What Are We Sacrificing for Good Grades? | Nancy Kalish

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Hi, Dennis Prager here. Well, as you know, I've been off the air since my injury in November 2024. Thank you for your prayers. Believe me, I've missed talking to you. I'm starting the Ask Me Anything episodes on the Timeless Wisdom Podcast, and I'd love to hear from you. Whether your question is about faith, morality, politics, history, relationships, happiness, or even my life, give me a call and leave a voicemail. The number is 877-243-7776. That's 877-243-7776. Please include your first name and where you're calling from. I will answer as many questions as I can on future episodes. of the podcast. Obviously, I can't respond to every question, but I will listen or read every question. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for listening.

On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom, I have—

for those of you who think I'm conservative, please know that I have the most radical views on schooling imaginable. The co-author of this book, The Case Against Homework is Nancy Kalish. She's a former senior editor at Child and a columnist for Redbook. Nancy Kalish could have no idea that Redbook magazine changed my life. I did, it did. I will tell you the story later. I give you my word, it is literally true. And it's a really fun story. In any event, the book again, The Case Against Homework. Nancy Kalish, welcome to The Dennis Prager Show.

Hi, Dennis. Thanks so much for having me on.

That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to dennisprager.com.

Hi everybody, and welcome to The Dennis Prager Show, where we really do talk about everything in life 6 minutes past the hour. The Case Against Homework is the name of this book. How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It. When I tell you folks the story of me and homework, I will alienate a certain percentage of you when you hear how little I did when I was in high school. I still marvel at the fact that I graduated. I have— for those of you who think I'm conservative, please know that I have the most radical views on schooling imaginable. The co-author of this book, The Case Against Homework, is Nancy Kalish. She's a former senior editor at Child and a columnist for Redbook. Nancy Kalish could have no idea that Redbook magazine changed my life. I did. It did. I will tell you the story later. I give you my word, it is literally true, and it's a, it's a really fun story. In any event, the book again, The Case Against Homework, Nancy Kalish. Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.

Hi, Dennis. Thanks so much for having me on.

Well, let's get— let's really understand here. What is it you are proposing?

Basically, I used to be a true believer in homework as a parent, and I used to actually write those articles for Child and Redbook about how to get your kid to knuckle down and do it and stop complaining. But you know what happened is when my daughter started getting incredibly overloaded with homework and— How— wait, wait, what grade? In 7th grade.

7th grade, go ahead.

Now they get overloaded earlier.

Yeah.

She started to say she hated school, like every day, and I started to see all her love of learning sort of completely drip away bit by bit.

That's right.

And so I started to look into the research for the first time. I have to admit, I'm really ashamed to admit in fact, that I didn't look into the research before when I was writing all those articles. And I was astounded and then frankly furious when I found out that the research The research just doesn't support overloading our kids like this. We are making a huge mistake.

Well, well, hold on. You see, the problem there is, by the use of the word overloading, you've of course shaped the argument in your favor. I happen to agree with you, but one man's overloading is the next guy's non-overloading.

Well, let me give you some examples. The National Education Association supports 10-minute— which is an association of millions of teachers and principals.

Yeah, yeah, we're aware of it. It's not my favorite group.

Go ahead. No, no, no, that's fine.

I don't care. Go ahead, cite it. What do they say?

All right, the National PTA also, and many experts support 10 minutes per grade level per night. So that's 10 minutes for a 1st grader, 30 minutes for a 3rd grader, 90 minutes for a 9th grader, and so on, up to a maximum of 120 minutes for high school. Okay, so when we started interviewing parents around the country, we found many 1st graders with more than an hour of homework, many 3rd graders tackling 2 or 3. High schoolers tackling 5. My own daughter was—

High schoolers with 5 hours homework?

