The Homework Dilemma Makes Me Angry

We've tied our son's effort toward his homework with whether or not he gets to go to Taekwondo. In third grade, he does not have an unreasonable amount of homework assigned, but he tended to have unfinished work that came home, too. He had issues with getting on task both at school and at home, which definitely has an ugly domino effect. I started going into school to pick him up and get a daily report from his teacher. We worked diligently on catching him up with his math facts. But most importantly, involving his Taekwondo instructors with speaking to him about integrity and discipline, and only ONE time of making him stay home from tkdo when he literally sat for two hours and only completed 5 math problems. If time management is a big issue as it was for us, then it's all about figuring out what their currency is, and making sure they have all the tools (in our case, math facts) in place to succeed. My son has a wonderful teacher this year, and through her encouragement and belief in his potential and positive feedback when he (we) get/s it right, he is approaching his homework enthusiastically, is NOT missing any more tkdo, and actually has time to play after dinner some nights. This has taken a great partnership with his teacher, and near inhuman persistence on our part at home. But it is well worth all the effort!

I too have done research into the effectiveness of homework and the statistics say that homework prior to age 11 makes no difference to the achievement levels of that child. However, homework from age 11-13 for no more than 1 hour 3 x a week, in drill subjects such as languages, maths and music (10-15 mins of each) made a 20% difference in achievement; and from age 13-19 homework for no more than 2 hours 4 x week made a noticeable difference in all subjects.

PART 2:

The school is very strict and “old school”. He has herd enough of my stories to know that they will NOT put up with any BS. He also knows that they have a very effective means of ensuring that homework gets done & turned in. If you don't turn in your homework 3 times you will get a swat. There is no arguments or excuses. If he chooses not to do his homework then it is up to him to face the consequenc­es. In return I agreed that I will back off and to trust him. So far it is working great. The average class size is 12, the circulime is much more demanding and the facilities are excellent. So far He has not missed a single homework assignment and all of his teachers say that he is a great student

PART 1:My oldest was in 5th grade last year and the homework war escalated to WW3 intensity. My son inherited both my smart mouth and my stubbornness, my mother likes to call him "grandma's little curse" because he is putting me through the same BS that I put her through back in the day. It got so bad that for a couple of weeks last year we hardly spoke to each other, yes I know I am the adult but I am also human. By the end of last year (after I had cooled off & apologized for being an ass) we both sat down and decided that something had to change. I have to admit that he really surprised me with his solution. More impressively, he convinced his mother that it was a good idea. He asked us to send him to the same private school that I went to when I was a kid.

Amen! I found your post today, after spending 4+ hours yesterday and an additional hour this morning with my son doing his third grade homework and book report. The amount of work that is sent home the first 2 days of every week is ludicrous. Our 8 year old averages 2-3 hours every night of homework, not including special projects or studying. What we don't understand is that the other 3rd grade class seems to have half as much work as ours. It evidently is customary that this teacher gives double the work. I can tell you that after 9 weeks of school, our son is exhausted, doesn't want to do any reading on his own and needs a break. Oh wait, he had his fall break last week. And they assigned 2 projects over the break.

my older daughter does homework daily for an average of 5-6 hours per day ever since she was in 5th grade...and this includes ALL weekend to work on projects. She is now in 8th grade and continues to have homework that keeps her up to 11pm. And yes...we've had many conversations with teachers and principals. Now my other daughter is currently in 5th grade and has about an hour of homework.

I am HORRIFIED at the amount of homework my kids have. My 4th grader begins his homework on the bus--a 45 minute ride and usually has another hour when he gets home. Last week the school sent home a notice about a cool after school program starting next month. When I asked him if he was interested, he got teary and said he was but "he couldn't handle one more thing." He's nine. He shouldn't be stressed about time management.

This is one thing that I don't miss. I fricking hated the amount of homework that my kids would bring home. Now I homeschool, we are done by noon!

I have never given a lot of homework, and what little I did assign had specific purposes, one of which was that many children seem to grasp a concept, skill, etc, and can demonstrate it while in a classroom setting, but can't understand that these lessons apply outside of the classroom as well. Looking over homework told me who REALLY understood, who needed more help, who needed a little review, who was organized, who took learning seriously, and so on. Many kids can "do it" beautifully while at school, but it's those who can "do it" in the real world who have genuinely LEARNED something. Homework told me these, to some extent. It also let me know which families valued learning, which families never turned off the tv, which families put their kids before their own relaxation, which families valued commitment, which families understood that responsibility comes before pleasure, which families catered to whining, and which families honored the teacher's position. as learning facilitator. I"m sorry, but telling a child that it's okay to NOT honor a responsibility isn't a good thing. On the other hand, if a child has as much homework as yours does, there's a definite communication gap among his teachers and they need to fix that pronto. No child should have more than two hours of homework; that leaves no time to be a child. However, usurping a teacher's instructions isn't the answer. Parents need to contact each teacher and give 'em the drift.

My son is 10 and usually gets nightly homework but nowhere near as much as your son gets thank goodness (we're in Australia). I work, so by the time I pick my son up and come home he's tired and the last thing he wants to do is homework. He does what he can and probably rushes through it a bit but I've learned that to stress out about it does him and me no good. So this means that sometimes the homework isn't completed that night, or isn't done to the standard the teacher would like but I would rather not have a stressed out child so I don't worry about it.

I am a teacher and I think in the lower grades homework does almost no good. We send a packet home on Mondays. 1 page of spelling words. 2 reading passages, 1 math sheet (front and back). They have all week to finish it. That way if they have other activities the family can plan their time. I love this system. I've seen upper grades give kids a menu of say 4 activities per subject and they have to do 3 reading, 1 language, 4 math. Sometimes they have 2 weeks to finish it. Again it lets them plan out and manage their time. Here is a sample. http://56c2011.global2.vic.edu.au/files/2011/10/homework_t4_w1.pdf

An increase in homework may and I stress MAY be correlated with the overcrowding in most classes. More students in a class means less face tiem to teach a lesson plan. Ergo, more homework for these poor kids. My 10 year old is neck deep most weeks and it's a constant struggle to keep him from drowning. As a parent, you want to be firm and supportive of the educational requirements, but as former kid (and we were all once one of these) you want to burn each page and blast Alice Cooper's Schools Out!

I think homework is a byproduct of the other things teachers now have to manage during the school day. The kids have "standards" they must be taught within a school year. The teacher gets "x" amount of time to teach that particular standard. Anything that falls outside of that gap becomes homework. And it compounds on itself. I think the problem has less to do with homework itself and more about education in general in the United States. But what do I know... I homeschool! :-)