Parents, educators, and the homework debate - what to do?
April 30, 2018 1:52 PM Subscribe
I'm startled after reading this article in the Atlantic about kids receiving 3-4 hours of homework a night.
My spouse and I believe that too much homework is detrimental. Kids should be kids, and we take the position that in many cases, there is more to be learned from traveling and living life than cracking a book. Books are important, studies are important, we both read avidly. Having said that, here in the U.S. it seems we are in the minority and many hours of homework are the norm, especially in California.
We do not work for public schools, and it's been many years since either of us have been in grade school. We're not young parents, and we're shocked at the amount of homework our relatives and friends' children receive. The article I linked to was even more shocking. I never thought "too much" meant 3-4 hours a night. WTH?
I'm curious from both parents and educators alike - how do parents navigate this? What do educators think? How much power do parents have in fighting the school system on hours and hours of (mostly) pointless drudgery and rote memorization each night? As a parent, what do you do? Do it for them?
My spouse and I believe that too much homework is detrimental. Kids should be kids, and we take the position that in many cases, there is more to be learned from traveling and living life than cracking a book. Books are important, studies are important, we both read avidly. Having said that, here in the U.S. it seems we are in the minority and many hours of homework are the norm, especially in California.
We do not work for public schools, and it's been many years since either of us have been in grade school. We're not young parents, and we're shocked at the amount of homework our relatives and friends' children receive. The article I linked to was even more shocking. I never thought "too much" meant 3-4 hours a night. WTH?
I'm curious from both parents and educators alike - how do parents navigate this? What do educators think? How much power do parents have in fighting the school system on hours and hours of (mostly) pointless drudgery and rote memorization each night? As a parent, what do you do? Do it for them?
I have two kids in the public schools, one in fourth grade and one in 7th. The 7th grader basically gets no homework--I think she'd do better with a little more, more regularly, actually, because on the occasions she does have some homework, she forgets about it, and I'm worrying about the lack of training on doing homework and remembering when it needs to be turned in to prepare her for high school and college. (I don't know, because communication is not great with the middle school, if she gets homework but can finish it all in class or what.)
The fourth grader gets as homework one double-sided worksheet every M - Th, one side math and one side language arts. Usually it takes her 20 minutes; sometimes she gets stalled out on the language arts side and it takes her longer, but it's not because it's an inherently long assignment, it's that she doesn't like writing and sometimes gets stubborn.
This amount of homework was standard all through 1 - 6 at this school; about a worksheet a night. I like it as a parent because it lets me keep track, at least a little bit, of what they're working on in class. (The first grade worksheets where their math homework involved having to read word problems were challenging for my non-reading first-grader.)
So, I guess, I would caution you about (1) dismissing all homework as pointless drudgery, and (2) assuming that every student all over the US gets 3 - 4 hours of homework a night.
(As a mathematics educator, I can tell you that the only way students learn mathematics is by getting their hands dirty and actually working problems. I spent the weekend learning how to carve a bowl out of wood, and this is actually a really good comparison for learning mathematics. Watching someone else do problems--like watching someone else do woodworking--can be helpful, but fundamentally the student has to get their hands dirty and pick up the tool, and learn how to hold the tool/apply the theorem to carve the bowl/solve the problem. We call math problems "exercises" for a reason--the student is exercising the brain! And working drill problems, to mix metaphors some more, is like doing scales in music: they're not very fun, but you have to train your fingers/brain so that you don't have to think about the routine stuff when you are trying to play more challenging music/solve more challenging problems. But *maybe* the routine problems can be worked out at home to leave time in school for working on more interesting stuff.)
posted by leahwrenn at 2:38 PM on April 30, 2018 [13 favorites]
The fourth grader gets as homework one double-sided worksheet every M - Th, one side math and one side language arts. Usually it takes her 20 minutes; sometimes she gets stalled out on the language arts side and it takes her longer, but it's not because it's an inherently long assignment, it's that she doesn't like writing and sometimes gets stubborn.
This amount of homework was standard all through 1 - 6 at this school; about a worksheet a night. I like it as a parent because it lets me keep track, at least a little bit, of what they're working on in class. (The first grade worksheets where their math homework involved having to read word problems were challenging for my non-reading first-grader.)
So, I guess, I would caution you about (1) dismissing all homework as pointless drudgery, and (2) assuming that every student all over the US gets 3 - 4 hours of homework a night.
(As a mathematics educator, I can tell you that the only way students learn mathematics is by getting their hands dirty and actually working problems. I spent the weekend learning how to carve a bowl out of wood, and this is actually a really good comparison for learning mathematics. Watching someone else do problems--like watching someone else do woodworking--can be helpful, but fundamentally the student has to get their hands dirty and pick up the tool, and learn how to hold the tool/apply the theorem to carve the bowl/solve the problem. We call math problems "exercises" for a reason--the student is exercising the brain! And working drill problems, to mix metaphors some more, is like doing scales in music: they're not very fun, but you have to train your fingers/brain so that you don't have to think about the routine stuff when you are trying to play more challenging music/solve more challenging problems. But *maybe* the routine problems can be worked out at home to leave time in school for working on more interesting stuff.)
posted by leahwrenn at 2:38 PM on April 30, 2018 [13 favorites]
My kids go to a private school (which I have mixed feelings about) that does not believe in homework (which I agree with). As one of the school's extremely experienced teachers said, paraphrasing, we believe that kids should work hard for eight hours when they are at school, and then be done - we wouldn't ask adults to take work home every night and it's not fair to ask kids to do so either.
This is an elementary school. We'll see how things progress.
posted by bq at 2:55 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
This is an elementary school. We'll see how things progress.
posted by bq at 2:55 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
Not every school. My kid (9th grade) goes to an amazing public charter in Los Angeles that basically doesn't assign homework. Everything assigned can be completed at school, in class or during study periods. (My kid chooses to do some assignments at home, but that's his personal choice.) I can't tell you how much I love this aspect of this school (which is great in a million different ways). It means, for example, the educational process is being overseen by educators, not parents.
(This is our 4th year at the school, which used to be 6-12 but is now K-12.)
posted by BlahLaLa at 2:59 PM on April 30, 2018
(This is our 4th year at the school, which used to be 6-12 but is now K-12.)
posted by BlahLaLa at 2:59 PM on April 30, 2018
Our kids are just finishing up in the California public school system - we've been here 10 years, our younger one is graduating this year, our older one graduated two years ago.
Sometimes there is a lot of homework. I don't think we've ever seen 4 hours worth of homework, but yes, sometimes there is a couple hours of work a night for most of the week. It varies grade to grade - I did not keep notes so I can't say when it got better or worse, but it wasn't constant. I feel like it peaked in middle school - there was a lot of pressure to prep kids for AP courses and the like so they really laid it on. But it varied over the course of the year. One thing that stood out was that our middle school had a "plus" program that seemed to be the regular curriculum with extra homework. It seemed completely unappealing to us, but there it is. We did not sign our kids up for it. They both took AP courses, got good marks and got into good universities.
