Children, Education & Homework

[flere-imsaho]

So, as you do, I was reading stuff on the Interwebs and came across this: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me - Karl Taro Greenfeld - The Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/my-daughters-homework-is-killing-me/309514/?single_page=true)


Now, I was a good High School student (and College, for that matter), graduating second in my class and getting good grades throughout (and doing extra-curriculars, etc...).

But one thing I remember is I often had 3-5 hours of homework a night, and, combined with sports / music / drama / whatever, I was often finishing up my homework past midnight, only to wake again at 6:00.

When I look at my sons (now 2 and 5), one thing I think and/or worry about is how much they'll be spending on homework when they get to that point (and the 5-year-old, in Kindergarten, has already had some, though it is easy and short). I tend to subscribe to the idea that you should have fun as a kid, and worry that they're looking at hours and hours of homework, like the girl in the article, and what it might do to them during those years.

I know we have lot of educators and parents on the board, so I thought I'd post this, open-ended, to see what others have ended up thinking about this.

[Sun Tzu]

I've always been of the opinion that homework is a complete load of shit. I'm successful and well respected in my field, and I never, ever, ever take my work home with me. In fact, it's frowned upon to do so (though this may be a Silicon Valley trend). I know of at least one high school that has completely eliminated homework, and instead just increases the amount of time kids sit in class.

What does doing homework teach, exactly? That when you're at home, family isn't the most important thing? I'll pass.

[gstelmack]

I rarely had anywhere near 3-5 hours of homework until I got to college. I have a 3rd and a 5th grader, and they are pushing an hour right now. Add one extra-curricular (soccer, girl scouts) and the schedule gets booked very quickly.

I think the change is due to the amount of "life management skills" they started teaching that takes up part of the school day, plus all the curriculum nonsense, plus all the standardized testing (the list of standardized tests that my 3rd grader has to take is mind-boggling), takes away from teaching time.

Middle school scares me to no end, let alone high school.

[cougarfreak]

I teach an AP US class for high school juniors. I've gotten to the point where I'll only give 30-45 minutes a night, a couple nights a week. A lot of this crap is because the new Common Core is pushing for class for be "student driven", which means student discussion should drive the classroom, not teacher's talking/lecturing/modeling. Therefore students need to know it better, and need to perform it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Middle school scares me to no end, let alone high school.

FWIW, if your children (and you) survive middle school then high school isn't nearly as miserable an experience. Err, at least not in our experience.

[JonInMiddleGA]

We're seeing less homework in HS than we saw in MS, although that's significantly impacted by a schedule quirk that gave my sophomore two study halls this year (we'll all miss that next year). Give or take an average of maybe 90-120 minutes a day at this point, not counting a mandatory 45 minute after school session one day a week (AP History)

Exam week just ended today however, with a total of about 40 hours of study time between last Saturday and this morning. THAT seemed brutal, but it's pretty typical for where we're at, or at least it is for those who aren't blessed with a photographic memory.

[PurdueBrad]

I teach AP Lit and senior level English classes. Typically my students have 30 pages of reading per night and the rest of the work I give is focused on big assignments: out of class 3, 5 or 10 page papers for which they are given a week to do. I'm not big on homework for the sake of homework. I need them to do the reading so we can work with the text in class but that's about it.

[cuervo72]

What does doing homework teach, exactly? That when you're at home, family isn't the most important thing? I'll pass.

Depends. What does practice accomplish? Repetition. For things like math, or even language, I would surmise that the more you do something, the more accurate and faster you are going to be at the task. Would a kid taking piano lessons be fine just playing while in class, as opposed to practicing at home? No, of course not. You practice to get better.

For other subjects, you may just have to do work at home because there isn't enough time in school. Language Arts - you're not going to get very far discussing literature if you're doing all of your reading in class and none of it at home. If you have a paper to write - and I think learning how to do research, writing an outline, then a draft, then refining until you have a finished product - there's not enough time to JUST work on it in school.

You shouldn't overload kids with homework - general rule I've heard for our district is 10min per night, per grade - but you need some. What are kids going to do with the extra time, anyway? For my son, it would be just more time playing video games and watching YouTube (we're not going to have family fun time every night, and he's not at all interested in sports so those extracurriculars are out). I think some homework can be safely substituted for that.

