I haven’t met a parent yet who doesn’t have a tale to tell about homework. The woes generally fall into two general themes — we’re helping our children with subjects we don’t understand or we stay up until 2 a.m. with our children, coaxing them to stick with it.
Every time we run into parents of our children’s classmates, the conversation will always get around to homework. Two parents in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, recently rebelled, according to an article in Tuesday’s Toronto Globe and Mail (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/family-negotiates-homework-ban/article1367357/).
“Shelli and Tom Milley were exhausted by the weepy weeknight struggles over math problems and writing assignments with their three school-aged children. They were fed up with rushing home from soccer practice or speed skating only to stand over their kids tossing out answers so they could finish and get to bed,” the reporter wrote.
“So last week, after two years of trying to change the homework policy at the children’s school, the two Calgary lawyers finally negotiated a unique legal contract: their kids will never have to do homework again.”
The article goes on to spell out the details — the two children, ages 10 and 11, are required to get their work done in class. They and their parents have to make time to prep for quizzes and tests. But the children will not be required to do the homework assigned to their classmates — and that lack of assignments won’t be reflected in their grades.
I understand the Milleys’ motivation. I’ve had my share of late nights with one boy or another. There have been nights when one of them is sitting on my bed doing homework while I’m dozing next to him. It was the only way to keep him from falling asleep.
Although I do understand the frustration, I am more appalled at the “solution” than sympathetic. My initial thought is that, perhaps the Milley children shouldn’t have so many practices to attend for other activities.
Those who know the Larson family know that all three of our boys participate in outside activities, whether it’s church, sports or Scouting when they were younger. And, yes, homework has conflicted before.
But Greg and I have looked at the homework situation, for the most part, as a lesson for the boys in time management. Some of our worst nights — the ones until 2 a.m. — have come when one of the boys is finishing a project on a game night. But the project was assigned the week before.
If my son forgets or chooses to wait to finish the assignment until the night before it’s due — after he gets home at 9:30 p.m. from a game — that’s his decision and he’ll accept the consequences. I’m not happy when those consequences affect me and my sleep, but that’s what Greg and I signed on for when we decided to have children.
In watching my boys and their classmates struggle with homework load and thinking back to my own youth, I do believe that the role of homework and how classes are structured has changed.
When I was in junior high and high school, I don’t remember having the amount of homework that my boys do. Most nights, I watched TV or read a book after dinner. Rarely, was there homework to do because I’d gotten it done in class.
My history and social science classes were lectures and textbooks, mainly. If you attended class and took notes and read the textbook, you had everything you needed to study for tests. My math and science classes were structured with half the time taught teaching and the other half letting us work on our assignments, asking our teachers questions when necessary.
Today, what I’m hearing from parents all over, in many different school districts, is that often our children aren’t given the time to do their work in class. Rather, teachers are taking all but the last five or 10 minutes of class to go over and over the concepts on the assignment. This might sound like an ideal way to drill lessons into the students’ heads, but what I’ve seen is students who come home thinking they understand until they start working.
Then they’re grabbing phones and calling their friends to compare notes. Or, they’re waiting until the next morning to put a quick study session together with classmates and older students to answer their questions, just praying they’ll get the whole assignment done before class begins.
I suspect that many of the changes in classroom structure came when standardized testing became the norm. There is so much pressure today on teachers and administrators to show massive results across the board.
Something has to change, but I don’t think negotiating contracts on a case-by-case basis as the Milleys did is the answer.
bloomsbury (SC DIXON) says...
School/education is the one rat hole that we just can’t seem to pound enough sand (money) down…after all, what politician can get elected by stating the simple truth: “enough is enough”?
It never ends, you pay for your own children’s “free” education but it continues on seemingly forever.
School is for lessons. If I have to teach and oversee my kids at home, why are they in “public” school? After all, I do not get paid to teach my kids at home, that is what the school district takes so much of my taxes for. Music is important, sports are important, as are the other umpteen things the school day is spent on, but these are EXTRA-curricular activities…teach the children at school, that is the curriculum.
Enough excuses. Enough huge outlays on extracurricular activities. I remember Emporia high school telling us that our son (or any student) could get an excused absence if they wanted to take the day and travel to Wichita to see the girl’s volleyball team compete for THIRD PLACE in a tournament.
Puh-lease!
November 24, 2009 at 1:06 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
chrissylynn_2 (anonymous) says...
I never have made my children do home work and never will, if it is a special project or requires research I will allow time at home and help out if needed but not on a regular basis. I go to work for 9 hours a day and the children went to school 7-8 hours a day when I come home from work I leave work where it belongs ,, at my office.There have been special circumstances where I have had to do some things after hours but I feel the same way about the kids and school work. I am not a teacher and I dont want to be a teacher thats why I am NOT a teacher and I wont do thier jobs. They dont do mine for me.