High school seemed not very different from what I remember of mine 30-ish years prior in terms of homework. There was often a lot of homework, there was a lot of studying, but not a crushing amount. That said, my kids didn't do anything crazy like sign up for 6 AP courses in a single term, which is a thing that happens.
posted by GuyZero at 2:59 PM on April 30, 2018
Sometimes there is a lot of homework. I don't think we've ever seen 4 hours worth of homework, but yes, sometimes there is a couple hours of work a night for most of the week. It varies grade to grade - I did not keep notes so I can't say when it got better or worse, but it wasn't constant. I feel like it peaked in middle school - there was a lot of pressure to prep kids for AP courses and the like so they really laid it on. But it varied over the course of the year. One thing that stood out was that our middle school had a "plus" program that seemed to be the regular curriculum with extra homework. It seemed completely unappealing to us, but there it is. We did not sign our kids up for it. They both took AP courses, got good marks and got into good universities.
High school seemed not very different from what I remember of mine 30-ish years prior in terms of homework. There was often a lot of homework, there was a lot of studying, but not a crushing amount. That said, my kids didn't do anything crazy like sign up for 6 AP courses in a single term, which is a thing that happens.
posted by GuyZero at 2:59 PM on April 30, 2018
As a retired teacher and administrator, my experience for the most part was that the kids that needed some extra practice, usually didn’t do the homework for a variety of reasons, and the ones who didn’t need it, usually did it. So then there’s the whole issue of how to grade/count it. Ugh. My recommendation was that it should be about 20 minutes a day for grade school; maybe up to an hour through high school. In theory, it does build a sense of routine and responsibility. One teacher I know gives a choice sheet applicable to her subject and they have to complete three assignments a week. That gives a couple of nights to allow for sports, church, other family activities.
I understand leahwrenn’s point above, but there’s nothing worse than having a kid turn in a whole worksheet done incorrectly or worse yet, when you can totally tell that someone else did it. Since I taught elementary language arts, we usually had a spelling list to practice with a test on Friday; it was up to the family how much practice was needed. If a student didn’t finish an assignment in class, it was usually sent for homework, and maybe an occasional additional assignment.
As a parent, if a teacher sent home busy work (I’m looking at you wordsearch) for homework, it was fair game for it to be a family project. Also, I’ve built three models of the Alamo out of sugar cubes. So basically as a parent, if the task had educational value, I expected my kids to complete it, sometimes with guidance, but if it was busy work or a non-value added type project, I would help.
posted by tamitang at 3:00 PM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
I understand leahwrenn’s point above, but there’s nothing worse than having a kid turn in a whole worksheet done incorrectly or worse yet, when you can totally tell that someone else did it. Since I taught elementary language arts, we usually had a spelling list to practice with a test on Friday; it was up to the family how much practice was needed. If a student didn’t finish an assignment in class, it was usually sent for homework, and maybe an occasional additional assignment.
As a parent, if a teacher sent home busy work (I’m looking at you wordsearch) for homework, it was fair game for it to be a family project. Also, I’ve built three models of the Alamo out of sugar cubes. So basically as a parent, if the task had educational value, I expected my kids to complete it, sometimes with guidance, but if it was busy work or a non-value added type project, I would help.
posted by tamitang at 3:00 PM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
My kid is at a public school in the same school system that the author's daughter was attending before they moved to NY. I have heard other middle schools in the area have a similar load as described in the article. My kid has never had more than 30 minutes - 1 hour of homework.
In elementary school, she did most of it in the morning before school (evenings she would be very tired; mornings she was sharper and it got done with much less drama).
She's now in middle school, and they have block scheduling, so she has longer classes and isn't doing the same thing every day. She doesn't have a lot of homework; they do a lot of in-class projects and labs. Last year, her math teacher did a lot of flipped instruction; students would watch a video she'd make explaining the lesson and they'd come to class with questions and work on the problems.
It seems to be working and I hope it can continue through high school (the school is a combined middle and high school).
posted by mogget at 3:02 PM on April 30, 2018
In elementary school, she did most of it in the morning before school (evenings she would be very tired; mornings she was sharper and it got done with much less drama).
She's now in middle school, and they have block scheduling, so she has longer classes and isn't doing the same thing every day. She doesn't have a lot of homework; they do a lot of in-class projects and labs. Last year, her math teacher did a lot of flipped instruction; students would watch a video she'd make explaining the lesson and they'd come to class with questions and work on the problems.
It seems to be working and I hope it can continue through high school (the school is a combined middle and high school).
posted by mogget at 3:02 PM on April 30, 2018
As a private school educator in a middle school, I sometimes heard parents tell me their kids did hours of homework a night. I strongly suggested putting their kids in a communal space in the house away from phones and computers, because we didn't give that much homework. Mostly their kids were texting friends, playing games, following sports, or otherwise fooling around while their parents thought they were working.
But I am perfectly willing to believe the writer of the article, because some of my English teachers when I was K-12 department chair really thought their students were capable of doing all the reading they assigned at home.
Be aware that there is a weird dynamic between schools (especially elite ones) and parents. Many parents want homework and don't want schools to get rid of it, because they believe hard homework is a signifier of rigor. Many also hate seeing their kids struggle. They don't know what their kids are capable of, and they don't know what the kids have learned how to do in school. So the work looks harder to them than it is. And there are parents like I was, who basically tell schools that I'm not going to supervise my child's work closely, so if she doesn't hand it in, she doesn't hand it in.
The teachers, on the other hand, don't have time or space in their schedule to put in all the projects and creative work that they believe are essential. and as I say they overestimate their students' capacity to do the work. The reason that happens is that some of the students can do it, while for many many others, the parents do most of the work so that their kids won't be stressed and embarrassed, thus perpetuating the cycle. I know people who are still doing their children's work in college.
posted by Peach at 3:08 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
But I am perfectly willing to believe the writer of the article, because some of my English teachers when I was K-12 department chair really thought their students were capable of doing all the reading they assigned at home.
Be aware that there is a weird dynamic between schools (especially elite ones) and parents. Many parents want homework and don't want schools to get rid of it, because they believe hard homework is a signifier of rigor. Many also hate seeing their kids struggle. They don't know what their kids are capable of, and they don't know what the kids have learned how to do in school. So the work looks harder to them than it is. And there are parents like I was, who basically tell schools that I'm not going to supervise my child's work closely, so if she doesn't hand it in, she doesn't hand it in.
