The Story Behind The Myth That An Italian Teacher Roberto Nevilis Invented Homework

As both Through Education and The Ed Advocate report, somehow a myth entered the world's collective consciousness that an Italian man named Roberto Nevilis invented homework. Some versions of the myth even add some context: It was intended to punish underperforming students and to reward those who excelled at their lessons. Some versions of the myth say that his invention dates to 1905, others that it dates to 1095 – an 800 year difference! There's supposedly a photograph of him on Twitter, with a caption claiming the year was 1095, which is a solid eight centuries before the invention of photography.

Needless to say, the Nevilis origin story is probably bunk. Putting aside the fact that he could have lived in either of two periods in history 800 years apart (and the 1095 origin story ignores some important facts about public education, including that it didn't exist at the time), the real indicator that his story is fictitious is that it exists only in question-and-answer forums and parenting blogs. On the rare occasions that someone attempts to cite it, it's always with vague words like "various sources" or "some say" or the like.

The real culprit is probably Horace Mann (his statue is above), and even he didn't come up with it. The American education advocate was inspired by a European system, according to Through Education, and it became more or less ubiquitous worldwide in the decades after he introduced it to the U.S.

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