During a recent "daddy dinner" the topic of homework reared its ugly head. Given that we all had children in the very same school (the reason for this gathering) this was not a surprise. What was surprising, however, was the prevailing opinion toward homework and the depth of emotion that accompanied it. I'm using the singular because, it turned out, there was really only one verdict - and it came from a bunch of well-adjusted and successful business/creative professional from very good schools: homework, they felt, was overwhelmingly viewed as an unnecessary evil.  The evil part I understood well and agreed with entirely. After all who cannot remember watching in horror as his or her teacher ended class by writing a overwhelmingly long list of things we had better read and/or do before we dare step foot in class the next day. And since I went to Catholic school where paddling was not only allowed but seemingly encouraged, there was a price to pay for non-cooperation. So I did it in its entirety, working well into the night and often the next day on the bus. The unnecessary part was the shocker. My opinion had always been that by doing homework, the theories we were taught that day in school were reinforced through repeated application (or in my case, trial & error). After all, if you don't practice a new move, you'll never master it. Right? Homework, in my humble opinion, is what gave us the chance to show off our stuff and develop our academic confidence. Equally, it taught us to be more disciplined as we dutifully did what we were told... The dads at this dinner cited scientific studies and papers (where did they get time for this?) which posited that doing a lot of homework did not correlate highly with high performance on standardized tests nor did those who did a lot of homework fare better in college or afterwards in their chosen careers. Many spoke of being bad students themselves, neglecting their assignments yet excelling on their SAT and then at university and graduate school. Had the homework been meted out with more care, they would have done it. But since it seemed to them arbitrarily and wrongly allocated, they just said no. So what is the right answer? I don't ever see schools dropping homework altogether. I cannot imagine the fatherly findings are definitive and even if they were, many parents would be up and armed as homework takes kids away from electronic things not to mention that it also gives us some all-too-rare quality time with our other halves. I tend to look at homework as I do working out: it's bad thinking about it but once I'm actually into it, I'm glad to be there. What do you think?