The teachers, on the other hand, don't have time or space in their schedule to put in all the projects and creative work that they believe are essential. and as I say they overestimate their students' capacity to do the work. The reason that happens is that some of the students can do it, while for many many others, the parents do most of the work so that their kids won't be stressed and embarrassed, thus perpetuating the cycle. I know people who are still doing their children's work in college.
posted by Peach at 3:08 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
My kids average 30 min - 2 hrs each night (the 4th grader at the low end, the 7th grader at the upper). I'm fine with it. Mostly I see it as an executive function skill builder, and frankly a way for parents to engage with kids about content and understand the school's pedagogy. For many years my kids had no homework or tests, and all I could base my understanding on was teacher evals. Guess what? Turns out many of those teachers weren't great evaluators. Sigh.
It's true we don't ask adults to take work home every night, but adults have learned to apportion their time to get the right things done at the right time. I see a benefit to kids of this age having to plan for themselves--outside of the more rigid school hours--how they might successfully scope and complete a long term project about the holocaust or 3D objects, with scaffolded support. My kids have multiple after school activities of their own choosing (where activities means anything from faffing around with friends, to playing sports). As long as their time over the course of a week seems balanced, homework isn't something I think of trimming.
*Full disclosure: I was a homework nerd and after a certain age chose geometry and ancient Greek over interacting with my family Every Time.
posted by cocoagirl at 3:10 PM on April 30, 2018
It's true we don't ask adults to take work home every night, but adults have learned to apportion their time to get the right things done at the right time. I see a benefit to kids of this age having to plan for themselves--outside of the more rigid school hours--how they might successfully scope and complete a long term project about the holocaust or 3D objects, with scaffolded support. My kids have multiple after school activities of their own choosing (where activities means anything from faffing around with friends, to playing sports). As long as their time over the course of a week seems balanced, homework isn't something I think of trimming.
*Full disclosure: I was a homework nerd and after a certain age chose geometry and ancient Greek over interacting with my family Every Time.
posted by cocoagirl at 3:10 PM on April 30, 2018
I feel as you do. We deliberately moved to a school district where children have no homework until third grade, though personally I would prefer no homework at all.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 3:28 PM on April 30, 2018
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 3:28 PM on April 30, 2018
My kid is only in kindergarten, but yep he has homework. He gets a packet of about 15 worksheets on Monday, to be returned on Friday, so we break it down to a few a night, which usually takes 10-20 minutes, depending on how much whining ensues.
I'm really torn on how to approach it. I have been a classroom teacher, as has my husband. I really try my hardest to not undermine my son's teachers. The amount he gets now is unnecessary for him (he gets plenty of reading and writing practice at home, but on the other hand he's a super privileged kid who attends a Title I school and his home situation cannot be assumed to be the home situation of many of his peers), but it's not hurting him to learn that sometimes you just have to do the thing, even if it's a pointless thing. He already gets in trouble at school for not doing his work in class, so the last thing I want to do at home is be like, "you're right kid, you don't have to do this work--but you totally have to do that other work that is indistinguishable from this work."
But we are not taking about 3 hours here. As a teacher, I'm not even sure I could conceive of enough work that could actually be done at home to fill 3 hours a night. That's not normal, in my experience as an educator.
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:35 PM on April 30, 2018
I'm really torn on how to approach it. I have been a classroom teacher, as has my husband. I really try my hardest to not undermine my son's teachers. The amount he gets now is unnecessary for him (he gets plenty of reading and writing practice at home, but on the other hand he's a super privileged kid who attends a Title I school and his home situation cannot be assumed to be the home situation of many of his peers), but it's not hurting him to learn that sometimes you just have to do the thing, even if it's a pointless thing. He already gets in trouble at school for not doing his work in class, so the last thing I want to do at home is be like, "you're right kid, you don't have to do this work--but you totally have to do that other work that is indistinguishable from this work."
But we are not taking about 3 hours here. As a teacher, I'm not even sure I could conceive of enough work that could actually be done at home to fill 3 hours a night. That's not normal, in my experience as an educator.
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:35 PM on April 30, 2018
For anecdote's sake, I went to a private college prep school for high school and had 3-4 hours worth of homework most days, more if I had an essay to be worked on. I think it helped me reinforce stuff I learned but I could have done with less volume of work. I would lose sleep and relaxation time because of the mountain of work I had, which was not worth it.
posted by starlybri at 3:37 PM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by starlybri at 3:37 PM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Well, imagine if after putting in a full day at the office—and school is pretty much what our children do for a job—you had to come home and do another four or so hours of office work. Monday through Friday. Plus Esmee gets homework every weekend. If your job required that kind of work after work, how long would you last?
One thing that the article notably doesn't acknowledge is that this is actually a fairly apt description of what it's like to be a teacher. The author seems intent on blaming teachers, or implying that they simply don't understand that students are being asked to do a lot of work, without considering the fact that teachers are doing equally as much, if not more. I'm not a parent but I am an educator, and while my situation is different (I teach at the college level), I do think it's important to note that this is a structural problem with the way we understand education in this country, and it affects teachers as much as it affects students (who does he think is grading all that homework?).
That said, students do need to put in a certain amount of practice in all of their classes, and the kind of dull writing assignments that he objects to--with "transition words"--are important in giving students a fluency in the conventions of academic writing. Some of this can be done in the classroom, but teachers are tasked with such a wide array of learning outcomes that it's very difficult to meet them all without some homework. Homework can also be a way of attempting to level the playing field; some parents will complain that their children do plenty of reading on their own, but this is (as soren_lorenson notes above) not generalizable to all families. Assigning a lot of reading--or math, or what have you--is, at the simplest level, a way of trying to ensure that all children in the class are doing a lot of reading, since this is important for reading skills, language acquisition, and writing skills.
I'd write more, but I need to get back to my grading.
posted by dizziest at 3:45 PM on April 30, 2018 [11 favorites]
One thing that the article notably doesn't acknowledge is that this is actually a fairly apt description of what it's like to be a teacher. The author seems intent on blaming teachers, or implying that they simply don't understand that students are being asked to do a lot of work, without considering the fact that teachers are doing equally as much, if not more. I'm not a parent but I am an educator, and while my situation is different (I teach at the college level), I do think it's important to note that this is a structural problem with the way we understand education in this country, and it affects teachers as much as it affects students (who does he think is grading all that homework?).
That said, students do need to put in a certain amount of practice in all of their classes, and the kind of dull writing assignments that he objects to--with "transition words"--are important in giving students a fluency in the conventions of academic writing. Some of this can be done in the classroom, but teachers are tasked with such a wide array of learning outcomes that it's very difficult to meet them all without some homework. Homework can also be a way of attempting to level the playing field; some parents will complain that their children do plenty of reading on their own, but this is (as soren_lorenson notes above) not generalizable to all families. Assigning a lot of reading--or math, or what have you--is, at the simplest level, a way of trying to ensure that all children in the class are doing a lot of reading, since this is important for reading skills, language acquisition, and writing skills.