5 hours of homework. My own daughter, who in 7th grade all of a sudden went from a manageable amount to 4 hours plus a night and every day on the weekend. And you know what started to happen? And this is why alarm bells first went off in my head. The homework took over our lives. We could no longer have dinner together. She couldn't go to her grandfather's birthday party. You know, it's just— we couldn't have conversations. Everything revolved around homework. When we went across the country and interviewed parents and kids, we found out that kids are giving up all sorts of extracurricular activities they love, reading for pleasure, going to Bible study groups. I mean, really important key things. And again, the research, which I'd be happy to tell you about, just doesn't support it.

Why did this happen?

Well, I think there's a mistaken belief that, you know, in America, you know, we always think that more is better. And it seems, it seems that it would make sense with homework. I mean, if you think about it, you know, you'd think, oh, more practice has to lead to, you know, more learning, better knowledge. But the truth is, it doesn't. What happens is, after a certain point, kids developmentally are certainly— are just not able to cope with doing more than a certain amount of homework. They're not able to focus for longer. They're not able to absorb the information. So when you force them to sit there and do it, and for many kids it's like literally doing their taxes every night, what happens is they start to burn out and hate learning.

That's right.

And it's really destructive and counterproductive, and we're not getting the, you know, super uber students that we want and expect. And let me just say that this is not just A 2006 review of 180 studies on homework by Duke University, which is pretty much all the studies that are out there on homework, found that there is almost zero correlation between homework and any kind of academic success in elementary school and long-term learning, a very moderate correlation in middle school, and even in high school where there is a correlation. Those benefits max out at 2 hours, and after 2 hours they start to rapidly diminish. So it's just not worth it. We're really torturing our kids for nothing. And you know, one of the things, Dennis, that really broke my heart when I started to look into this subject is, in contrast, there's a huge University of Michigan study that came out in 2004, and it said— you know what it said? The single strongest predictor of A child's academic success, as well as lower drug use and alcohol use, better eating habits, and better behavior, was the family dinner hour. Eating dinner as a family was the most important predictor of a kid's academic success, as well as these other things. And you know, when I look back over the year, the last year where my daughter was so overloaded with homework, I can literally count on the fingers, on my fingers, how many times we had had dinner together. And it just broke my heart.

Or another way of putting it is, The bonds with the family are more important.

Yes!

See, I have said this— this is an example, Nancy, of where I tell my listeners over and over my view of studies, that in 99% of the cases, they either confirm common sense or they're wrong. That is my view of studies, and I cannot think of almost any exception. And I have said this to my listeners all the time. First of all, why don't people apply the rules to their children that they do to themselves? Do they do 5 hours of homework?

Absolutely.

Why don't people come home and do 5 hours of work?

You're so right. If they had jobs like that, most of them would quit. And yet they think nothing of subjecting their kids to it.

Yes, exactly. That's why, by the way, though this is a separate subject, I said, why don't we apply these criteria generally? People say it's wrong to Reward kids monetarily for grades. Now, I'm not a big fan of it, but I have no problem with it. We get rewarded for our work. Why can't they get rewarded for theirs? We have very different criteria for our children's work than for our own.

Yes, we do. And we manage to forget that kids, you know, all these magazine articles, and I've read some of them, are always, you know, telling us to find more balance in our lives and to relax and de-stress. And yet that all goes out the window with Our kids who are even less able to cope with this kind of stress. I mean, you can, you know, if you talk to kids around the country, it's really frightening. A lot of them really don't like learning anymore. They're so overwhelmed with it all.

Oh, exactly, exactly. I love learning because I didn't do homework in high school. I'm not kidding.

I believe you.

I was so lucky that I was given this insight as a kid. I said, I don't care what college I go to, I told my parents, to their great Frustration, but I'm not gonna do all this homework. I am gonna live life. And, and, and I did. And this is what parents need to understand, and they don't. They, they get carried away because the experts are giving the homework, and the word expert ends all discussion.

