demands of time and rising childcare costs . Children often need to “pick up the slack” and help taking care of the home. In fact, children with chores show completely positive universal growth across the board . When teachers provide more and more homework, they take away from the parents’ ability to structure their household according to their needs. As written in The End of Homework ,

Most of us find we do not have enough time with our children to teach them these things; our ‘teaching’ time is instead taken up with school-mandated subjects. We often wonder if we wouldn’t have less tension in our society over prayer in schools if our children had more time for religious instruction at home and for participation in church activities. When school is the virtually exclusive center of the child’s educational and even moral universe, it is not surprising that so many parents should find school agendas (with which they may or may not agree) a threat to their very authority and identity.

Of course, this is not to say that it is all the teacher’s fault. Educators face immense pressure to carry out governmental/school policies that place test scores at the forefront. Many of these policies require homework , and an educator’s future employment is centered on enacting these changes:

As more academic demands are placed on teachers, homework can help lengthen the school day and thus ensure ‘coverage’ — that is, the completion of the full curriculum that each teacher is supposed to cover during the school year…This in itself places pressure on teachers to create meaningful homework and often to assign large amounts of it so that the students’ parents will think the teacher is rigorous and the school has high academic standards. Extensive homework is frequently linked in our minds to high standards.

Therefore, there’s a connection to be made between “work”-life balance of children and the people who are tasked with teaching them. 8% of the teacher workforce leaves every year , many concerned with work-life balance . Perhaps teachers see an increased desire to “work” students in their class and at home due to the pressures they face in their own occupation?

We have little opportunity to enjoy recreation, community events, local politics, or family life. Our diminished possibilities in this regard in turn reinforce our reliance on wages and the workplace. And even the family time that remains after the demands of work and commuting are met is increasingly structured by the requirements of the workplace and school.

The more we equate work with learning, and the more we accept a school’s primary purpose to prepare workers, the less we actually succeed at promoting academics. Instead, we bolster the neoliberal tendencies of the United States to work hard, yet comparably to other countries’ lifestyle gains, achieve little. The United States must examine the underlying inequities of peoples’ lives, rather than focus on increasing schools’ workloads and lessening children’s free time for mythical academic gains that lead to little change. Teacher preparation programs and popular authors need to stop promoting “ interesting and fun ways to teach ‘x’! ” and propose systemic changes that radically change the way education is done, including systemic changes to society at large. Only then will the United States actually see improved livelihoods and a better education system for all.

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The End of Homework

How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning

By Etta Kralovec and John Buell

Category: nonfiction.

Aug 01, 2001 | ISBN 9780807042199 | 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 --> | ISBN 9780807042199 --> Buy

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Aug 01, 2001 | ISBN 9780807042199

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About The End of Homework

Etta Kralovec and John Buell are educators who dared to challenge one of the most widely accepted practices in American schools. Their provocative argument first published in this book, featured in Time and Newsweek, in numerous women’s magazines, on national radio and network television broadcasts, was the first openly to challenge the gospel of “the more homework the better.” Consider: * In 1901, homework was legally banned in parts of the U.S. There are no studies showing that assigning homework before junior high school improves academic achievement. * Increasingly, students and their parents are told that homework must take precedence over music lessons, religious education, and family and community activities. As the homework load increases (and studies show it is increasing) these family priorities are neglected. * Homework is a great discriminator, effectively allowing students whose families “have” to surge ahead of their classmates who may have less. * Backpacks are literally bone-crushing, sometimes weighing as much as the child. Isn’t it obvious we’re overburdening our kids?

Also by Etta Kralovec

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Is it possible that homework isn’t good for kids? Dare we even consider such a shocking idea? . . . Does it make children, teachers, and parents angry at each other rather than allied with each other? –Deborah Meier, author of The Power of Their Ideas and Will Standards Save Public Education? , in her Mission Hill School News “The increasing amount of homework may not be helping students to learn more; indeed, it often undermines the students’ health, the development of personal interests, and the quality of family life.” –Ted Sizer and Nancy Faust Sizer, authors of The Students Are Watching

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The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning

Etta kralovec , john buell.

136 pages, Paperback

First published July 17, 2000

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The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children and Limits Learning Hardcover – 17 July 2000

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• Print length 192 pages
• Language English
• Publication date 17 July 2000
• ISBN-10 0807042188
• ISBN-13 978-0807042182
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• Language ‏ : ‎ English
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Student Opinion

Should We Get Rid of Homework?

Some educators are pushing to get rid of homework. Would that be a good thing?

By Jeremy Engle and Michael Gonchar

Do you like doing homework? Do you think it has benefited you educationally?

Has homework ever helped you practice a difficult skill — in math, for example — until you mastered it? Has it helped you learn new concepts in history or science? Has it helped to teach you life skills, such as independence and responsibility? Or, have you had a more negative experience with homework? Does it stress you out, numb your brain from busywork or actually make you fall behind in your classes?

Should we get rid of homework?

In “ The Movement to End Homework Is Wrong, ” published in July, the Times Opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang argues that homework may be imperfect, but it still serves an important purpose in school. The essay begins:

Do students really need to do their homework? As a parent and a former teacher, I have been pondering this question for quite a long time. The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value. But I also imagine that some of my students never would have done their basic reading if they hadn’t been trained to complete expected assignments, which would have made the task of teaching an English class nearly impossible. As a parent, I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing the sort of pointless homework I would occasionally assign, but I also think there’s a lot of value in saying, “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” I certainly am not the only person wondering about the value of homework. Recently, the sociologist Jessica McCrory Calarco and the mathematics education scholars Ilana Horn and Grace Chen published a paper, “ You Need to Be More Responsible: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities .” They argued that while there’s some evidence that homework might help students learn, it also exacerbates inequalities and reinforces what they call the “meritocratic” narrative that says kids who do well in school do so because of “individual competence, effort and responsibility.” The authors believe this meritocratic narrative is a myth and that homework — math homework in particular — further entrenches the myth in the minds of teachers and their students. Calarco, Horn and Chen write, “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.”

Mr. Kang argues:

But there’s a defense of homework that doesn’t really have much to do with class mobility, equality or any sense of reinforcing the notion of meritocracy. It’s one that became quite clear to me when I was a teacher: Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day. Even if we could perfectly equalize opportunity in school and empower all students not to be encumbered by the weight of their socioeconomic status or ethnicity, I’m not sure what good it would do if the kids didn’t know how to do something relentlessly, over and over again, until they perfected it. Most teachers know that type of progress is very difficult to achieve inside the classroom, regardless of a student’s background, which is why, I imagine, Calarco, Horn and Chen found that most teachers weren’t thinking in a structural inequalities frame. Holistic ideas of education, in which learning is emphasized and students can explore concepts and ideas, are largely for the types of kids who don’t need to worry about class mobility. A defense of rote practice through homework might seem revanchist at this moment, but if we truly believe that schools should teach children lessons that fall outside the meritocracy, I can’t think of one that matters more than the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at. That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

Should we get rid of homework? Why, or why not?

Is homework an outdated, ineffective or counterproductive tool for learning? Do you agree with the authors of the paper that homework is harmful and worsens inequalities that exist between students’ home circumstances?

Or do you agree with Mr. Kang that homework still has real educational value?

When you get home after school, how much homework will you do? Do you think the amount is appropriate, too much or too little? Is homework, including the projects and writing assignments you do at home, an important part of your learning experience? Or, in your opinion, is it not a good use of time? Explain.

In these letters to the editor , one reader makes a distinction between elementary school and high school:

Homework’s value is unclear for younger students. But by high school and college, homework is absolutely essential for any student who wishes to excel. There simply isn’t time to digest Dostoyevsky if you only ever read him in class.

What do you think? How much does grade level matter when discussing the value of homework?

Is there a way to make homework more effective?

If you were a teacher, would you assign homework? What kind of assignments would you give and why?

Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column . Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

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The End of Homework

How homework disrupts families, overburdens children, and limits learning.

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• In 1901, homework was legally banned in parts of the U.S. There are no studies showing that assigning homework before junior high school improves academic achievement.
• Increasingly, students and their parents are told that homework must take precedence over music lessons, religious education, and family and community activities. As the homework load increases (and studies show it is increasing) these family priorities are neglected.
• Homework is a great discriminator, effectively allowing students whose families “have” to surge ahead of their classmates who may have less.
• Backpacks are literally bone-crushing, sometimes weighing as much as the child. Isn’t it obvious we’re overburdening our kids?

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The end of homework? Why some schools are banning homework

Fed up with the tension over homework, some schools are opting out altogether.

No-homework policies are popping up all over, including schools in the U.S., where the shift to the Common Core curriculum is prompting educators to rethink how students spend their time.

“Homework really is a black hole,” said Etta Kralovec, an associate professor of teacher education at the University of Arizona South and co-author of “The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning.”

“I think teachers are going to be increasingly interested in having total control over student learning during the class day and not relying on homework as any kind of activity that’s going to support student learning.”

College de Saint-Ambroise, an elementary school in Quebec, is the latest school to ban homework, announcing this week that it would try the new policy for a year. The decision came after officials found that it was “becoming more and more difficult” for children to devote time to all the assignments they were bringing home, Marie-Ève Desrosiers, a spokeswoman with the Jonquière School Board, told the CBC .

Kralovec called the ban on homework a movement, though she estimated just a small handful of schools in the U.S. have such policies.

Gaithersburg Elementary School in Rockville, Maryland, is one of them, eliminating the traditional concept of homework in 2012. The policy is still in place and working fine, Principal Stephanie Brant told TODAY Parents. The school simply asks that students read 30 minutes each night.

“We felt like with the shift to the Common Core curriculum, and our knowledge of how our students need to think differently… we wanted their time to be spent in meaningful ways,” Brant said.

“We’re constantly asking parents for feedback… and everyone’s really happy with it so far. But it’s really a culture shift.”

It was a decision that was best for her community, Brant said, adding that she often gets phone calls from other principals inquiring how it’s working out.

The VanDamme Academy, a private K-8 school in Aliso Viejo, California, has a similar policy , calling homework “largely pointless.”

The Buffalo Academy of Scholars, a private school in Buffalo, New York, touts that it has called “a truce in the homework battle” and promises that families can “enjoy stress-free, homework-free evenings and more quality time together at home.”

Some schools have taken yet another approach. At Ridgewood High School in Norridge, Illinois, teachers do assign homework but it doesn’t count towards a student’s final grade.

Many schools in the U.S. have toyed with the idea of opting out of homework, but end up changing nothing because it is such a contentious issue among parents, Kralovec noted.

“There’s a huge philosophical divide between parents who want their kids to be very scheduled, very driven, and very ambitiously focused at school -- those parents want their kids to do homework,” she said.

“And then there are the parents who want a more child-centered life with their kids, who want their kids to be able to explore different aspects of themselves, who think their kids should have free time.”

So what’s the right amount of time to spend on homework?

National PTA spokeswoman Heidi May pointed to the organization’s “ 10 minute rule ,” which recommends kids spend about 10 minutes on homework per night for every year they’re in school. That would mean 10 minutes for a first-grader and an hour for a child in the sixth grade.

But many parents say their kids must spend much longer on their assignments. Last year, a New York dad tried to do his eight-grader’s homework for a week and it took him at least three hours on most nights.

More than 80 percent of respondents in a TODAY.com poll complained kids have too much homework. For homework critics like Kralovec, who said research shows homework has little value at the elementary and middle school level, the issue is simple.

“Kids are at school 7 or 8 hours a day, that’s a full working day and why should they have to take work home?” she asked.

Follow A. Pawlowski on Google+ and Twitter .

Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

How to End the School Year Strong

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Can you feel it? The school year is drawing closer to an end.

I’ve previously published a number of posts with ideas on how to finish the year strong (see Best Ways to End The School Year ).

Today’s post shares additional suggestions from teachers.

‘Family Heritage Project’

Laleh Ghotbi is a 4th grade teacher at Riley Elementary School and lives in Salt Lake City. She is also a member of the Hope Street Group, a Utah Teacher Fellow, and was one of four finalists for the Salt Lake City school district’s teacher of the year for 2023-24:

I teach in an elementary school where the majority of our students are from diverse backgrounds. When my own children were in school, they were hesitant to talk openly about their cultural values. Their diversity wasn’t acknowledged or appreciated, so they thought it was better to downplay their cultural identities to fit in.

Witnessing their negative experiences as students of color prompted me to explore new ways to empower my own students. I was determined to create an environment where students take pride in their cultural heritage and gain a deeper understanding of their unique traditions and values.

This is why I initiated the family heritage project with my 4th graders; of course, this project is adaptable for students of all grade levels.

Each year, after the end-of-year testing, my students research their ancestral countries. Before starting their research, I send home a parent survey designed to collect information about their families’ countries of origin, encompassing cultural values, traditions, notable individuals, holidays, music, famous landmarks, tourist attractions, and more.

This project provides valuable opportunities for my students to connect with their roots, engaging in meaningful conversations with parents and grandparents, some of whom still reside in their countries of origin.

Once the necessary information is gathered, I guide my students in the process of creating a Word document to compile and preserve their newfound knowledge. Then, they start their online research to further enrich their understanding of their cultural heritage, incorporating the valuable insights shared by their parents and grandparents.

Witnessing my students’ enthusiasm as they uncover fascinating details about their own cultural backgrounds overjoys me. Here are a few of their comments, reflecting their excitement and engagement in this learning experience:

• I didn’t know the largest pyramid ever built in the world is in Mexico and not in Egypt!
• Did you know we have a king and queen in Tonga? Cool!
• A Mexican female astronaut, inspiring!
• What!? My dad’s family is from Spain and my mom’s family from Mexico!!?
• Congo has many beautiful places, it’s not all deserts.
• I want to learn my family’s language, so when I visit Tonga someday, I know how to communicate.

After they have completed their research, I meet with them one-on-one to review their work, ensuring the accuracy of the information, and encouraging them to add more details as needed. Then I print out their work, which is filled with interesting pictures and informative captions.

Next, my students eagerly put their posters together and add photographs, preferably of their family members dressed in traditional clothing, which adds a personal touch to their posters and makes the students feel more connected to their heritage.

The final step for them is to practice presenting their posters. I give them the choice to partner up with another student who shares the same cultural background. I also extend an invitation to their family members to attend and either observe or participate in the presentations. It is truly gratifying to witness my students and their families proudly sharing information about their countries and engaging in a mutual learning experience.

This school year, I extended the opportunity to all grade levels in our school by inviting them to take a tour and view the projects. My students thoroughly enjoyed presenting their work to both younger and older students. It turned out to be a highly successful experience for everyone involved. Even the little kindergartners were attentively listening and admiring the posters.

My students take great pride in their unique identities and diverse backgrounds. They have a strong desire to learn more about their cultures and even have plans to visit their original countries someday. Their families are proud to witness their children’s appreciation for their traditions and their eagerness to learn from the older generation.

Last school year, our school introduced an initiative where every grade level created one cultural poster. These posters were prominently displayed in the hallways during our family-night event, where we celebrate cultural diversity through music, dance, and food. It’s a special occasion where families come together to embrace and share their rich cultural heritage.