I'd write more, but I need to get back to my grading.
posted by dizziest at 3:45 PM on April 30, 2018 [11 favorites]
The prep school I went to had 3+ hours a night, if I remember correctly. Study hall in the dorms was two hours, but advanced classes had more expectations than that. I don't remember its being makework or drudgery most of the time, and I think I would have, having transferred in from a school that assigned much less work but that work was rarely anything but makework or drudgery. I think it correlated pretty well with rigor, but I don't know that it had to. The pedagogical arguments in favor of "flipping" instruction seem reasonable to me, but I've never fully understood how that's supposed to massively reduce the amount of homework, as opposed to changing what kind of work you do.
This may not require 3-4 hours of homework a night to instill, but: a kid who arrives at college without having learned to discipline themselves and handle their business without a teacher or parent standing over them will be lost. For every hour of formal instruction, there probably is three to four hours of preparation involved. If you're used to being done the minute you walk out the classroom door, I have no idea how you'll manage.
posted by praemunire at 4:02 PM on April 30, 2018
This may not require 3-4 hours of homework a night to instill, but: a kid who arrives at college without having learned to discipline themselves and handle their business without a teacher or parent standing over them will be lost. For every hour of formal instruction, there probably is three to four hours of preparation involved. If you're used to being done the minute you walk out the classroom door, I have no idea how you'll manage.
posted by praemunire at 4:02 PM on April 30, 2018
I think this is highly dependent on the child, and the school system. I recall high school classmates complain about doing hours of homework each night, whereas I don't remember spending more than about 1-1.5 hours on weeknights, maybe 3 hours each day on the weekend. (I'm not counting reading novels for English class in that, because reading was never "work," for me, but I do include essay writing.) School was 8-4 every day; with the commute I was gone from about 7 till 5, and I was in bed by 9, so trust me, if I spent every free hour doing homework I'd have noticed.
Keep in mind that children usually take 5-6 academic courses in middle/high school (excluding things like gym, music -- if those even still exist). So 3 hours of homework = 30 min per course, which I still think sounds extreme compared to my memories, but is much more reasonable-sounding. For history, for example, read a chapter in the textbook and write an outline/summary, that could definitely take you 30 minutes or so.
I don't recall busywork or drudgery, at least not at the middle school/high school level, but my brother's 10th grade history teacher had them make dioramas of Ancient Rome, etc. So silly homework is definitely a thing.
Agree with what praemunire says about homework instilling some degree of discipline and learning how to chop up big overwhelming assignments (write this 10 page paper!) into smaller, manageable ones (first, choose a topic, next write an outline, etc etc). That was part of the non-tangible benefit of HW that made it easier to transition into college.
The article itself is a little disingenuous, because if you haven't thought about polynomials in decades, of course you're going to struggle with it! Esmee presumably thought about polynomials in math class that day, and her teacher showed her example problems. So of course dad would be at a disadvantage, just as much as if Esmee took over her dad's job at the Atlantic for a week. (Wait, wasn't that the premise of Freaky Friday?)
posted by basalganglia at 4:28 PM on April 30, 2018
Keep in mind that children usually take 5-6 academic courses in middle/high school (excluding things like gym, music -- if those even still exist). So 3 hours of homework = 30 min per course, which I still think sounds extreme compared to my memories, but is much more reasonable-sounding. For history, for example, read a chapter in the textbook and write an outline/summary, that could definitely take you 30 minutes or so.
I don't recall busywork or drudgery, at least not at the middle school/high school level, but my brother's 10th grade history teacher had them make dioramas of Ancient Rome, etc. So silly homework is definitely a thing.
Agree with what praemunire says about homework instilling some degree of discipline and learning how to chop up big overwhelming assignments (write this 10 page paper!) into smaller, manageable ones (first, choose a topic, next write an outline, etc etc). That was part of the non-tangible benefit of HW that made it easier to transition into college.
The article itself is a little disingenuous, because if you haven't thought about polynomials in decades, of course you're going to struggle with it! Esmee presumably thought about polynomials in math class that day, and her teacher showed her example problems. So of course dad would be at a disadvantage, just as much as if Esmee took over her dad's job at the Atlantic for a week. (Wait, wasn't that the premise of Freaky Friday?)
posted by basalganglia at 4:28 PM on April 30, 2018
My 3rd grader has less than an hour a night, including 35 minutes of reading.
posted by k8t at 4:58 PM on April 30, 2018
posted by k8t at 4:58 PM on April 30, 2018
My kiddo is in 3rd grade at a public school. We do spelling practice each night, and then he rotates between a math game, emailing a letter to family, recorder practice, or extra self-reading time. Other than reading (which he'll do for hours), we usually spend around 20-30 minutes.
Occasionally he will also have a worksheet he didn't finish at school, or for practice.
As a kid with ADHD, this set time is important for him to practice and learn how to organize and self-reliance. But I do keep an eye on time. If he has gone over 35 minutes, we call it quits, and he can do the rest another day. I will send a note to his teacher when needed. Occasionally I will also let him stop if his worksheet is very rote and he's performed the first chunk well enough to show he clearly gets the material - I make a note about that too. So far I haven't had issues with that although YMMV - but almost all the teachers I have met and know want kids to learn, not suffer.
DO feel empowered to speak up in those instances - parents and teachers are a team for our kids, but sometimes either group needs to play some defense, as it were.
posted by hapaxes.legomenon at 5:35 PM on April 30, 2018
Occasionally he will also have a worksheet he didn't finish at school, or for practice.
As a kid with ADHD, this set time is important for him to practice and learn how to organize and self-reliance. But I do keep an eye on time. If he has gone over 35 minutes, we call it quits, and he can do the rest another day. I will send a note to his teacher when needed. Occasionally I will also let him stop if his worksheet is very rote and he's performed the first chunk well enough to show he clearly gets the material - I make a note about that too. So far I haven't had issues with that although YMMV - but almost all the teachers I have met and know want kids to learn, not suffer.
DO feel empowered to speak up in those instances - parents and teachers are a team for our kids, but sometimes either group needs to play some defense, as it were.
posted by hapaxes.legomenon at 5:35 PM on April 30, 2018
My 7th grader (12 yrs) is finishing up his second hour now. It’s not every night, but he has had 16 hrs of work on a weekend. I anticipate high school will be worse. We’re in Toronto.
Some of it is that he’s not fast at schoolwork. Some of it is that I require multiple sources on things. Some of it is philosophical. And some of it is frankly bad time management so things get kicked to homework. A flipped classroom benefits him some because the first assignment is watch a video/read and so his speed is normal, but then he still has to get through the work.
I have no trouble believing that article.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:38 PM on April 30, 2018
Some of it is that he’s not fast at schoolwork. Some of it is that I require multiple sources on things. Some of it is philosophical. And some of it is frankly bad time management so things get kicked to homework. A flipped classroom benefits him some because the first assignment is watch a video/read and so his speed is normal, but then he still has to get through the work.