November 24, 2009 at 1:34 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
goodoleboy (anonymous) says...
Homework is not about intruding upon your home life, its about teaching your children study skills and time management. If you plan on sending your kids to college then I suggest you abide by it. As a former athlete there was a lot of times I was playing sports rather than doing my homework, and I could get away with it in High School. When I went off to college on scholarship I was slapped in the face with a wake up call that if I wanted to pursue a real degree it was going to be every bit as much work outside the classroom as sports are in the practices and off season.
99% of our children will not play sports at the professional level, reinforcing that working hard on school even when not in the classroom is paramount to success in the job market. Many people I know often have to take work home with them in some way, shape, or form. In a perfect world when we left our jobs work would stay there, but this is not a perfect world.
November 24, 2009 at 6:53 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
giggles (anonymous) says...
Time management?! Seriously, goodoleboy I think you missed the mark on this one. This country is so dead set on running its workforce into the ground to make a buck. There should always be some downtime at the end of the day if for anything to reflect on what was accomplished. If you spend every evening grueling on work and then feeling resentful of it then what is the point. Yes we all want our children to succeed but at what cost? You should be able to enjoy family and friends, have extra curricular activities, and get chores done without having to worry about the extra work you brought home with you, that will eat up a great deal of your time.
I for one am exhausted with trying to help my son with his homework, because all he wants to do is go out and play when we get home, instead we sit down at the table and involve ourselves in this work that he struggles with. They are kids, for them there are more important things than standardized tests and homework, too bad we lose sight of those things when we start worshipping the almighty dollar.
November 25, 2009 at 10:11 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
tbluma (anonymous) says...
Goodoleboy is right about this one, if the kid's to busy in extracuricular activities to do home work then the homework should come first.
November 25, 2009 at 12:19 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
goodoleboy (anonymous) says...
Giggles,
Don't take this the wrong way but if your son is struggling with the homework he has then perhaps that should be the main priority for him. Are all the others in his class having the same issues?
Like it or not money is what drives the world, and nowhere in my above post did I say that work is all there is, just that the work ethic gained from overcoming those difficult subjects will carry over into other areas of life and result in more success. To be honest with I feel that the coming generations don't have the work ethic that those that came before them did, they might have the know how, but not the can do=)
November 25, 2009 at 12:45 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Dido1969 (anonymous) says...
Sorry, the teacher is paid to teach my kids. If they aren’t up to the job find someone that is. No wonder more people are going for home schooling. With what the schools cost each and every taxpayer I think we’re well within our rights to expect them to do what they get paid for which is to teach in school. My kids have farm work and chores to do when they get home. Or maybe they could take their chores to school with them in the morning? Is there some place in that high-dollar gym where they can milk cows?
November 25, 2009 at 1:54 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
goodoleboy (anonymous) says...
Homeschool your kids then if you think you can do better, let me know how that works out for you. Class sizes keep getting larger, expecting teachers to teach more kids, maintain the same level of quality that they did with less is foolish, and if they did they would deserve more pay to which almost everyone here rails againist.
If you want your kids to go to College and do well you better get used to long hours of homework, and degree worth it's salt is not easy, and I don't know of very many college courses worth a damn that end when the alotted time expires. Getting an education is not simply punching a time clock and showing up. It's an investment in time and energy, and all students are not created equal, some take longer to grasp concepts and comprehend material, hence why some have more homework to do.
I guess I'm just wasting my time here, have a good day!
November 25, 2009 at 2:51 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
deluvly1 (anonymous) says...
goodoleboy, are you a teacher? What is up with the hang-up on college? Several of my friends have multiple degrees, several of them are working at barely above minimum wage jobs, and are happy to be doing it.
parochial schools consistently score among the highest in the country, particularly catholic schools. Do some research: The are traditionally “under” staffed, “over” populated, often allow corporal punishment, are woefully “behind” the times on the amount of technology available to each student and get much, much less taxpayer funding, and yet somehow they turn out some of the finest students produced by the American system.
I once read that an 8th grade education in the 1940’s is superior to a college degree today. I am amazed when I talk to older Americans who went to literally a one-room school and who never heard of homework who are so much more rounded and who feel that they were so much better educated than kids from the 60’s to the present.
No I-pods, no computers, often times only one teacher for grades 1-8. I'm not that old but our elementary school had three teachers, one of whom doubled as the principal and I came away from that better read and better prepared for life than some of my friends kids who have a degree or two and are still living with their poor, “uneducated” parents…hmmm, don’t remember EVER having a homework assignment.
November 25, 2009 at 3:28 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
tbluma (anonymous) says...
From reading these posts it's no wonder teachers have trouble with discipline in school.
Don't give up goodoleboy you're right this time.
November 25, 2009 at 4:05 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
goodoleboy (anonymous) says...
