The short answer

Homework spelled backwards is “krowemoh” (K-R-O-W-E-M-O-H). It isn’t a word in English and it isn’t a palindrome, since “homework” and “krowemoh” don’t match.

Three facts that surprise most people:

  • California banned homework for children under 15 in 1901.
  • Shanghai’s 15-year-olds reported almost 14 hours of homework a week in 2012; Finland’s reported under 3.
  • The famous Pomodoro timer was a tomato-shaped kitchen timer, and its inventor started by trying to concentrate for just two minutes.

All 25 facts below link to their source.

Here’s the quick answer, then a list of homework facts that are actually true. Each one comes from a source you can check, because a lot of homework trivia online (especially about who “invented” it) is made up.

Homework spelled backwards: krowemoh

Write “homework” and read it right to left:

ForwardsHOMEWORK
BackwardsKROWEMOH

Krowemoh. It’s eight letters, it isn’t in the dictionary, and it isn’t a palindrome. The joke works because it sounds like a wizard’s name or a rare disease. Try it on the rest of your schedule: “math” becomes “htam” and “study” becomes “yduts.”

Facts from homework history

  1. The “inventor” of homework probably never existed. Pages claiming an Italian teacher named Roberto Nevilis invented homework cite no sources and give dates eight centuries apart (1095 and 1905). Scholarly histories don’t mention him. Our history guide
  2. Boston restricted math homework in 1880. Francis Amasa Walker persuaded the school board to bar teachers from assigning math homework under normal circumstances. Wikipedia, citing Slate
  3. In the late 1800s, young kids rarely had homework. It was uncommon before third or fourth grade. Carnegie Mellon, 2016
  4. Homework around 1900 was mostly memorizing. Students learned facts at home to recite to the teacher the next day. JSTOR Daily, 2020
  5. A women’s magazine called homework a “national crime.” In January 1900, Ladies’ Home Journal editor Edward Bok argued no child under fifteen should get homework. HNN, 2019
  6. California banned homework for under-15s in 1901. Brookings, 2014; Gill and Schlossman add that dozens of local districts did the same. RAND, 2003
  7. Museum visits counted as homework in 1929. New York City superintendent William J. O’Shea wrote that homework could include reading, drawing or museum visits. HNN, 2019
  8. Cooking and budgeting were proposed as homework in 1937. Winnetka, Illinois superintendent Carleton Washburne suggested assignments built on home skills, including repairs. JSTOR Daily, 2020
  9. Teachers’ own journal called first-grade homework “absurd.” That was a 1952 statement in the NEA Journal. JSTOR Daily, 2020
  10. Even after Sputnik, heavy homework was rare. In the decade after 1957, no more than one high schooler in four studied over two hours a night. Gill & Schlossman, RAND, 2003
  11. TIME magazine ran a cover story called “The Homework Ate My Family.” It was published in January 1999. Brookings, 2014

Facts about homework around the world

  1. Shanghai topped the homework charts. Its 15-year-olds reported 13.85 hours a week in PISA 2012, more than any other system. OECD, PISA 2012 / PISA in Focus 46
  2. Finland reported the least. Its 15-year-olds did 2.78 hours a week, with Korea close behind at 2.87. OECD
  3. Homework has been shrinking worldwide. It fell between 2003 and 2012 in 31 of 38 comparable countries. OECD
  4. More homework time stops helping fairly fast. In PISA 2009 data, after about four hours a week, extra homework had a negligible effect on 15-year-olds’ performance. OECD
  5. Poland restricted homework in 2024. It banned homework for students under nine and made it optional for ages 9–14. EBSCO Research Starters

Facts about homework today

  1. US teens now do more homework than in the 1990s. Teens 15–17 spend about an hour a day on homework in the school year, up from 30 minutes in the mid-1990s. Pew Research Center, 2019
  2. Girls do more homework than boys. Teen girls average 71 minutes a day and boys 50. Pew, 2019
  3. More 9-year-olds get homework than a generation ago. The share with no homework the day before fell from 35% in 1984 to 22% in 2012. Brookings, 2014
  4. Some students can’t finish homework because of Wi-Fi. 17% of US teens are often or sometimes unable to finish because they lack reliable computer or internet access. Pew, 2018
  5. One in three teens does homework on a phone. 35% do so often or sometimes. Pew, 2018
  6. ChatGPT use for schoolwork doubled in a year. 26% of US teens had used it for schoolwork by fall 2024, up from 13% in 2023. Pew, 2025
  7. Most teens draw a line at AI-written essays. Only 18% said using ChatGPT to write essays is acceptable, while 54% said researching new topics with it is. Pew, 2025

Facts about getting homework done

  1. The Pomodoro Technique is named after a tomato. Francesco Cirillo developed it as a university student in the 1980s using a tomato-shaped kitchen timer, and began by trying to focus for just two minutes. “Pomodoro” is a registered trademark. pomodorotechnique.com
  2. Your phone distracts you even when it’s off. In experiments with nearly 800 people, those whose phones were in another room outperformed those whose phones were on the desk. UT Austin News, 2017

Bonus, from the Duke psychologist behind the best-known homework research, Harris Cooper, on why more isn’t always better: “Kids burn out.” Duke Today, 2006

How to spot a fake homework fact

Homework trivia is a magnet for made-up claims, because the topic is popular and few people check. Before you repeat a “fact” in a presentation or essay, run it through four quick tests:

  1. Is there a named source? A real statistic names who measured it and when: “Pew Research Center, 2025,” not “studies show.”
  2. Do versions agree? The Nevilis story fails here: the same “inventor” appears with dates of 1095 and 1905. Real events don’t drift by 800 years.
  3. Is the year attached? “Students do 3 hours of homework a night” was true at 10 affluent California high schools in one 2013 study. It is not a national average; nationally, most students do an hour or less.
  4. Does a scholarly or official source repeat it? Historians such as Gill and Schlossman, the OECD and Pew are good tie-breakers. If only blogs carry it, treat it as folklore.

Facts at a glance

FactNumberYearSource
California homework ban, age limitunder 151901Brookings 2014
Most homework (Shanghai-China)13.85 h/week2012OECD
Least homework (Finland)2.78 h/week2012OECD
OECD average4.88 h/week2012OECD
US teen homework per dayabout 1 hourpub. 2019Pew / BLS
Teens who used ChatGPT for schoolwork26%2024Pew 2025
Teens doing homework on a phone35%2018Pew 2018

Want the serious version?

These facts come from the same sources as our longer guides:

Sources

Checked October 14, 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us via the about page.

Frequently asked questions

What is homework spelled backwards?
Krowemoh: K-R-O-W-E-M-O-H. Reverse the eight letters of ‘homework’ and you get a string that isn’t an English word. It’s a popular joke because it looks like a made-up name.
Is 'homework' a palindrome?
No. A palindrome reads the same forwards and backwards, like ’level’ or ’noon’. ‘Homework’ reversed is ‘krowemoh’, which is different.
Who invented homework?
No single person. The popular claim that an Italian teacher named Roberto Nevilis invented it has no historical evidence behind it, and the web pages repeating it can’t agree whether it happened in 1095 or 1905. See our history of homework for what is documented.
Which country has the most homework?
In the OECD’s PISA 2012 survey of 15-year-olds, Shanghai-China reported the most, at 13.85 hours a week, followed by Russia (9.75) and Singapore (9.39). Finland (2.78) and Korea (2.87) reported the least. The OECD average was 4.88 hours.
Was homework ever illegal?
In a sense, yes. In 1901 California banned homework for public school children under 15, and dozens of local districts restricted it. Sources disagree on when the California law ended.