[cuervo72]

We're seeing less homework in HS than we saw in MS, although that's significantly impacted by a schedule quirk that gave my sophomore two study halls this year (we'll all miss that next year). Give or take an average of maybe 90-120 minutes a day at this point, not counting a mandatory 45 minute after school session one day a week (AP History)

Study hall was a Godsend for me in HS - one year I kept it on my schedule instead of lunch. If I wasn't doing free response essays for AP American, I was taking a much needed nap.

[CAsterling]

I went to an English Boarding School and remember that the homework increased as I got older until it was 3-4 hours per night. However there were structured periods of time allocated to do this, have dinner and still take breaks. I guess because there was no travel time from School to home it never felt that bad.

Got to admit that article was very interesting and gave me a lot of food for thought.

[flere-imsaho]

Great conversation, folks.

I should mention the reason I stumbled on this article was because I was reading another article that indicated the challenge teenagers have with sleeping and school, in that there's a metabolic change that happens to teenagers that actually makes them not sleepy until later in the night, meaning (along with homework) that they get far less sleep than they should.

As a result some schools have actually moved the start of school to later, to have more awake kids.

Edit: Here's the article: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/from/sleep.html

When I went to college I ended up with a schedule that contained a 2-hour mid-afternoon nap and sleep from 2AM to 6 AM. I found my most productive times for study / writing / reading were 10PM to 2 AM, as it turns out. I would probably have slept later in the morning but a) I had gotten up at 6 for years, so it seemed the right thing to do and b) I had to work in the cafeteria that early anyway.

[cuervo72]

My kids would be fully on-board with changing the order in which the schools start - from HS/MS/Elem to Elem/MS/HS. I think it has even been discussed some locally, but I don't think anything will take hold soon enough to affect my kids.

[britrock88]

My kids would be fully on-board with changing the order in which the schools start - from HS/MS/Elem to Elem/MS/HS. I think it has even been discussed some locally, but I don't think anything will take hold soon enough to affect my kids.

I feel like the only counterargument I hear to this is "but high school sports." Priorities, priorities.

[flere-imsaho]

I wonder if it would make more sense to move the sports (and, heck, other extra-curriculars) to the morning. Or evening.

[cuervo72]

I feel like the only counterargument I hear to this is "but high school sports." Priorities, priorities.

Yep. Which as I mentioned for my kids is a total non-factor. But yes, that seems to be a major stumbling block. Though I'm not sure why it always *should* be - when I was in little league and the equivalent of Pop Warner, we typically held practices between 6-8PM. And that was as early as 5 or 6yo. So I'm sure older kids could handle that.

I wonder if it would make more sense to move the sports (and, heck, other extra-curriculars) to the morning. Or evening.

Well, hockey players already practice in the morning, so it's not that insane a suggestion IMO.

[Sun Tzu]

Pencils Down? French Plan Would End Homework : NPR (http://www.npr.org/2012/12/02/166193594/pencils-down-french-plan-would-end-homework)

[henry296]

In my old district in Charlotte, the HS kids started 2nd with elementry school first and middle school third. I think part of the explanation was to ensure enough sleep.

[Marc Vaughan]

My kids get FAR too much homework, they're all fairly clever but end up doing at least 1-2 hours homework a night on average I'd say (two boys 11 and 14, my daughter is at Uni now).

I think far too much emphasis is put on such things, frankly speaking I was a sh*t student up until I reached the age of 16-17 and realised I wanted to go to University ... I then crammed my prior years of education into the next 2-3 years and trundled off to university ... as such I view the panic nature of cramming huge amount of homework down kids throats as ultimately pointless and depriving them of important social skills which they'd be learning if they had more free-time interacting with their peers.

PS - I also think there is far too little physical education/exercise in US schools ... then again the UK schools are heading in this direction also.

[AENeuman]

Given that most at home learning is distracted learning, I'm not a big fan of homework. Some of that distraction is by choice, most is often not.

[tarcone]

The data according to our MS Principal is 10 minutes per grade level. So 6th grtade would be 60 minutes a night. Now, I think that is too much. In fact, Im not a huge fan of homework. And my daughters usually dont have much more then the daily Math homework.