Right or wrong is largely irrelevant to the ignorant=)
November 25, 2009 at 4:10 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
biscuitboy (anonymous) says...
goodoleboy and tbluma
Education must make strange bedfellows because I'm with both of you on this. So many of the posters here seem the most upset about the way the homework interferes with their evening. The homework was not assigned to you, it was assigned to your children. If they do not have the knowledge and discipline to complete it on time then curtail their extra activities until they do. What possible good does it do them if you make it easy for them. When they get to college...or even more so to the real world....mommy and daddy aren't going to be there for them.....so they better start learning how to deal now.
November 25, 2009 at 4:49 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
giggles (anonymous) says...
My son doesn't have any extra-curricular activities, he cannot with the amount of work he has. Homework does come first, but after an 8 hour school day, what should you expect from a child? If they don't get it in 8 hours, then maybe it isn't being done right. Adults have the reasoning to figure out what their work ethic should be. A child for the most part will do what they can, but at some point their brain will shut down.
I also have a problem with the concepts they are learning, it seems there is a new concept every week even when they haven't mastered the ones they are on. This is usually due to standardized tests. If it is on the test, then the teacher has to try to cram it into childrens heads so they can pass the test.
November 25, 2009 at 4:51 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
admireed (anonymous) says...
I would be interested in a story about how the Chinese students at ESU learned, studied, homeworked...etc in their primary/secondary schools back home. Are we ahead or behind them. Can they teach us something?
November 25, 2009 at 5:21 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
oh4theluvof (anonymous) says...
Hmmmmmm.....this homework topic has been a pet peeve of mine, ever since my kid brought home weekly assignments in first grade, and I thought that was over-kill. I stick by my stand that it was too much to put on him to sit in class for so many hours and then sit at home to do the work, BUT.....................
He needed to learn the material--it was not an option not too. It would have been ridiculously irresponsible to let him go without the education, just to spite the "system." So, together, we battled (and I do mean battled) through the learning. This year's teacher has the philosophy that the classroom is about academics and they do get their assignments done there.....unless the student wastes time or is a slow learner. This has been very good for my son's down-time and reduced stress, BUT............
There are many students in his grade who are having a lot of behavior problems--problems that had been getting a lot of classroom instruction in the former grades which is why the academics weren't getting done. My kid hasn't been perfect in this, but he has been a target of a lot of this bad behavior. When he and a few others were involved on the wrong side, their consciences got to them because their behavior education is ongoing at home. The lack of consciences on the part of most of the other kids, is evidence of a lack of ongoing instruction at home. Now, I do not agree that the teachers and schools should take over this part of our kids' educations, BUT..........
They are doing it, in part, to protect the kids who are getting properly instructed and also, in part, to try to make productive citizens out of the kids who aren't getting properly instructed, despite their lack of good parenting.
Bottom line: public school can only be as functional as the dysfunctional parents in it.
Maybe some self-evaluation is in order?? If not, maybe we can re-segregate the schools according to parental cooperation (of course, that is very unfair to the kids who got stuck with "uncooperative" parents).
November 25, 2009 at 6:24 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
biscuitboy (anonymous) says...
oh4theluvof is right the bottom line lies with the parents. Rare indeed is the case where the child is able to rise above disinterested parents. Learning should never be approached as work but as an adventure.
November 26, 2009 at 4:15 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
goodoleboy (anonymous) says...
deluvly1 ,
Nope not a teacher, not hung up on college, just down to earth in the realization that it's becoming more and more common to require degrees, in recent times a degree now is worth what a high school diploma was 20 years ago, hence the surge in grad students.
I could find no data to support your claim on parochial schools; in fact in some regions you would be dead wrong. There is no "best" school. Everything I found on the matter does not trend toward what you say. If what you said were true then students at Sacred Heart would be the best educated in this town and that is simply not the case. Just because of your personal bias and opinion you made a claim, which I am sorry to say, is just that, a claim based on your opinion, not fact. In closing I will leave you with a quote from your post:
"I once read that an 8th grade education in the 1940’s is superior to a college degree today. "
This is just a ridiculous claim, I'd love to see your source on that one, and as to your friends with the multiple degrees earning minimum wage, well as I said all degrees are not created equal, and they either are unmotivated or took the path of least resistance.
November 26, 2009 at 9:57 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
neighbor (anonymous) says...
Our kids had several teachers who somehow managed to give the kids ample classtime to get their work done, without sending home hours of homework every day. When thanked for their classroom efforts at parent teacher conferences, each one of them told me they didn't believe in sending their work home for parents to handle. The teachers who send home tons of school home work are all pretty much the same, rubber stamp "educators". They are robotic about their work, following a planned schedule instead of teaching the subject matter. Our rule has always been that homework is done as soon as they walk in the door. Even with that rule, there have been some very late nights, and weekends spent catching up. It's a wonder the kids of today don't all have bad backs from the sheer weight of their backpacks.
November 26, 2009 at 9:31 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )