This past year, I found myself rather frustrated with the fact that my fifth grader was coming home with 1-3 hours worth of homework 2-4 days of the week. As a teacher I realize that education doesn’t end the minute a student leaves the school and that homework is necessary to encourage thought and further education. However, as a teacher in a junior high I was aware of other obligations my students had and was careful not to assign more than approximately 20-30 minutes worth of homework, and it wasn’t more than once or twice a week. If the students were diligent during the class period, oftentimes the homework was completed before they left for the day.
But as a parent, how much homework gets to be too much for your student? Parents are now calling for less homework assignments. This grassroots movement has taken place throughout the nation as parents speak out against hours of homework that many see as “busywork”. The argument is that too much homework takes away from family time and is detrimental to the time students need to be creative and active.
Because of the attention being focused on homework amounts, many schools are adopting a standard of ten minutes per grade level, for example, a student in 7th grade should have no more than 70 minutes of homework. While in the higher grades homework levels have remained roughly the same over the past 50 years, the amount of homework given to younger grades has gone up. I certainly don’t remember doing the amounts of homework when I was in 5th grade that my son is doing! I was instead running around the neighborhood playing games with neighbor kids or hanging out at the local youth center playing soccer. There were actually a few nights when my son would get home from football practice and would do homework from the time he got home until he went to bed. Is this what we expect of our young children?
It shouldn’t be, and in fact, some schools are looking at homework and experimenting with cutting homework altogether except for studying for tests. One school, two years into the experiment, hasn’t had any backslide in test scores or in the classroom. Students are less stressed at home as well. In another case, a parent was told by his 13 year old’s pediatrician that his son should exercise more. The parent’s response? And when would he do that? He too chose to tackle the homework load that his son brought home each night, instigating a new policy for homework in the Toronto School District.
Developmentally, are children really able to sit still for that much longer after being in school all day? It was difficult for my son, who is considered to be a great student by his teachers. If it is difficult for him, what about students with ADD and ADHD? Are we being fair to them by expecting them yet again to sit still for 1-2 more hours doing school work? Children are starting to burn out earlier and earlier. Many say that we are just preparing them for “real life”, but are we? What about responsibilities at home that are going on the wayside because they don’t have time to complete the chores that their parents need them to do?
This is an issue that we as educators (and some of us, parents) need to be mindful of. Sure, we expect a lot out of our students and we want them to succeed in the real world. But, are we just setting them up for stress and burn-out earlier in life?
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You brought some interesting points on the homework issue. I agree with you that it is not fair to expect students to give up an entire evening just complete their homework. Students need down time to be away from school work, and too much homework does not allow them this time. However, I do not know if I am ready to do away with homework all together. Homework still has merit in that students still learn from it. Maybe there could be a way of determining if students have mastered the concepts for the day in class. If this is evident then the students do not have a need to do the homework since they already know how to do the work. Homework has its place in education, but teachers need to be carful and not abuse the power of giving too much of it out.
ReplyDeleteSome use homework to help and some to hurt. As a child I also had teachers that would assign homework every night and it also was a couple of hours each night. It made me mad because it would be like 30 math problems that would take me forever. I don't believe you should give homework if you can't give some time in the classroom to work on it. This is your student's break in the day to do something that they enjoy doing. We have them in class all day, I think we should give them some time at night to enjoy life. I also think that teachers who are affaid they are not reaching the children think that if they assign a lot of homework then they will teach themselves. No..then the just feel worse about school because they don't get it.
ReplyDeleteOh boy, do I hear you on this one! My daughter brings a lot of homework home- I have always just thought it was because she didn't pay attention and didn't focus on work during in class time. After talking to her teacher, it seems there just isn't enough time in class to complete work because there is so much material to cover and outside interruptions that interfere with "quiet" work time. The endless struggle to do homework at home continued throughout the year- sending home lots of work only adds stress to the parent/teacher/student relationship. If there is a lot of catch up work to do ask the parents’ permission to keep them inside one day out of the week or afterschool for an evening. I don't recommend keeping students inside or punishing them...students riding the bus often can't stay for one on one time afterschool and can be an option once in awhile.
ReplyDeleteYes…I send home some homework in kindergarten. I only send daily work when there is an absence. On the weekend, we do a little sheet that requires students and parents to find pictures in magazines that start with the letter for the week. Other than that the students bring books home to read for book reports or ACR tests.
I think your most important point about homework has to do with making sure it is homework for a purpose. Is the work just busy work or will the students benefit from completing the assignment? There is a huge difference in the two! I also appreciate the idea about schools relating homework times to grade levels the 70 minutes in 7th grade idea. That is really really smart and I will be sharing that with our Study Skills Subject Area Committee for study.
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