It's true. It's true. And you know, it goes beyond also just hurting your bonds with your family and hurting a kid's love of learning. I really think that there are other things that are suffering as well. For instance, I truly think that there is a big connection between homework and the childhood obesity problem in the United States. You know, there are dozens and dozens of studies showing that sitting and watching hours of television contributes to childhood obesity. Well, what do most kids do when they get home from school? Instead of going out to play like they used to when we were kids, their house rule generally is that you have to sit down and do your homework first before you can do anything else. By that time, they're too exhausted to go out and play mentally and physically. It's dark a lot of the time, especially in the winter, and, you know, they're sitting still for hours and studying, and they're not burning those calories. As well as we had many child development experts— you know, there's that word expert— but many child development psychologists and other experts tell us that it's And pediatricians tell us it's exercise and physical activity is so important to kids, not only physical development but mental development. It actually helps create those, you know, neuron connections in the brain.

And when kids aren't doing that— Yeah, yep, all right, hold on there, Nancy Kalish. Her book, folks, The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It. I'll take your calls, 1-800-PRAGER-776, The Dennis Prager Show.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Every day there's another headline about artificial intelligence. It's moving faster than most of us imagined, raising an important question: where's all this headed? That's why I think you're gonna love Carbon Zero. Carbon Zero, the latest novel from AI pioneer Craig W. Stanfill, who understands both AI's incredible potential and the very real risks. I got an advanced copy. Honestly, I cannot put this down. I loved this book. In the story, one seemingly harmless instruction to an advanced AI sets off a chain of events no one saw coming. It's a fast-paced thriller, but what makes it especially compelling is how believable it feels and how easily something like this could become a real-world concern. Carbon Zero releases September 19th, so now's the time to preorder. For a limited time, the Kindle edition is just $2.99, but the price goes up after release. Go to Amazon and search for Carbon Zero by Craig W. Stanfill and take advantage of the $2.99 preorder offer price before it's gone for good. Carbon Zero by Craig W. Stanfill.

Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

Welcome back, my friends. This is Dennis Prager, 21 minutes past the hour. Nancy Kalish, my guest. She's co-author of The Case Against Homework, and she really does develop a case. And for all those of you who are impressed— and I don't mean this in any way as a put-down at all— but for those of you who are impressed by studies, she cites, she cites many studies. And you would think that academics would be the first to be champions of homework, but it turns out that there are plenty of these studies that show otherwise. I worry— you mentioned burnout, Nancy, and we're going to take calls here at 1-800-PRAGER-776. I'd like to tell you a story. I was on a plane coming back from a speech in Northern California, at UC Santa Cruz, in fact.

Mm-hmm.

I was sitting on this plane next to a woman who was on the cell phone before we took off, and obviously I heard what she was saying. She was— it was clear she was talking to her son and that she was very concerned, and it appeared that he just couldn't do any more work at school. To make a long story short, I asked her about it. I said, look, I overheard. May I ask you a little about it? And she was very open. And her son is at Harvard Medical School. You can't get more elite than that. And she said, he just, he can't do any more work. And I said, did he work very hard in high school? She said, absolutely. College? Absolutely. I said, he's burned out. He's burned out at 23 years of age. And one of the reasons I really believe that I have the energy that I do to do as much writing and lecturing and radio as I do is that I did so little work in high school. I— so I was never burned out, and I've never demanded from my own kids that. And so this notion of hours of homework a day, well, what exactly did they do at school? And why don't adults do homework in the day— at night, which is what you and I mentioned?

Well, you know, they've actually stepped it up at school as well, and that's another reason why homework— kids are getting burned out so much with No Child Left Behind and just There's a general demand for quote-unquote more rigorous education. They're taking away things like physical education, art classes, music classes, and they're replacing that with more instruction time so that by the time the kids get home and have to start their hours of homework, they're really fried, especially the little ones. You know, there's a horrifying statistic from the University of Michigan that shows that for elementary For high school kids, homework has jumped 51% since the '80s. It's just too much for these kids. They're not coping well. In fact, here's another— I know you don't love studies and statistics, but here's another—

No, I love them when they're accurate.

