The Homework Sabbath

Homework Sabbath: Or, When Rest Becomes the Real Curriculum

① Opening Vignette 

On a gray Thursday in October, my seventh graders barreled into the room with that unmistakable end-of-week drag: hoodies up, pencils sluggish, the air thick with quiet, visceral ball of no. Back in September, they were eating out of my hand. They were like pirhanas. I threw something in the water and they just ate it. The buy in was so strong. Not today, Robles. Not today.

And then I said the words that lifted the whole room like a spell:

“Homework Sabbath.”

One kid, let’s call him Dante, literally whispered, “Bless.”

Another put his head down on the desk like someone had just taken a boulder off his back.

But it was Maya, usually sharp and precise, who said something I’ll never forget:

“So you’re saying… there won’t be a shadow over Friday night?”

A shadow. My God.

She was right. So often homework functions like a low-level curse, an obligation looming in the background of childhood. Kids try to laugh, play, help cook dinner, hang with siblings, watch anime, go outside and just be. But the thought of an unfinished task sits like a storm cloud in the corner. I get it. I’ve been there. Back in Harlem, I used to finish my homework in class, then watch Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers back home. Nobody every checked my homework, either, so what was the point of doing it in the first place?

Kids were looking at each other. Stella, this year’s resident “Robles Whisperer,” was like: I think he said we don’t have to do anything tonight. The heavens opened, a holy light shone in an otherwise bomb shelter of a classroom. And I just threw a holy hand grenade in the middle of class. A ball of light. The idea of rest from the mundane, from the dreaded fetch-task.

I wrote about it later:

When we name rest as not only acceptable, but sacred?

Kids breathe.

Kids reconnect.

Kids create.

Kids remember they’re human.

A Homework Sabbath isn’t about skipping work.

It’s about restoring worth.

② The Lesson / Framework 

Abolitionist pedagogy teaches us that young people are not machines for producing compliance; they are full hearts learning how to belong to themselves and to their communities. Homework, when misused, becomes a kind of soft criminalization: you didn’t finish the task → you failed morally → you owe the institution more. You finished the task and lo and behold, you get another task.

Congrats.

But folks are waking up to an ancient idea, the old magic: that rest is a birthright. Joy is a competency. Connection is a curriculum.

A Homework Sabbath reframes learning away from “constant grind” and toward “intentional becoming.” It echoes what Diablo IV players know well: the main quest is the heroic journey of becoming yourself, healing your village, strengthening your party, and facing the demons, real or imagined, that stalk you.

But many RPGs (I admit, it’s hit or miss) understand what a good side quests does:

The Best Side Quests are Not Busywork.

Not filler.

But tasks that deepen your spirit and grant new abilities, artifacts, and wisdom.

Homework should work the same way.

When an assignment competes with rest, family, sunlight, creativity, or spiritual tenderness, we must ask: Is this main-quest critical? Or is this just a teacher-centered fetch quest?

The political question under all this is simple but profound:

What do we believe children are for?

Production? Or liberation?

Efficiency? Or humanity?

Head growth? Or whole-body thriving?

Homework Sabbath is a political choice.

It’s a UDL choice.

It’s a theological choice.

It’s a love choice.

When we give students a night, a week, or a weekend where nothing academic shadows their joy, we’re helping them practice a lifelong muscle: the ability to step off the grind and choose presence. Let the early birdd catch the worm. This bird is going gonna rest by the water. That is abolitionist work.

③ The Practice / How-To 

A. Ritual: Announcing a Homework Sabbath

Use ceremony. Always.

I say, “Mr. Robles has the floor.”

Script:

“Y’all, I have good news and bad news: the good news is I saved 15% by switching to Geiko. The bad news is that I’m supposed to assign 90 minutes of homework this week. So tomorrow your only assignment comes from an Alice in Wonderland Quote: Don’t just do something, sit there! Or is it stand there? I forget. Do something that nourishes your spirit. A Homework Sabbath! This frees you to reconnect with what makes you fully alive.”

