<p>Is homework toxic to learning? </p>
<p>Homework should just be a quick reinforcement of the day's instruction. It doesn't have to be as much as it is. The proof is that homeschooled kids don't do "homework" (extra work in the late afternoon/evening) after their homeschool instruction/work is done (usually, earlier than regular school gets out).</p>
<p>I think that the teachers who have (or have recently had) older school-aged kids are the best ones at giving the right amount of homework. Maybe it's because they are living the experience in their own homes. The worst at giving homework (too much) are the ones who haven't had middle/high school aged kids yet, and just pile it on. (These ones also think nothing of giving homework over holidays -- teachers with kids at home know better than to do this!)</p>
<p>I think that there ia a difference between meaningful homework and homework given as busy work. I think that everyone would be in agreement that busy work serves no one. However I do think that meaninful homework is important because teachers only have student for a 44 minute clip of time (88 minutes for a double period) and everything can't be covered and some things need to be reinforced.</p>
<p>I had this conversation recently with my sister who is a teacher and she said, she does not give a lot of homework (she is not a busy work, collage assignment person), maybe 8 assignments per marking period. She always rants about how she hates bad writing so all of her assignments that build critical thinking, analysis and writing skills (she teaches global studies). </p>
<p>She gives assignments so that students know how to write thematic and document based essays (required for the NYS regents exams), organize and write well crafted papers, knowing the difference between primary and secondary sources, citing and other stuff she feels are transferrable skills to their other classes(she got commented by one of her colleagues who teaches english who told my sister that she can always tell by the writing the students who are or have taking her for global).</p>
<p>Edit: jlauer95 , we cross posted. Yes she is the parent of a h.s. freshman and a middle schooler and that is one of her rants, when she talks to them about their homework and the amount of meaningless/busy work they are given</p>
<p>I'm a high school teacher with older kids (one in college, one in h.s.), and yes, the amount of homework I assign does reflect what I have experienced with my daughters at home. They have given up entire weekends at times to complete homework for other teachers, and they have often seen the wee hours of the morning during the school week due to excessive assignments. Our family can never plan a weekend trip in advance because we have to wait and see what the homework load is like. </p>
<p>JLauer, you are right that those who give the most homework have not lived with teenagers. The heaviest loads come from younger teachers without teens yet or from teachers who have never had kids. Often, they simply do not realize the time it takes for their students to complete their assignments.
What many probably deem a one-hour task usually involves three or more hours. </p>
<p>I only give small written assignments about two days per week that require no more than twenty minutes to complete and occasional quizzes and tests to study for. I NEVER give holiday homework, and I rarely give Monday tests. I will usually postpone a test until Tuesday so that students may study a little over the weekend, but it will not ruin their weekend.</p>
<p>I honestly don't know how athletes and kids who work after school find the time to complete their homework. Of course, many of them are taking less rigorous courseloads than they could be doing because they know that their study time is limited. One of the reasons my daughter opted not to play sports is that she wanted to be able to get some sleep at night.</p>
<p>Yes, homework is important since it does reinforce concepts presented at school. However, many teachers mistakenly think that loading their students with homework is the sign of an excellent teacher. I beg to differ.</p>
<p>I wish my son had some of you as teachers! Only 13 and has 3 hours nightly. What a drag. They do cover alot of ground academically, but it does seem ridiculous to me, especially with after school athletics and a LONG commute.</p>
<p>"Often, they simply do not realize the time it takes for their students to complete their assignments. What many probably deem a one-hour task usually involves three or more hours. "</p>
<p>Sooooo true. One of my boys' teachers is constantly saying, "Oh, you can knock this assignment out in no time!" YET, the assignment takes HOURS!</p>
<p>Sybbie: I agree with the objection regarding busywork. But, it's hard to convince a teacher that her assignment was "busywork". No teacher will admit that her assignment wasn't worthwhile. That it the problem. How do you define busywork that will result in a concrete assessment?</p>
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<blockquote> <blockquote> <p>However, many teachers mistakenly think that loading their students with homework is the sign of an excellent teacher. I beg to differ.<<<<</p> </blockquote> </blockquote>
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<p>A teacher once admitted to me that she assigns a lot of homework because she isn't confident that her students have "learned" the concepts from her in the classroom. She thinks that by assigning a lot of homework that the kid, who didn't learn the concepts in the class, will either learn them himself at home or will have a parent teach it to them thru the homework. SAD!!!</p>
<p>Another teacher likes to assign a lot of homework (outlining the chapters in the text & answering the questions at the end of each sub-chapter) so that she can spend the class time talking about things that interest HER! (She teaches the AP Euro & AP Gov & World History. She likes to put her political slant in the classroom and talk about current events.) Last Thanksgiving weekend, she & another similar teacher assigned so much homework over the break, that my son only got to take a short break to eat his turkey dinner! That was the last straw. I went to the principal and asked him if these holiday breaks were "breaks" ONLY for faculty - not for students. He immediately instituted a "no-homework" over Tgiving and Xmas.</p>
<p>S's school has exam finals right after Xmas which ruins the holiday, believe me!</p>
<p>I do not think the 128 min/WEEK of homework for grade schoolers cited in the article is excessive in the least. In fact at about 30 min/nite it is about right. And I think doubling it in middle school and doubling again to about 2hrs/nite in high school is just about right too because a good chunk of the 2 hours in hs are reading assignments. At least they were for my son.</p>
<p>One big difference for the college bound students is the phenomena of packed schedules resulting in the disapperance of the study hall, which in my day was devoted to spirited games of Battleship and, to a far lesser extent, tic tac toe. Oh and the paper wad field goal game.</p>
<p>In fact this is the criteria we used with our son. We did not care where or when he did his homework, but he had to set aside 1/2hr(elem), 1hr(MS) and 2hrs(HS) for homework. No phone conversations, no tv, just music. It worked quite well. When the homework exceeded the 2 hr in hs he merely saved the reading for just before bedtime. It worked quite well.</p>
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I think that there ia a difference between meaningful homework and homework given as busy work.