I have no trouble believing that article.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:38 PM on April 30, 2018
Oh and on doing it for him...I used to have a hard core line on this but then we had an incident with a fort project. So I have done so once. My mom friends and I have joked that there should be a site where you can submit the beautiful work you've done for your child and get praise for it, since it is like, the dark corners where parents toil as unsung heroes...this was after one of the other moms had completed a huge poetry portfolio. I was a bit hurt because she didn't invite me in on the fun of writing all kinds of poetry (including a sestina! in grade 6! I am super impressed with how crazy that is!) as if I were an 11 year old boy, Best Writing Assignment Ever.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:23 PM on April 30, 2018
posted by warriorqueen at 6:23 PM on April 30, 2018
A perspective from overseas: in my brief time teaching in Singapore I would occasionally ask for 30 minutes of prep work for next week's lesson, and a take-home formative assessment that had at least a week's lead time. I did not think it was fair to ask for homework due the next day when many students had extracurriculars that ran til 6 or later, and as a student I don't think many teachers did that either. I probably needed 1-2 hours for homework each day, though I did a lot of my math homework in class.
posted by ahundredjarsofsky at 6:37 PM on April 30, 2018
posted by ahundredjarsofsky at 6:37 PM on April 30, 2018
In high school I frequently had 3-4 hours of homework a night, but I brought that upon myself. Taking six classes a semester (when a normal course load was 4-5) was a choice, and if I had wanted to do less homework I could have chosen differently. I only ever took one class in high school that I genuinely felt assigned excessive homework. (And even then, it wasn't busywork, it was foreign language reading and writing exercises. I understand that the only way to learn a language is intensive practice, but consistently having over an hour of homework a night for a single class, when I was taking five other classes too, was just too time consuming for me to balance with the rest of my schedule.) For the most part, doing that much homework was simply the natural consequence of taking on a demanding courseload that included a lot of AP and honors work.
posted by phoenixy at 6:53 PM on April 30, 2018
posted by phoenixy at 6:53 PM on April 30, 2018
As a high school student taking multiple AP courses at a college prep high school, I regularly spent 4+ hours a night on homework, and I was a fast reader and work completer. Part of that was just the expectation, and part was my conscientiousness that made me read every word of any assigned reading and study harder than I really needed to.
I think that amount of work benefited me GREATLY in college, and in my work now as a teacher (which DEFINITELY involves taking work home after the normal work day). I have much self-discipline and can push myself to get big projects done.
However...
I now teach elementary school at a Title 1 school and homework is the bane of my existence. I assign it, because the school expects it - and quite frankly, parents expect it - even the ones who never make their child DO the homework. If I had a dollar for every parent of a never-turns-their-homework-in kid who asked me for extra homework for their child, I'd be a rich lady.
But someone above said that the kids who need the practice don't do it, and the ones who don't need it are the ones who do it. That is extraordinarily true in my experience. The most struggling students can't do the work (even when I give them individualized assignments) without adult support and they don't have adult support, which is usually why they struggle in the first place. Other kids use a calculator at home, or their parents obviously do the work for them.
The way I've tried to compromise this year is by assigning a reading log that asks kids to read 10 minutes a night (and I'm pretty sure many of my kids lie every day on the reading log, but what can you do?? And I just want them to READ) and assigning a super short math worksheet that, depending on the skill and the kid, probably takes most of my students anywhere from 3-20 minutes. I do not assign the type of work we are currently doing in class, because I don't think kids should practice something (possibly incorrectly) they aren't confident with yet. I give math work from the previous grade, or basic skill practice like multiplication facts several months after we learned them. My math homework is significantly more rote than the work we do in class.
And then there's the hideous question of grading/accountability. I give a completion grade, but some kids figure that out early on and just write down junk. I make them redo during free time if it's obvious that they phoned it in, but I have many kids who really try but still do the work incorrectly. And then there are the 2 who just never turn it in. It counts for a miniscule portion of their grade (because I'm required to) but grading homework is just the worst.
If I had my way, homework would be "read a book, play outside, and tell someone what you learned today," but you can't always get what you want.
(Sorry for the novel... Homework is one of my pet peeves.)
posted by raspberrE at 7:37 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
I think that amount of work benefited me GREATLY in college, and in my work now as a teacher (which DEFINITELY involves taking work home after the normal work day). I have much self-discipline and can push myself to get big projects done.
However...
I now teach elementary school at a Title 1 school and homework is the bane of my existence. I assign it, because the school expects it - and quite frankly, parents expect it - even the ones who never make their child DO the homework. If I had a dollar for every parent of a never-turns-their-homework-in kid who asked me for extra homework for their child, I'd be a rich lady.
But someone above said that the kids who need the practice don't do it, and the ones who don't need it are the ones who do it. That is extraordinarily true in my experience. The most struggling students can't do the work (even when I give them individualized assignments) without adult support and they don't have adult support, which is usually why they struggle in the first place. Other kids use a calculator at home, or their parents obviously do the work for them.
The way I've tried to compromise this year is by assigning a reading log that asks kids to read 10 minutes a night (and I'm pretty sure many of my kids lie every day on the reading log, but what can you do?? And I just want them to READ) and assigning a super short math worksheet that, depending on the skill and the kid, probably takes most of my students anywhere from 3-20 minutes. I do not assign the type of work we are currently doing in class, because I don't think kids should practice something (possibly incorrectly) they aren't confident with yet. I give math work from the previous grade, or basic skill practice like multiplication facts several months after we learned them. My math homework is significantly more rote than the work we do in class.
And then there's the hideous question of grading/accountability. I give a completion grade, but some kids figure that out early on and just write down junk. I make them redo during free time if it's obvious that they phoned it in, but I have many kids who really try but still do the work incorrectly. And then there are the 2 who just never turn it in. It counts for a miniscule portion of their grade (because I'm required to) but grading homework is just the worst.
If I had my way, homework would be "read a book, play outside, and tell someone what you learned today," but you can't always get what you want.
(Sorry for the novel... Homework is one of my pet peeves.)
posted by raspberrE at 7:37 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
If the homework your kid is assigned is really truly pointless busywork designed only to oppress their spirits and teach them nothing, that will show when they get high scores on all their tests and classwork without doing any of their homework. teach your kid to calculate percentages, so that they can figure out how much of their grade depends on homework, do exactly enough to pass, and no more. in the early grades, that may be none at all. I haven't got any idea how many hours of homework were assigned when I was that young, because I never did any of it. but consider your school's discipline policies and general attitude towards passively resisting students before letting your kid put this into practice. and I do mean let, not encourage. if they want to do their worksheets and make their teachers happy, for god's sake leave them be with their worksheets.