‘A Class Yearbook’

Chandra Shaw has more than 24 years of experience in education, as a teacher, reading specialist, instructional coach, and now a literacy consultant at one of her state’s regional service centers. Chandra is a TEDx speaker and amateur YouTuber :

Typically, I spent the last two weeks of school helping my students with their end-of-year projects. The elementary schools I worked in did not have a school yearbook, so we spent that time creating our own class yearbook. These books were done the old-fashioned way, complete with lots of glitter, glue, cutouts, and most importantly, a use at last for that dreaded manila construction paper that showed up on the district’s supply list every year! Each student hand made their own book covers and completed a series of pages. I’d bind them using a book-binding machine.

The pages in the books varied from year to year but were a lot like the ones you’d see in a Senior Book. There were autograph pages for their classmates to sign, “Most Likely To” pages, “Best Of” pages, and a section for students to reflect on the work they’d done that year. Students were encouraged to scavenge their portfolios for work samples that they were most proud of to include in their yearbooks. They also reread their first week of school letters and wrote responses to the new and improved students they’d become.

On the last page of each book was a place for me to write each student a handwritten goodbye letter. Every year as a teacher, I wrote letters to my students sharing my favorite moment with them, telling them my hopes and dreams for their future and how much I was going to miss them. While I can’t say for certain how much of an impact this activity had on students, I will say that throughout the years, I would encounter former students, and they’d often tell me about the books from my class that they still possessed. They still had their Mother’s Day poetry books and their classroom yearbooks.

One special incident occurred with a young woman who had come to my classroom in 4th grade during the middle of the year. She had come from a school district that was known for being a bit tough. She started off having a difficult time fitting in with our classroom and our culture of high expectations.

I remember writing on her end-of-year letter how she had come to our class as a diamond in the rough but finished the year showing her brilliance. I wrote that I couldn’t wait to see everything she’d accomplish in the future. One day, while out grocery shopping, I heard this booming “Ms. Shaw!” from across the store. I turned to see that student. She ran up and gave me a huge hug and then proceeded to tell me about still having her yearbook and how my words to her about being a diamond had positively impacted her confidence. It’s the kind of special moment that teachers look forward to, and I loved hearing how well she was doing in college!

Whatever teachers do during the final days of school should make those last moments with students special and be worth their time. I chose to reflect on the school year while creating a keepsake that students could treasure for years to come.

‘Reflection and Celebration’

Rebecca Alber teaches in the Graduate School of Education at UCLA. She has been a high school English teacher, literacy coach, and consulting editor at Edutopia:

As the year wraps up, my students were completing an end-of-unit project or preparing for a final assessment. What also mattered was reflection and celebration; these were always front and center in the closing two weeks of a school year in my classroom.

I ask the new teachers who I instruct and advise, “How do you want students to feel when they walk out of your classroom for the last time?” This will lead to conversations about creating opportunities for students to reflect, and celebrate, the ways they have grown as community members, as individuals, as thinkers, readers, writers, as researchers, historians, and mathematicians.

As we entered those last two weeks, I’d kick off the reflection and celebration journey by first reviewing with the students all the learning that took place in our class for the school year. I would do a sort of corralling of the curriculum where my students and I would revisit together key concepts, content, and projects from each unit of study. Presenting visuals for key learning and units really helped them with recall as they gathered from the past school year all the learning they had done.

Following the review, a “show what you know” assignment most students liked was their crafting of a letter to a future student or to their future self.

If it was a future student: What advice might you give them, and what should the student do in order to be successful in this class? How will what they learn help them in other classes? How about in life? I’d have students after they would write, share with a partner or two, select a few golden lines they were proud of in their writing. Students tend to take this activity seriously because there’s a real audience built in. (I’d keep the letters and share parts of those at the start of the new year with the new group of students.)

Students might instead choose to write a letter to their future self. They could record some memories and important learning from class during the year. They can also write their hopes, fears, and expectations for themselves for the following year.