Push back: because there’s always one student who’s like, “yes, but do we have to not do homework tonight?”

Go for it, Eddie.

B. The Meaningful Alternatives: “Sabbath Side Quests”

Students choose one:

• Do something with someone you love. Cook with a parent, walk a dog, help a sibling with hair or homework.
  
• Go outside and touch the world. Sit by water, walk a block, look at the sky until your breath slows. Or my personal face: walk a little old lady across the street. These cars and bikes don’t care about anybody.
  
• Make something. Draw, write, build, play music, beat a video game boss.
  
• Be with yourself. Journal, meditate, nap, stare at clouds.
  
• These count as XP in my class. These moments get uplifted, edified, and praised. As a side effect, I get good writing. We get powerful journal entries that don’t feel academic. Entries that invite story, not a mad dash for a finished task. If we’re all made of story, and we want more story on the page, then our practice needs to be an invitation for more story in their lives.

C. Gamified Mechanic: Diablo-Style Quest Board

Students mark their choice on our Guild Side Quest Board.

Completing a Sabbath Side Quest yields:

 +50 XP: Restoration Skill Tree

 A cloth-like digital Tarot Badge: “Keeper of the Sacred Pause”

 Prompt: “What did you choose to do instead of homework and why did it matter this week?”

D. Teacher Questions Before Assigning Homework

Here are some questions for my fellow educators before we assign Homework. Ask yourself:

1. Is this assignment a main quest or just tradition?
   
2. Does it nurture mastery or merely compliance?
   
3. How long will this take a neurodivergent, multilingual, or struggling reader?
   
4. Does this compete with sleep, family, or healing time?
   
5. Would I want to do this after working all day?
   
6. Could this be done in class with collaborative joy instead?
   
7. What human need or skill does this assignment honor?
   

E. Political Classroom Discourse Questions

Use these in circles or debates:

• What does homework reveal about power in school?
  
• Who has time, space, and adult support at home? Who doesn’t?
  
• How has homework been used historically? To liberate or to punish?
  
• Should rest be a protected educational right?
  
• What do we owe young people beyond academic success?
  

F. CER Mini-Task: “Should Schools Adopt Homework Sabbath?”

Claim: Schools should adopt a weekly Homework Sabbath because it restores student well-being and leads to deeper learning.

Evidence for students to locate (students choose two):

1. Research on sleep and cognitive performance
   
2. Student testimonials about reduced stress
   
3. Observational data from mood/engagement the next day
   
    Reasoning: When students are rested and connected, they show greater focus, creativity, and resilience. These are key abilities for long-term well-being and success.
   

④ Prophetic Closing

Teaching is not the art of assigning work.

Teaching is the art of tending souls.

Folks love to talk about school to prison pipeline, and that’s definitely something worth talking about. But what about school to cubicle? School to careerism? Getting kindergarten children “college ready” sounds like a farce. Are we getting students ready for careerism and cubicle land? Or for mutual aid and for being good neighbors?

And for us, educators. We need it, too! Homework Sabbath is my weekly reminder that I do not want to graduate brilliant children who don’t know how to slow down and breathe, or kind children who never learned that rest is part of justice work, or exhausted children who believe their worth is tied to how quickly they finish tasks. We’re not getting students ready for cubicle land, we’re getting them ready for the prophetic “earth, as it is in heaven.” 

I want children who love the world fiercely, but who also recognize that the world is still going to turn without us.

Children who practice mutual aid with their siblings, who walk their dogs with intention, who sit by the river and remember, deep in the intuition, that “the world will keep turning without me.”

Rest is not laziness.

Rest is rehearsal for liberation.

When students practice Sabbath, they are practicing building a freer world.

May we, as educators, be brave enough to unclutch our assignments and trust that childhood is already full of holy curriculum.

May our students know the joy of the pause.

May they grow up believing that their spirit matters.

You are allowed to rest, my young padawans. The quest can wait.

Because every child deserves a classroom designed for loving.