Doing homework for them is never an option and is always beneath contempt. unless it will literally save a life, I suppose. they will not benefit from it and they will not respect you for doing it. if they -- not you, they -- believe the act of assigning homework is wrong, the correct course is to not do it, not to cheat by having someone else do it and then pretend to have done it.
there may be consequences, but in the elementary grades, if they don't make a scene and grandstand about it, there may not be. let them try it and see how it goes. but stifle this rebellion about a year or two before high school starts, as that is when their school record will really matter.
teaching them to schedule tasks and work steadily towards a goal without constant oversight will be unimaginably more difficult at that point than if you let the school system start indoctrinating them that way now, but it's the trade-off that must be made if you're committed to the anti-homework cause.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:50 PM on April 30, 2018
Doing homework for them is never an option and is always beneath contempt. unless it will literally save a life, I suppose. they will not benefit from it and they will not respect you for doing it. if they -- not you, they -- believe the act of assigning homework is wrong, the correct course is to not do it, not to cheat by having someone else do it and then pretend to have done it.
there may be consequences, but in the elementary grades, if they don't make a scene and grandstand about it, there may not be. let them try it and see how it goes. but stifle this rebellion about a year or two before high school starts, as that is when their school record will really matter.
teaching them to schedule tasks and work steadily towards a goal without constant oversight will be unimaginably more difficult at that point than if you let the school system start indoctrinating them that way now, but it's the trade-off that must be made if you're committed to the anti-homework cause.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:50 PM on April 30, 2018
I often think adults forget how tiring learning is, until they go on a proper training course, or back to university. As a former teacher I would rather students spent their evening recovering, reviewing their learning, resting and sleeping well than up to a late time completing work.
Work life balance is a huge issue for adults in the workplace, doesn't this apply to our children?
posted by 92_elements at 12:15 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Work life balance is a huge issue for adults in the workplace, doesn't this apply to our children?
posted by 92_elements at 12:15 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Nearly 100% of actual learning happens on one's own.
My experience here is as an educator in mathematics. By the time many students arrived in my college classrooms, there was already no hope for them because they had no idea how to work hard at something, fail, try again, succeed, and actually learn. I imagine this is partially because of the shift away from giving kids homework before they make it to college. I would assign something like 40 exercises from a section based on the day's lecture and many students would not do any of them. They would fail quizzes and tests and wonder why I didn't teach them anything.
I had "a lot" (maybe 3-4 hours, sometimes more) of homework in middle school / high school. The result was that I ended up with nearly a 4.0 as an undergrad. There was actually a lot less work to do in college because I had already learned how to learn. I now have a PhD in mathematics. I worked in that field for a few years before changing fields to software development. I am able to do these things because I know how to learn. I know how to learn because I worked hard at doing it as a child.
posted by King Bee at 4:16 AM on May 1, 2018
My experience here is as an educator in mathematics. By the time many students arrived in my college classrooms, there was already no hope for them because they had no idea how to work hard at something, fail, try again, succeed, and actually learn. I imagine this is partially because of the shift away from giving kids homework before they make it to college. I would assign something like 40 exercises from a section based on the day's lecture and many students would not do any of them. They would fail quizzes and tests and wonder why I didn't teach them anything.
I had "a lot" (maybe 3-4 hours, sometimes more) of homework in middle school / high school. The result was that I ended up with nearly a 4.0 as an undergrad. There was actually a lot less work to do in college because I had already learned how to learn. I now have a PhD in mathematics. I worked in that field for a few years before changing fields to software development. I am able to do these things because I know how to learn. I know how to learn because I worked hard at doing it as a child.
posted by King Bee at 4:16 AM on May 1, 2018
Veteran high school special education teacher, nominated as Teacher of the Year in Massachusetts. I have a lot of thoughts about this but I want to speak specifically to how too much homework affects students with disabilities.
High school teachers give too much homework, full stop. This sucks for neurotypical kids but for my kids--for kids with disabilities--it's just cruel and sets them up to fail. I wish I was exaggerating; I'm not. Day after day, year after year, kids with disabilities are essentially assigned hours of things they cannot do without significant support. They get this support in the school, as per their IEPs and as mandated by federal law, but for some reason, teachers seem to think disabilities magically disappear once the kids leave school. The kids get support in school, they don't at home, yet teachers continue to pile on the same work with zero support.
Perfectly bright kids who legally get support in school lose that support when it comes to homework. Night after night, they're given assignments they can't do, or that take them far longer than typical peers.
They are fully cognizant of existing in a culture where on a daily basis, their disabilities are ignored by the powers that be, by teachers who are supposed to know how to help them learn, where the most "helpful" modification they get is, "Do as much as you can." Telling a kid to do as much as they can, when they know the next day, in every class, they may be the only one who hasn't done all the work makes them feel like absolute idiotic losers.
They get further and further behind. They begin to feel like shit when they get to class without their work. They begin to skip class. They receive administrative action for skipping class. They often start taking drugs to escape from their miserable school experience.
Sometimes, they drop out. The insane amount of homework given to all kids is terrible but what it does to kids with disabilities is cruel.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 4:32 AM on May 1, 2018 [5 favorites]
High school teachers give too much homework, full stop. This sucks for neurotypical kids but for my kids--for kids with disabilities--it's just cruel and sets them up to fail. I wish I was exaggerating; I'm not. Day after day, year after year, kids with disabilities are essentially assigned hours of things they cannot do without significant support. They get this support in the school, as per their IEPs and as mandated by federal law, but for some reason, teachers seem to think disabilities magically disappear once the kids leave school. The kids get support in school, they don't at home, yet teachers continue to pile on the same work with zero support.
Perfectly bright kids who legally get support in school lose that support when it comes to homework. Night after night, they're given assignments they can't do, or that take them far longer than typical peers.
They are fully cognizant of existing in a culture where on a daily basis, their disabilities are ignored by the powers that be, by teachers who are supposed to know how to help them learn, where the most "helpful" modification they get is, "Do as much as you can." Telling a kid to do as much as they can, when they know the next day, in every class, they may be the only one who hasn't done all the work makes them feel like absolute idiotic losers.
They get further and further behind. They begin to feel like shit when they get to class without their work. They begin to skip class. They receive administrative action for skipping class. They often start taking drugs to escape from their miserable school experience.
Sometimes, they drop out. The insane amount of homework given to all kids is terrible but what it does to kids with disabilities is cruel.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 4:32 AM on May 1, 2018 [5 favorites]
How much power do parents have in fighting the school system on hours and hours of (mostly) pointless drudgery and rote memorization each night?
In high school, parents have no power whatsoever. In my district (ranked in top 10 in state), parents spent thousands on studies. They presented their findings that showed kids and families reported the extraordinary amount of homework was causing stress and health-related issues.
The school responded by offering yoga an hour daily before school began. The principal said teachers needed to be allowed to teach as they saw fit and while he could recommend no more than an hour per class nightly, he couldn't tell teachers what to do. So yeah, YOGA.
As a parent, what do you do? Do it for them?