If students were stuck on (not writing) either the letter to a future student or to future self, I’d offer up other choices for reflecting on the year’s learning: craft a poem, make a bulleted list, or create a storyboard, for example.

Another activity those last couple of weeks that allowed students to “show what they know”? Portfolio showcase: Students compiled a collection of their best work from the school year and included explanations for their choices. This can be done in hard copy or digitally and can include illustrations and photos.

Whatever activities I chose that gave students a chance to reflect on the year’s learning, I was always sure to include celebratory elements. How those looked? Students sitting in the writer’s chair and reading aloud to the class some or all of their piece or playing music while students galley walked—strolled looking at each other’s golden lines displayed on the walls. However we celebrated, there was always plenty of warm feedback for each other, laughter, and even some applause.

‘Teaching Until the Last Day’

Elisa Waingort-Jiménez is a grade 4 teacher at a Spanish bilingual school in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She has been teaching for over 35 years:

Educators know that the last two weeks of the school year can be challenging for teachers and students alike: Report card marks and comments have been submitted, summer beckons with its warmer weather and longer daylight hours, kids and teachers are tired and are looking forward to a summer of rest and relaxation. So, how can teachers contain this legitimate excitement that can often devolve into chaos at the end of the school year?

My goal has always been to maintain the same classroom atmosphere and guidelines that I worked hard to establish in September. I tell kids, in no uncertain terms, that I will be teaching until the last day of school. I use the urgency card and let them know that while there will be some fun activities outside of the regular schedule during this time—inline skating, sports day, schoolwide showcase—we still have learning to do. I relay this same message to my students’ caregivers in my weekly letters, hoping that this will spark a conversation at home.

In addition to the mindset I’ve described above, the following are some specific things I do during the last two weeks of school to maintain a calm and engaging learning environment.

• First, I keep the same schedule we’ve had since the beginning of the year, except if there are special schoolwide events, so my students know what to expect. If, for some reason, I have to alter our regular schedule, I tell the class why it has changed, which seems to soothe the more anxious students in my class.
• Because we are in Alberta, Canada, where we have many days of indoor recess throughout the year due to the weather, we go outside for slightly longer recesses during the last two weeks. Sometimes, we have PE outside, and the kids bring out equipment and organize their own activities. As long as they are physically active, I stay out of their way.
• This year, students organized a PJ/squishmallow/stuffy/chaotic hair day for the last day of school.
• I don’t put on movies unless they are related to the curriculum in some way, despite getting repeated requests from students. This may sound harsh to some, but I am firm when I remind them they will have all summer to watch movies.
• This year my grade 3 partners and I organized an end-of-the-year field trip. Although this wasn’t done by design (the dates we’d hoped for were no longer available), I think it’s a great idea for the last two weeks of school. Even a walking field trip to a park would be a welcome break and could still be educational and fun for students. We are fortunate to have a botanical garden near our school that is visited by many classes in our building.
• Finally, during the last week of school, I designate one day for students to create their own schedule divided into 30-minute periods. This is not my original idea, and, unfortunately, I don’t remember who to credit. I’ve done this for the last few years, however. There are certain conditions—students have to read, write, work on their Spanish (we’re a Spanish bilingual school), engage in a math activity, work on a science and/or social studies project.

They can do these activities in any order they want and they need to tell me what they’re going to do during each session. I have them create their schedules one day before and sign off on them, so they can start right away the next day. What I love about this is that students take this project seriously, no matter their age, and there’s a quiet buzz in the classroom during this time. I am available to support students or to answer questions, if necessary.

At the end of the school year, it’s important to maintain routines sprinkled in with some novelty to help students have a smooth transition to their summer break.

Thanks to Laleh, Chandra, Rebecca, and Elisa for contributing their thoughts!

Today’s guests answered this question:

What do you do in your classes during the final two weeks of the school year?

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email . And if you missed any of the highlights from the first 12 years of this blog, you can see a categorized list here .

The opinions expressed in Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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