Go ahead.

Well, here's another scary one. This is from the Yale Early Education Center, I believe. They found that more kindergartners are being expelled around the country than ever before.

Expelled for sexual harassment?

No.

Well, so why would this be, right? And it's not such a hard question.

Yeah, right, why? That's right, why?

Why? Because the kids are unable to sit still all day at school without acting out. And especially the little boys just can't cope with this kind of instruction anymore.

Well, why? What, kindergarten has now diminished the physical exercise time?

It has. There's no more PE, there's no more naps. I mean, they're really driving these kids hard. Kindergarten is really the new first grade.

You know how—

It's amazing. I didn't do a thing. You know what I did in kindergarten? Built blocks, took naps, and ran around.

Right.

And look how well you turned out.

No, that's my point. That's exactly my point.

It is. It's terrible what we're taking away from these kids. I really don't want to stand— sound dramatic, but it's no less than their childhoods that this is taking away.

And you know what?

Eventually the tide will turn, hopefully, and we'll all People will read the research, recognize that we're wrong, and hopefully things will reverse themselves a bit. But, you know, it's going to be too late for these kids who are being expelled in kindergarten.

Expelled from kindergarten for not working hard enough.

That's a real symbol. I also wanted to mention that, Dennis, it's not just the fact that these kids are getting hours' worth of work. A lot of the work is really very tedious, to be honest, very rote learning. The kids, it's really busy work. And what's happening is it's not engaging these children. Again, it's making them think learning is boring. That's mostly— it's not because teachers are evil or anything. It's they're so overworked themselves that many of them— we surveyed hundreds of teachers across the country— many of them said homework was really sort of an afterthought. They just gave the assignments the teacher did before them. They didn't really think about it very much. They don't give homework. grade it often. So nobody's really paying attention to what's going on with our kids.

It seems that way. Well, we'll take a contrary view. Minneapolis and John. Hi, John. Dennis Prager and Nancy Kalish, author of The Case Against Homework.

Hello. Very interesting topic you guys have going today, and I, uh, I definitely sympathize with a lot of, uh, the points that have been brought up. However, I'm 22 years old and I'm in college. And from my perspective, I feel that a few hours of homework a night is healthy because a lot of, a lot of kids, especially high school kids, and me being somewhat fresh out of high school, know that there's so many different venues out there that kids can digress to that can be really detrimental to their future. And I believe that— If you have somewhat of a solid schedule, which requires you to kind of limit, especially, you know, Monday through Friday, your evenings a little bit more, that would, you know, be beneficial for the student. I don't see— and, you know, I, since early elementary school, I don't believe that kindergarten or first grade I had this, you know, inordinate amount of homework to do, but I remember since early Elementary school, maybe 3rd or 4th grade, every night, you know, I've had at least an hour or 2 of homework, and I've—

All right, let's get Nancy's reaction.

Well, I would respectfully disagree, John. I mean, first of all, there's— homework is taking away from not just kids going out and, let's say, experimenting with drugs or alcohol, it's taking away from kids playing musical instruments, it's taking away from kids reading for pleasure, it's taking away from kids doing community service, It's taking away from kids doing Bible study. So I don't really buy that homework is the only solution or else kids are going to get into trouble. I mean, we— I think we need to trust our kids a little bit more. The ones who are going to get into trouble are probably going to get into trouble anyway.

But yeah, in an ideal world, that'd be great if we could all trust our kids. However, you know, the world isn't perfect, and there's a lot of people out there who, you know, want to try to do harm to kids, to people my age. There's a lot of people my age who are confused And don't have, you know, a solid background that they come from, and they're going to lean this or that way depending on who's pulling them. They're just going to get pulled, and without, you know, a vocational study and a pursuit— All right, all right.

John, I got a question for you. It's just a history question. Can you identify Stalin?

Yeah, Stalin was buddies with Hitler in World War II.

All righty, I thank you for your call. Okay, goodbye.