Parents who want their kids to pass without having nervous breakdowns do their homework for them all the time, yes.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 4:37 AM on May 1, 2018
In high school, parents have no power whatsoever. In my district (ranked in top 10 in state), parents spent thousands on studies. They presented their findings that showed kids and families reported the extraordinary amount of homework was causing stress and health-related issues.
The school responded by offering yoga an hour daily before school began. The principal said teachers needed to be allowed to teach as they saw fit and while he could recommend no more than an hour per class nightly, he couldn't tell teachers what to do. So yeah, YOGA.
As a parent, what do you do? Do it for them?
Parents who want their kids to pass without having nervous breakdowns do their homework for them all the time, yes.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 4:37 AM on May 1, 2018
Since people are responding anecdotally: I had a 4.0 in both college and graduate school. I rarely completed my homework in high school, very rarely did any homework outside of essays that I couldn't complete during study hall, and had middling grades as a result (once, an English teacher refused to give me an A because I didn't complete extra credit projects even though I'd done all of the in-class work and homework. I was refusing on principle, because extra credit should be additional. I was that kind of student). I did fine in college, where I was a self-motivated learner who selected my own course work. There are entire educational philosophies based around self-motivated learning--for example, Sudbury schooling. Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing is another resource. Organization, extra work, even rote work has never been a problem for me as long as I'm passionate about the subject, and that's true of many learners.
I realize my educational attitudes are radical but they're supported by research on learning outcomes and homework. Once, in high school, I handed in a summer reading journal where I complained that our dry, laborious summer reading--assigned only to honors students--actually significantly reduced the number of books I read in a summer. My teacher asked me to write another essay on it, I suppose as a punishment, but I really dug into the research on literacy, which suggested that the best lifelong readers are those who read for pleasure, that it made no sense to saddle only the honors students with additional reading, and that it was actually contrary to the goal of creating people with improved literacy. My teacher's only response was "The parents want us to assign this."
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:00 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I realize my educational attitudes are radical but they're supported by research on learning outcomes and homework. Once, in high school, I handed in a summer reading journal where I complained that our dry, laborious summer reading--assigned only to honors students--actually significantly reduced the number of books I read in a summer. My teacher asked me to write another essay on it, I suppose as a punishment, but I really dug into the research on literacy, which suggested that the best lifelong readers are those who read for pleasure, that it made no sense to saddle only the honors students with additional reading, and that it was actually contrary to the goal of creating people with improved literacy. My teacher's only response was "The parents want us to assign this."
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:00 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
The original article is somewhat maddening - the author's insistence early on in the article that "I’m not interested in the debates over teaching to the test or No Child Left Behind" to be a pretty ridiculous disinterest, as its pretty directly related to the choices schools and school districts make vis a vis homework.
We all have anecdotes, but we need to connect the structural dots, too, to make sense of bizarre experiences like 4 hours of homework a night.
As far as what can parents do - you *can* do a lot, actually, through parent associations and organizing. I'm somewhat active in my kid's school district in NY (which has a wide array of wackjob schools assigning incredible amounts of homework) and the parents can, and have, put lots of pressure on the administration to reduce test prep and/or homework prep in some schools.
posted by RajahKing at 9:10 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
We all have anecdotes, but we need to connect the structural dots, too, to make sense of bizarre experiences like 4 hours of homework a night.
As far as what can parents do - you *can* do a lot, actually, through parent associations and organizing. I'm somewhat active in my kid's school district in NY (which has a wide array of wackjob schools assigning incredible amounts of homework) and the parents can, and have, put lots of pressure on the administration to reduce test prep and/or homework prep in some schools.
posted by RajahKing at 9:10 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Doing homework for them is never an option and is always beneath contempt. unless it will literally save a life, I suppose. they will not benefit from it and they will not respect you for doing it. if they -- not you, they -- believe the act of assigning homework is wrong, the correct course is to not do it, not to cheat by having someone else do it and then pretend to have done it.
Just because this is a thread for people with a child not yet in school, I wanted to address this a bit. I have completed one project (long story) and helped with a few more things.
The reason parents do homework isn't 'cause they're nuts.
It's because the school trains you to. My eldest's first school project in grade one (I think this may be in a thread on the site) was "invent something that works, complete this 8-page booklet about it, complete a diagram of it, and deliver an elevator pitch for it." This was in October of Grade One. All work was completed outside of class.
He got a fairly low grade for two reasons - his answers were not in full sentences and his diagram was not labelled. In October. Of grade one. He is a kid who loves to invent things, is slow working, but was capable of answering questions like "which materials do you need to make your invention?" which he answered like: an egg carton, a roll of duct tape. Not "The materials you will need are..." That wasn't outlined on a rubric either.
There was a clear message here to the parents and it was not "let your child, who technically does not have to be able to read yet, struggle with this on his or her own." His teacher told me, flat out, that the other kids had been able to complete the assignment to a higher standard with the support of their families at home. These were kids that I know were not really reading yet. Their inventions were also clearly not something a 6 year old could assemble. It was clear what she wanted us to do. This wasn't how homework worked when I was in school, and I went to a high-homework, high-expectation high school. But we never had homework that was so far beyond our reach.
My now-grade-one child got a B+ in reading last term, although he reads chapter books at a grade 5 level daily and got 100% on all assignments in reading, because we didn't complete two of his 12 reading logs - when my leg was broken and things were chaotic, just before term end. A B+ is not going to kill him so no big deal but it did teach him that the logs were more important than the reading. So now he both is very diligent about the logs, because he wants an A, but he also picks easy books, so that the logs are nice and full. Message received.
For my eldest child, we had him muddle through for a few years and then he disengaged from schoolwork completely, because he knew it was that he had parents that weren't doing it, unlike his friends, so why bother. Later, the homework got a bit different, he matured, and it feels healthier although the volume is nuts. But the expectation is not coming out of nowhere.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:32 AM on May 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
Just because this is a thread for people with a child not yet in school, I wanted to address this a bit. I have completed one project (long story) and helped with a few more things.
The reason parents do homework isn't 'cause they're nuts.
It's because the school trains you to. My eldest's first school project in grade one (I think this may be in a thread on the site) was "invent something that works, complete this 8-page booklet about it, complete a diagram of it, and deliver an elevator pitch for it." This was in October of Grade One. All work was completed outside of class.
He got a fairly low grade for two reasons - his answers were not in full sentences and his diagram was not labelled. In October. Of grade one. He is a kid who loves to invent things, is slow working, but was capable of answering questions like "which materials do you need to make your invention?" which he answered like: an egg carton, a roll of duct tape. Not "The materials you will need are..." That wasn't outlined on a rubric either.
There was a clear message here to the parents and it was not "let your child, who technically does not have to be able to read yet, struggle with this on his or her own." His teacher told me, flat out, that the other kids had been able to complete the assignment to a higher standard with the support of their families at home. These were kids that I know were not really reading yet. Their inventions were also clearly not something a 6 year old could assemble. It was clear what she wanted us to do. This wasn't how homework worked when I was in school, and I went to a high-homework, high-expectation high school. But we never had homework that was so far beyond our reach.