As for school starting times. MS and HS students need about 10 hours of sleep a night. They should have later starting times. But most schools do it the other way. Someone mentioned extracurricular activities. That is one reason. Worried about students missing class time. Another reason is that older siblings would be home when the younger ones get home. Thus saving parents a hassle.

[JonInMiddleGA]

The data according to our MS Principal is 10 minutes per grade level. So 6th grtade would be 60 minutes a night.

FTR, I'm just being conversational here, I'm not arguing up/down/sideways about any of it. So don't nobody go reading any particular "this is the right way" implications in what I throw out here, m'kay?

I've heard that 10-per-grade-level figure bandied about for a number of years ... but we saw 60 minutes a night by 3rd grade IIRC, certainly by 4th. I guess if you counted pre-K and kindergarten as "grades" then you'd get close to that.


As for school starting times. MS and HS students need about 10 hours of sleep a night.

Are there actually MS or HS students anywhere that get that kind of sleep? In any of the 12 months of the year, nevermind school calendars or starting times? Okay, technically I have seen my teen (previously 'tween) sleep 10-14 hours at a stretch numerous times ... but only if he sleeps to like 2pm or something. My point being, I don't think you're likely to get too many kids that age to 10 hours sleep if you start school before mid-morning (or mid-afternoon).

The norm during school months, best I can tell, is about 7 hours give or take (and I think my own kid may be on the high end of that, he's usually the first guy to leave the XBL party on weeknights, I've seen his peers playing until 1am on many a school night)


Someone mentioned extracurricular activities. That is one reason.

A couple of things on this sub-topic struck me during the thread when this came up. First, our entire (small private) school starts at the same time pre-K through 12: 8:10am til 3:20. The only exception is the 3 yr old kindergarten which has the same start time but gets out at noon. Darned if I've even heard anybody suggest any issues with that.

The other thing is that parental work schedules, transportation schedules (for systems that run their own bus fleet) and even student after-school employment all seem to weigh at least as heavily in the discussion about start/end times as extracurriculars.

[Izulde]

I'm vehemently against the over-assignment of homework, personally. Hell, even in the college courses I teach, I tend to assign less reading than other instructors of the same classes - my philosophy is to assign the material that's relevant to helping them be better writers, plus the readings related to the particular theme I happen to be teaching for that section.

This means instead of assigning whole chapters like some instructors do, I might only assign one or two sections, and may skip whole entire chapters if I don't feel they'll be useful for most students in the class.

I do see the sense of math and foreign language homework - foreign language in particular. But most disciplines? Cut out the busy work and teach to the major assignments.

[Buccaneer]

I am a fan of homework for kids because it keeps their heads in the game. But it's much better to do a little each day then to wait until they have to do too much to realistically get done. My son is taking 5 AP courses (10th grade) and each night (M-TH), he has about 20-45 minutes of homework in each class and to me, that is just right. Sure there are distractions but it's the best way to keep up in those classes in a charter school that is top ranked in the state academically. My son has no problems with the homework, it knows it is part of the preparation for college and professional life.

[gstelmack]

I am a fan of homework for kids because it keeps their heads in the game. But it's much better to do a little each day then to wait until they have to do too much to realistically get done. My son is taking 5 AP courses (10th grade) and each night (M-TH), he has about 20-45 minutes of homework in each class and to me, that is just right. Sure there are distractions but it's the best way to keep up in those classes in a charter school that is top ranked in the state academically. My son has no problems with the homework, it knows it is part of the preparation for college and professional life.

Can I draw the conclusion that you tend to work 10 - 12 hour days on your job?

[cuervo72]

I've heard that 10-per-grade-level figure bandied about for a number of years ... but we saw 60 minutes a night by 3rd grade IIRC, certainly by 4th. I guess if you counted pre-K and kindergarten as "grades" then you'd get close to that.

My kids have been pretty lucky, I think. Some of their teachers didn't give regular homework, so some nights all they would have was a fairly easy math worksheet. There was a year when my daughter (two years behind my son) regularly had more work than he did (4th vs 6th maybe?) because she had sentence homework, or repetitive write-out-words-to-learn-spelling busywork. Science typically hasn't had HW other than an occasional science fair project. Classes like "life skills" or "integrated studies" (aka "classes with the dumb kids") don't really have HW.