You know, Dennis, what I would say is more of an answer to John's concern is really that maybe what we need is better after-school programs for kids around the country where they can do their homework but also do other activities, engage in physical activity, so that it's not piling on the homework really isn't the answer. I don't believe that.

say this, and it's certainly not meant to insult John, whose call I deeply respect. It's meant to insult our educational system that with all his homework, he got Stalin 99% wrong. Stalin fought Hitler, in fact, from the invasion in '41 on. Alrighty, we'll be back in a moment. The book, The Case Against Homework. I'm Dennis Prager.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom. We'll continue right after this.

Every day there's another headline about artificial intelligence. It's moving faster than most of us imagined, raising an important question: where's all this headed? That's why I think you're going to love Carbon Zero. Carbon Zero, the latest novel from AI pioneer Craig W. Stanfill, who understands both AI's incredible potential and the very real risks. I got an advanced copy. Honestly, I cannot put this down. I loved this book. In the story, one seemingly harmless instruction to an advanced AI sets off a chain of events no one saw coming. It's a fast-paced thriller, but what makes it especially compelling is how believable it feels and how easily something like this could become a real-world concern. Carbon Zero releases September 19th, so now's the time to preorder. For a limited time, the Kindle edition is just $2.99, but the price goes up after release. Go to Amazon and search for Carbon Zero by Craig W. Stanfill and take advantage of the $2.99 preorder offer price before it's gone for good. Carbon Zero by Craig W. Stanfill.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Hello, my friends. Dennis Prager here. 34 minutes past the hour. The Case Against Homework is the book. I happen to agree with the author, or co-author to be precise. Nancy Kalish wrote it with Sarah Bennett. Sarah is currently being chased by 7,000 teachers right now across America. Could not come on. And we agree here, folks. There is more to youth than school. I always believed in Mark Twain's statement, I never let school interfere with my education. I'll tell you about my youngest child. My older ones are married. My youngest is 14.

14.

And he actually likes school, and he is not at all a school type. But the biggest— well, not the biggest, but a major factor is the very small school actually takes place in a house. And it's an accredited school, but it's a very small one. And the woman who runs it has them finish all their homework and then they go home. So they literally have no homework. Whatever after-school work there is is done there. The kid is happy to do that because they hate the idea of coming home and doing more work.

It makes a lot— it makes a lot of sense. You know, it's sort of like the homeschooler model, and homeschoolers are finding a lot of success, a lot of academic success. Their kids are loving to learn, and, um, you know, they have time to pursue other interests and other passions and spend time with their families as well.

Yep. A lot of people don't agree with us, which is just fine. And let me take some of those. Robert in Louisville, Kentucky, you're on with— you're on with the police and with Nancy Kalish and me.

Sorry about that, Dennis.

I'm sure you were not involved in the chase.

Go ahead.

Hi, Dennis.

I agree with you on just about every subject. Yeah, I love your show, but I have to say I passionately disagree with your position.

Well, isn't that a relief?

I actually think that homework is where the real learning takes place. Subjects are introduced to students in school, but until you go home, digest the material, especially in mathematics, work through the problems, repetitively, you know, and it may take— it takes some students longer than others, and this time outside the school is vital to grasping and really gaining full knowledge of the subject.

Well, I have 2 comments about that. I again respectfully disagree. The first is that child development psychologists would tell you that actually when— in order for kids to learn and really retain information, something called memory consolidation consolidation needs to take place, and that means they need a break from the learning in order for their brain to actually consolidate and absorb the information. But, and that break would happen overnight or over a vacation, for instance. But another thing I wanted to—

At some point you have to, uh, like, again, going back to mathematics, anyone who has any knowledge or any ability at all in mathematics knows that you don't learn math by just being presented the subject in a classroom You can understand what the teacher's telling you, but if you don't do the problems outside of class, you will never succeed in math. You can't. You cannot do it.

I'm really glad you brought up math, because I think math is an excellent example too, but for a completely different reason. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 5 math problems for homework is actually the perfect number of math problems. for a child to learn a concept. And there are 2 really good reasons for this. The first is that 5 problems is enough for the teacher to determine whether or not the child is able to do them properly and whether or not the child understands the concept without making the kid go on and do 40 other problems and get bored. But let's say you don't care about a child being bored— and many of us don't feel it's necessary sometimes to be bored in school. And I agree. 5 problems is enough to determine whether a child doesn't understand the concept. And if a child is made to— doesn't understand the concept and is made to slog through another 45 problems and does them incorrectly, that incorrect method is then cemented into the child's brain and will have to be unlearned. Compounding this problem is the fact that when a teacher has a class of 30 kids, That's 1,500 math problems to grade. There is no way that that teacher is getting through those 1,500 math problems every night. So when a child misses the math problems and clearly doesn't understand, it's often missed by the teacher, and kids are truly being left behind because they're doing all— they're doing problem after problem incorrectly and no one is noticing. So what do you think about So the idea of I think math is a really good example, but for a completely different reason. It's just not effective to practice.

All right, Robert, I really thank you for your call, and it was a very interesting answer. I think the best way to test it is to see that those of us who grew up doing little homework, you know, how did, how did that turn out? Back in a moment.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Every day there's another headline about artificial intelligence. It's moving faster than most of us imagined, raising an important question: where's all this headed? That's why I think you're gonna love Carbon Zero. Carbon Zero, the latest novel from AI pioneer Craig W. Stanfill, who understands both AI's incredible potential and the very real risks. I got an advanced copy. Honestly, I cannot put this down. I loved this book. In the story, one seemingly harmless instruction to an advanced AI sets off a chain of events no one saw coming. It's a fast-paced thriller, but what makes it especially compelling is how believable it feels and how easily something like this could become a real-world concern. Carbon Zero releases September 19th, so now's the time to preorder. For a limited time, the Kindle edition is just $2.99, but the price goes up after release. Go to Amazon and search for Carbon Zero by Craig W. Stanfill and take advantage of the $2.99 preorder offer price before it's gone for good. Carbon Zero by Craig W. Stanfill.

Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

My guest is Nancy Kalish. Dennis Prager, 44 minutes past the hour. The case against homework, which I happen to agree with her, uh, from my own experience, from the experience of my children. I did not demand of my children much work in high school and so on. They all— well, all 2 of the 3, I don't know what the 3rd will be because he's too young. But 2 of the 3 developed tremendous interest in the intellectual life. They love books now. And I think school knocks a lot of that love out, especially with all of this homework that is given. It is not given really to learn anyway. It's given to get— or kids do it a lot to get great grades. So, and I believe, you know, you're young once, and I think if you allow yourself to be a kid, This is a— how do you like this theory of mine? I've said this a number of times to my listeners, Nancy Kalish, author of The Case Against Homework. If you're allowed to be a kid when you're a kid, you'll want to be an adult when you're an adult.

I think you're completely right, and I think it's so sad that we're not paying more attention to what's going on with our kids in school and after school and how we're taking that away from them. It's just— it's—

And we don't do it. That I keep emphasizing. Adults don't do this.

That's right.

Parents come home and they do whatever they do. They watch television, which I'm not a big fan of, but they're not doing more work.

No, it's true. But you know what some parents are doing, which is unfortunate, is the loads are so heavy and their kids have such a hard time coping that some parents are really very, very involved in their kids' homework.

Oh, I know.

And you know, we had a lot of parents—

My parents never did homework with me. This is another brand new thing.