My now-grade-one child got a B+ in reading last term, although he reads chapter books at a grade 5 level daily and got 100% on all assignments in reading, because we didn't complete two of his 12 reading logs - when my leg was broken and things were chaotic, just before term end. A B+ is not going to kill him so no big deal but it did teach him that the logs were more important than the reading. So now he both is very diligent about the logs, because he wants an A, but he also picks easy books, so that the logs are nice and full. Message received.
For my eldest child, we had him muddle through for a few years and then he disengaged from schoolwork completely, because he knew it was that he had parents that weren't doing it, unlike his friends, so why bother. Later, the homework got a bit different, he matured, and it feels healthier although the volume is nuts. But the expectation is not coming out of nowhere.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:32 AM on May 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
onecircleaday: As a parent, what do you do? Do it for them?
Our kids are far from the point where homework is a serious undertaking, but I think that if your kid is coming home with either a volume of work, or a difficulty level, that they can't handle, it's time to discuss the subject matter, and potentially your student's placement, with their teacher(s). If it's about the amount of work, talk with the teacher to find out what their goal is with the volume - is your student slacking off in class when they have homework time? Keep in mind that the teachers also have to grade the homework that comes in, so it's not terribly likely they're loading up work to keep anyone busy, because that means that they'll be many times as busy when they receive it, grade it and enter it all into the school's grade tracking system. But if it's about the difficulty of the material, if the student can't do the homework, how can they do the tests?
I say this as the husband to a high school math teacher, who has seen her share of parent-assistance backfire on the students, but this is anecdotal, and every student is different, as is every teacher.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:27 AM on May 1, 2018
Our kids are far from the point where homework is a serious undertaking, but I think that if your kid is coming home with either a volume of work, or a difficulty level, that they can't handle, it's time to discuss the subject matter, and potentially your student's placement, with their teacher(s). If it's about the amount of work, talk with the teacher to find out what their goal is with the volume - is your student slacking off in class when they have homework time? Keep in mind that the teachers also have to grade the homework that comes in, so it's not terribly likely they're loading up work to keep anyone busy, because that means that they'll be many times as busy when they receive it, grade it and enter it all into the school's grade tracking system. But if it's about the difficulty of the material, if the student can't do the homework, how can they do the tests?
I say this as the husband to a high school math teacher, who has seen her share of parent-assistance backfire on the students, but this is anecdotal, and every student is different, as is every teacher.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:27 AM on May 1, 2018
Keep in mind that the teachers also have to grade the homework that comes in, so it's not terribly likely they're loading up work to keep anyone busy, because that means that they'll be many times as busy when they receive it, grade it and enter it all into the school's grade tracking system.
Actually as a data point, my son completes some subjects' homework and quizzes into a multiple-choice online system which provides him with his grade "live" right then -- last night he got 16/18 on a history assignment. So the idea that teachers don't assign more than they can grade is not accurate in my board.*
But I think it's also the multiple subjects issue. My kid takes his time on homework, so if each teacher assigns what they think should take 30 minutes, it will take my son 40-45 min, and since he has 5 academic subjects, the minutes a day get up really fast. As soon as he gets behind on anything we're in for a hellfire weekend. I have nightmares about his homework. He has an academic goal to get into an arts-curriculum-based high school so his grades count right now, plus he's working (joyfully) on his portfolio. This is not a lazy kid, he's just a kid who has to think his way through things. He also needs to get to bed at a decent hour.
I know I'm commenting multiple times but I loved homework as a kid, and never thought ever that homework would be a weekly everyone-in-tears pain point for our family. But it is. It is what ruins our day, almost every single day, except for the blissful two years my eldest had a teacher who was low-homework.
And every conversation I've had with a teacher or principal about it has boiled down to "something is wrong with either your child or your family." I loved this Atlantic article. It expressed exactly where our experience is heading...our kids are developing a philosophy of churning through material. I'm on board for any parent committee that wants to discuss homework but so far, no change at all.
Ontario is falling behind in math so now it's about double the math homework every week...we were given a resource online live tutorial/homework help which is great when I'm stuck on something but that takes a fair amount of time too.
*Also I know many teachers work hard, but I discovered when my son had to place a film on racism in context by completing a timeline of the Battle of Gettysburg (*sarcasm* which helped a lot) that his teacher had pulled the entire unit from a well-known teachers paying teachers (*cough*) website. I discovered this, of course, because we're Canadian and so he wasn't really aware of the US Civil War in any detail. (P.S. Canada has many examples to draw from of racism, so the whole thing was a debacle. My son's teachers love to see email from me, I am sure you can tell.)
posted by warriorqueen at 12:38 PM on May 1, 2018
Actually as a data point, my son completes some subjects' homework and quizzes into a multiple-choice online system which provides him with his grade "live" right then -- last night he got 16/18 on a history assignment. So the idea that teachers don't assign more than they can grade is not accurate in my board.*
But I think it's also the multiple subjects issue. My kid takes his time on homework, so if each teacher assigns what they think should take 30 minutes, it will take my son 40-45 min, and since he has 5 academic subjects, the minutes a day get up really fast. As soon as he gets behind on anything we're in for a hellfire weekend. I have nightmares about his homework. He has an academic goal to get into an arts-curriculum-based high school so his grades count right now, plus he's working (joyfully) on his portfolio. This is not a lazy kid, he's just a kid who has to think his way through things. He also needs to get to bed at a decent hour.
I know I'm commenting multiple times but I loved homework as a kid, and never thought ever that homework would be a weekly everyone-in-tears pain point for our family. But it is. It is what ruins our day, almost every single day, except for the blissful two years my eldest had a teacher who was low-homework.
And every conversation I've had with a teacher or principal about it has boiled down to "something is wrong with either your child or your family." I loved this Atlantic article. It expressed exactly where our experience is heading...our kids are developing a philosophy of churning through material. I'm on board for any parent committee that wants to discuss homework but so far, no change at all.
Ontario is falling behind in math so now it's about double the math homework every week...we were given a resource online live tutorial/homework help which is great when I'm stuck on something but that takes a fair amount of time too.
*Also I know many teachers work hard, but I discovered when my son had to place a film on racism in context by completing a timeline of the Battle of Gettysburg (*sarcasm* which helped a lot) that his teacher had pulled the entire unit from a well-known teachers paying teachers (*cough*) website. I discovered this, of course, because we're Canadian and so he wasn't really aware of the US Civil War in any detail. (P.S. Canada has many examples to draw from of racism, so the whole thing was a debacle. My son's teachers love to see email from me, I am sure you can tell.)
posted by warriorqueen at 12:38 PM on May 1, 2018
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It worked for us, and the September beach vacations when everybody else was in school were awesome :)
posted by COD at 2:18 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]