Are there actually MS or HS students anywhere that get that kind of sleep? In any of the 12 months of the year, nevermind school calendars or starting times? Okay, technically I have seen my teen (previously 'tween) sleep 10-14 hours at a stretch numerous times ... but only if he sleeps to like 2pm or something. My point being, I don't think you're likely to get too many kids that age to 10 hours sleep if you start school before mid-morning (or mid-afternoon).

The norm during school months, best I can tell, is about 7 hours give or take (and I think my own kid may be on the high end of that, he's usually the first guy to leave the XBL party on weeknights, I've seen his peers playing until 1am on many a school night)

Outside of the weekends, no. I think my son (almost 14) went to bed last night at 10:30 and got up at about 10. School nights he may get 8 if he's lucky.

A couple of things on this sub-topic struck me during the thread when this came up. First, our entire (small private) school starts at the same time pre-K through 12: 8:10am til 3:20. The only exception is the 3 yr old kindergarten which has the same start time but gets out at noon. Darned if I've even heard anybody suggest any issues with that.

The other thing is that parental work schedules, transportation schedules (for systems that run their own bus fleet) and even student after-school employment all seem to weigh at least as heavily in the discussion about start/end times as extracurriculars.

That's kinda nice actually, but yeah - only realistic for small schools. I don't have all of the bell schedules for my kids' schools, but the bus stop times are 7:06 for HS, 7:31 for MS (same stop, and buildings are adjacent), 8:27 for elem (thought that's a short route that involves no lights or traffic). My kids have been getting up at 6:45, which is about the absolute latest we can pull off. My son might be able to do 6:30 in HS next year if he takes care of showers at night.

[Buccaneer]

Can I draw the conclusion that you tend to work 10 - 12 hour days on your job?

No, but neither does my son. He has about 6 hours of classroom and 2 hours of homework on average.

[AENeuman]

I am a fan of homework for kids because it keeps their heads in the game. But it's much better to do a little each day then to wait until they have to do too much to realistically get done. My son is taking 5 AP courses (10th grade) and each night (M-TH), he has about 20-45 minutes of homework in each class and to me, that is just right. Sure there are distractions but it's the best way to keep up in those classes in a charter school that is top ranked in the state academically. My son has no problems with the homework, it knows it is part of the preparation for college and professional life.

This is an equity issue for me. I have found, The success of a daily requirement of 2 hour a night homework is more determined by the social and economic environment of the student than their desire or ability.

I like the college/progressional model: Big projects, show up on time. Be prepared, be interesting.

[CU Tiger]

THis is something the wife and I have spent a lot of time talking about lately. Both of our children are involved in either School or Rec sports as well as other activities (My daughter has a dance and gymnastics class 1 day a week each, and my son is doing some martial arts stuff) We think these are important to promote diversity, physical fitness and just to give them something fun that doesnt involve a video game/iDevice/etc.

But this is my son's current schedule (He is 13 7th grade)
Get up at 5:30, he eats breakfast and walks his dog and gets ready and he leaves the house by 7A.
School starts at 7:35 and goes until 3:00
Wrestling practice is 3:00 - 6:00 M-F (If he has a meet these can frequently go until 8 or 9PM but lets focus on easy days)
By the time he changes and we drive home its 6:30-6:45.
45 minutes for supper and its 7:30.
2-3 hours of homework and its now 10:00
Shower and get ready for bed and its pushing 11.
Sleep 6 hours rinse and repeat.
Again there are nights where we dont get him in bed until after midnight...despite us having a target bed time of 9 and lights out at 10.

Ive heard over and over the 10 minutes per grade from teachers..but it seems each teacher of every subject wants that entire 10 minutes. So on a given night he will have 2-3 math sheet usually with 20 problems each (and frequently I find I am teaching the concepts to him but I digress) then 30 minutes reading and 30 minutes writing in his reading journal. Usually a reading assignment for Science and 2-3 nights a week some activity or aassignment for Social Studies/Humanities.

School was easy to me and I didnt have parents to push me to do homework but still I finished up with very good grades and spent little to no time on homework.

it seems more and more the kids are learning at home while telling me about their upcoming standardized test practice on a regular basis.