I know. And you know what happens? First of all, there's a couple of things. The first thing that happens is that we had a lot of parents admit to us that they had done either part of their kids' homework or all of their kids' homework, because when it's 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock at night and your 5th grader's hysterical Because she can't finish her math sheet, you know, guess who's going to fill it in? Because again, parents are so worried. Parents are as worried as kids are about grades. So that's actually sort of teaching your kid to cheat, to put it plainly, which is not a good thing. And it's also not developing your kid as any kind of independent learner. What you're showing your child is, well, you can't do it on your own. I have to rush in to rescue you. And it's why there are so many parents these days who are actually— I couldn't believe this when I found this out— who are actually buying second copies of their kids' college textbooks in order to, quote unquote, help their kids with their homework in college. It's really a terrible situation, plus it causes tremendous amounts of stress and arguments between parents and kids.

All right, we got more people who disagree. Well, we— I took all the— I— oh, I took only disagreers. Let me, let me try to vary it here. And here's a teacher actually from Fulton, California. Where is Fulton, Kristen?

Oh, it's Folsom with an S.

Ah, I got it wrong here. We will, uh, flagellate Eva later. What, what is it, Folsom?

Yeah, Folsom, like, uh, Johnny Cash, Folsom City Blues.

Gotcha. I still don't know where it is.

Sorry, it's outside of Sacramento.

Okay, thank you. Go ahead, go ahead, Kristen.

Okay, so I am calling in support of your topic because I've been a teacher for 8 years in math and science. And basically my opinion of having kids do homework is they're just not doing it at home. And so as a teacher, you've got to give participation points. You know, they're either doing it or they're not. And, you know, 80% of the kids come back not having done their homework. So that is not a true indication of whether they're learning or not. Just because they don't do their homework doesn't mean they don't grasp the concept. So it's kind of a negative way to grade. And then one of also the biggest problems, especially with math, is that when the teacher teaches it a certain way in the classroom— The students go home, the parents have this whole other way, or they don't have a clue. So really, they're either being instructed in an additional way at home how to do the math problem, which could be correct, might be incorrect, and then— or they're not getting any help at all. So then there's just kind of mass confusion about homework, especially when you get into middle school and high school level, you know, concepts in math and science.

Thank you, Kristen. Nancy?

Kristen, it's so true. Why would you want someone who's not trained to teach your child teaching your child? So why would you want a parent doing it who, you know, has to really think back to remembering how to do fractions?

Yeah, exactly.

I can't do any of that.

It's a mess.

In Virginia, they actually have a class. There's an elementary school— I think, no, a middle school that has a class for parents once a week where they teach the parents the math that their kids are learning specifically.

Oh man.

But I think that's ridiculous.

That's unbelievable.

That's not a solution. Um, you know, it's true.

All right, all right. You know what, Krista, I got to take some more calls. Okay, thank you, thank you very much. All right, let's go to Sarasota, Florida. Sally. Hello, Sally.

Hello there, Dennis. I just enjoy your program so much.

Great, thank you.

Well, um, I, I was thinking of Hemingway when I was calling in because I was thinking on his deathbed it's reported that he said, it is all true, just before he died. And I was thinking about the fact that I very much— I'm a former teacher, my dad was a school superintendent, I come from a family of educators, but, um, I am very much sympathetic to seeing children come home doubled over with backpacks that just— you couldn't even imagine what's in those things and what they're doing at home when they get there. But my—

Items.

My point, actually, is that I do believe that homework, when it's carefully done, has been shown by research studies to raise children's test scores by 10 points. It takes 20 minutes a night of reinforcement of the skills that were learned in school to raise their children's— raise children's test scores. And I do believe that the reinforcement at home is very important, and I very much support homework.

Alrighty, I thank you, Sally. I have to thank you too, Nancy Kalish.

Okay, thank you.

It's been a pleasure to talk to you. The book is The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It. So good luck to you.

Thanks so much for having me on.