[molson]

As best as I can remember, my high school had pretty much the same setup as law school would later. Do the readings if you want, pay attention in class if you want, but you're ultimately responsible for the material on final exam day (and in high school, a mid-term exam day on top of that). This requires some wide distribution of grades and a ranking, both of which I believe are frowned upon these days, but I did feel like it prepared me for life some. I suppose at lower levels, you want to expose kids to different means of learning so they can see how they learn best, but by the time I got to high school, I pretty much figured out mine. I gain nothing from lectures and find them a huge waste of time. At 100-level courses in college, where I could get away with it, I'd show up once the first day to get the syllabus, and then again for the final. In high school, it was kind of the same thing, except I physically had to be there (but I zoned out). I much preferred to learn at home, and even today, when there's something that comes up that requires me to just read and research and learn a new topic, I'd rather do it at home, often in the middle of the night.

[ColtCrazy]

I teach 5th grade, and I will say that I rarely give homework. My experience in recently history is that homework results in the following (in order):
1. Homework is done by parents
2. Homework is wrong; no one helps at home
3. Homework is done correctly; parents checked and guided but didn't do it for them.

The kids who get it don't really need it. The kids who are average will either get no help or too much depending on their parents. The kids who really need the help tend to have no or sloppy homework done because their parents don't give a shit.

So, at the beginning of the year I tell the kids there is a trade off. I don't give a lot of homework (which excites the parents because our fourth grade teachers average 2-3 hours per night), but you will work when you are at school. I don't watch movies unless they tie into something I'm doing. I don't spend a ton of time doing artsy stuff to decorate the walls. We learn and I try to do that in a fun way. They have recess to socialize.

I give them just enough homework so they know how to do it, but I don't grade it (unless it's "participation" points).
I understand the angle of teaching them responsibility, but you can do that with preparing for tests, projects, and the like.

[Buccaneer]

This is from my son's school web site


Our academic program is similarly aligned. In every grade, outstanding, dedicated teachers nurture our students and bring the subject matter to life. Our elementary students (K-6) benefit from the combination of Direct Instruction and the Core Knowledge® curriculum. Taught using the most effective techniques for learning fundamental facts and skills, this content provides our students with the foundation of knowledge required for success at higher academic levels. Our Junior High program builds on this base of knowledge while intentionally preparing our students for the higher level learning and the different rigors and responsibilities of high school. Direct instruction methods continue to be used as appropriate, but students are also encouraged to apply information learned in new contexts. Our high school program, instructs students in a classical liberal arts and sciences curriculum that is purposefully coordinated to connect the various disciplines while building upon itself from one year to the next. Our goal for our students is that upon graduation they are able to use the knowledge, skills, and abilities attained at our school to respond effectively to new and unique situations of both an academic and character nature for the rest of their lives.

The results?


The Colorado Department of Education announced the winners of various state level awards based on school performance for 2013, and our school received several.

The John Irwin School of Excellence award is given to schools that "exceed" state expectations for student achievement on the annual school performance framework over three years. Once again, all three of our schools (Elementary, Junior High, and High School) have been recognized with this award.

The Governor's Distinguished Improvement award is given to schools that "exceed" expectations for student growth on the annual school performance framework over three years. Once again our high school has been recognized with this award.

The ESEA Reward School award is given to Title 1 schools demonstrating "high-performance and high-progress." Our elementary is our only Title 1 school and earned the award for 2012-13 and 2013-14.

[Galaril]

This is from my son's school web site



The results?

I am an Air Force Academy grad class of 90 so know a thing or two on the value of education and am a big fan of the value higher education. But, your school though I have no doubt it is a great one the fact of being awarded for exceeding the standards means one thing. That is the teachers are great at preparing the kids to take tests. Learning may or may not occur in these environments . Also, I am suspicious of the handing out if these school awards by the state. I know my kids elementary school was ranked one of the tops as well based on the standardized test results. Frankly, that is nice but won't help my kids get into the Academy:)

[JonInMiddleGA]

re: some of those getting ready in the morning stories

Mine rolls out of bed at 650a, hits the shower, dresses, eats ... and is out the door by 730a.

Yeah, he's got that down pretty good & I figure I'm just lucky on that one.

[Buccaneer]

Galaril, 93% of the graduating classes go onto 4-year colleges. I didn't post the first paragraph from their web site but it talks about character. It's not about taking state tests but preparing for life afterwards.

[Galaxy]

(which excites the parents because our fourth grade teachers average 2-3 hours per night)

Insane.