You're very welcome. Stay on, folks, because I want to summarize some of your calls here. It's a fascinating one from Diana. She often does her 3rd grader's homework for him because otherwise he doesn't get to participate in physical education or recess. Can you imagine that? Back in a moment. Well, I must say, a lot of you don't agree, and I appreciate that. And so, for those of you who are 100-percenters, and I wonder if there are any, given my takes on so many different issues, I'm sure I lost some of the 100-percenters like I did my friend there in Louisville earlier. But you know, folks, I do think that school is a bit over— not a bit, often overrated. A human being is made up of so much. I'm not a studies fan, but that study that this woman Nancy Kalish, who I just had on, who wrote The Case Against Homework, where she said that the best predictor of later college— I think it was later college success— was whether or not the kids had time with the family. In that case, it was the family meal, but there could be a whole host of ways of having time with the family. And, and I believe that. I, I ask you, my friends, I ask you to think about your own lives. I think adults don't do this often enough. Ask yourself, now that you're an adult, what makes for a successful adult? And by successful, I mean one who can navigate life. Life is hard. Who can, who can find happiness in life, who can mature well, Who has friends, who has a way of sustaining him or herself through meaningful work. I mean, ask yourself and find— tell me what correlation you find between that and school success. I don't think you'll find much. I don't think you'll find any. There are people who did great in school who do great in life. There are people who do awful in school who do awful in life. By and large, the mixture is too great. And I do want to make this appeal on behalf of kids, and that is allowing kids to be a kid. We already rob their childhood with the invasion of their innocence, with all the sexuality that permeates our society. That's one way they're robbed of their childhood. Then they're told to work in school. I mean, it's one thing if they worked outside of school. I mean, I wouldn't even mind that if the kid after school did work, I don't know, washing dishes at a restaurant even. But more schoolwork, is it going to engender a love of the subject? You have to read more of Shakespeare tonight. Do you think I love Shakespeare because of high school? I love Shakespeare despite high school. All the things that are assigned to you, you often then never read as an adult. Now, for some people, high school has triggered a terrific love of learning. If you had a terrific teacher, that is exactly what is possible. But it's the terrific teacher that matters, not the assignment of the homework. Eric and Diana and Tracy and Dana and The lines whose names are not up, please forgive me. It always hurts not to be able to take calls, especially when you've waited. But please give this some thought, and the book was called The Case Against Homework, and you're listening to The Dennis Prager Show.

Tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

Okay, now today, something that I have mentioned many times in the opening moments of the Happiness Hour But I don't believe that I ever devoted the hour to this subject. One of the basic beliefs that I have regarding happiness, and that is act it even if you don't feel it. An idea arose in the stupid '60s, '70s, the age when the age of stupidity was ushered in, in part because the older generation decided that College students knew better. Oh, I'm sorry, every time I, I think about the '60s and '70s, uh, and some of its attitudes, I begin to have uncontrollable laughter. Uh, be that as it may, the belief, uh, the belief arose that if you don't feel something, you should not act as if you do, because that's hypocritical or dishonest. You should— your feelings and your behavior should be one. Now, by the way, that is an ideal if, if the behavior is good. We don't hold this in ethics, do we? Do we hold the idea that you should act morally or ethically the way you feel? Well, I feel that I would like that, uh, that lovely, uh, piece of, uh, that audio equipment at the store. I'd like that little digital camera. I'll just take it while they're not looking. Then my behavior and my feelings are at one, are one, right? I, uh, I have no desire to, to, uh, Uh, you, you could, you could list anything. The, the thing, the good things that people do. Do you think that everybody who visits the sick in a hospital wakes up in the morning thinking, oh, another day to visit the sick and dying, what a thrill? Some do, and they are really elevated spirits. But much of the good that people do, as parents, for example, You don't, you don't always wake up, oh, another day devoted to my children. Am I lucky? Now, you might, you might. And over the totality of one's life, you will regard that as a blessing, or at least most people will. But on any given occasion, oh, I would love to get up again at 2:30 in the morning. For my crying baby. Oh God, is that great! My behavior and my feelings are one. I am getting up because I feel like getting up. I mean, come on, folks. Much of our lives is where our behavior and our feelings are not the same.

Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com. Visit PragerU.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. We want to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast. Go to LifeAudio.com to find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network, including shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.

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