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<p>As usual, a thoughtful comment. Yes, because of my bicultural background I have seen a lot Chinese-language school textbooks, and they all have problems to do after class, but the key idea is PROBLEMS, not mere exercises that repeat what the teacher showed in class, but questions with novel aspects that combine concepts and force young minds to think. It's possible do fewer hours of homework to good effect, if most of the hours are spent THINKING rather than merely copying with the pencil.</p>
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<p>That's a very good question. I notice that there are some parents around the country who do the early college thing with bright young learners precisely to avoid high school "busywork." I haven't, so far, decided on early college enrollment for my son, because I would like to find a high school program (broader than most college major programs are, as specialization begins) that involves deep thinking and broadening abilities. But it is a hard search to find a high school program that is not mostly busywork. Frequently high school homework is quite consequential for course grades.</p>
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<p>Certainly two hours a night of reading is not excessive for a college-bound student. It did seem to me, in the Time magazine article, that the tedious assignment was a "look up and memorize this list of words" assignment rather than a "read this interesting article" assignment. I object to the former, as a time-waster that rips learning out of its context, but not to the latter.</p>
<p>Tokenadult:</p>
<p>I'm so glad that you brought up the distinction between problems and exercises!
Much of the math homework that S felt was busywork consisted of exercises: Same problems, but with different numbers. When H assigned oversaw S's learning of precalc and calc, H looked for different problems in the textbooks, assigned a few exercises for each of the problems and was thus able to assign about 1/3 -1/2 of what students in those classes were given. I remember an Honors Geometry teacher warning parents that she assigned lots of homework and that there was no getting around the fact that geometry is boring (and she certainly succeeded in boring S1!) That was one reason why H was determine not to repeat the experience with S2.</p>
<p>Study halls are forbidden by law in MA. Students are supposed to be learning every hour of every schoolday and teachers are supposed to teach every hour of every schoolday. Six periods, each with half hour of homework assigned, ends up being 3 hours of homework per day.</p>
<p>My older son did at least 5 -6 hours of homework each night during senior year -- he had 7 classes: religion, Accelerated English, AP Physics, AP Chem, AP Calc BC, APUSH and AP French. Was it too much? At times its was, but it prepared him for college.</p>
<p>On the other hand, younger son in 10th grade had anywhere from 3-5 hours of homework each night. Some of it was nonsense, and some of the time spent was due to his perfectionist tendencies. But I can tell you that it wasn't healthy. Our goal this year is to help him to limit the amount of time he spends on homework for each class. After 30-45 minutes per subject, he should just move on. </p>
<p>I think homework is important for reinforcing the learning that takes place in class, but some teachers just don't think about the other classes the kids have.</p>
<p>My 13 yr. old asked me the other day if college was fun. I told him that hopefully, it will be as terrific as my years and his father's. He said, " what about the work, though?" and I told him that after the work he's done, college should be the same or easier. ( I think of H's Ivy experience which he called a "nice rest" after his prep school years)</p>
<p>A nice rest? Nope. But more fun? Yes. In my S's opinion.</p>
<p>sjmom, I can say with some certainty that our son never had 5 hrs of homework for a single nite in hs with the exception of completing a major paper. But that was more due to his tendency toward procrastination than the fault of the teacher. However our school district did limit the number of AP's that jrs and srs could take to 3 max.</p>
<p>I cannot imagine any student devoting 11-12hrs/day, day in and day out, to academics and then trying to shoehorn in sports, band, or club activities. That would result in about 14 hour days throughout the year. Could any of us adults hold up to such a schedule? I know I couldn't. And an employer may be in violation of lobor laws in some states!</p>
<p>If this huge increase in homework is typical of most college bound hs students, is it any wonder that 30-40% are experiencing significant bouts of depression and alcohol/drug abuse is almost as prevelent as ever. Most people are not built to withstand such intensity in life.</p>
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I cannot imagine any student devoting 11-12hrs/day, day in and day out, to academics and then trying to shoehorn in sports, band, or club activities. That would result in about 14 hour days throughout the year. Could any of us adults hold up to such a schedule? I know I couldn't.
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I agree. I worry about this. My son actually seemed okay with it at the time, but when we asked how he liked college compared to his HS (which we thought was a great experience) he said that college was "800 times better than HS." I think he did give up a lot during those years, although he still was actively involved with music and a few other ECs. The important thing to keep in mind, though, is that it was HIS idea. We discouraged him from taking so many APs at one time, but he has been goal-oriented from birth. Stress often seems to be the result of people feeling that things aren't under their control -- if one chooses these things, it eliminates some stress. I would NEVER advocate pushing a child to take such a load. But it's hard to insist that they don't challenge themselves. </p>
<p>Neither of my kids played sports in high school -- partly because it's so competitive at their school, but mostly because there just wasn't time. S1 was prepared for college, but I think he gave up part of his childhood to get there. We are careful with S2 -- he's just as bright, but needs more "daydream" time. I think some of these kids do burn out, but I also think some disciplines require a great deal of dedication from a very young age. I heard once that Yo Yo Ma's sister (a violinist, I think) said that she traded her childhood for her good left hand. What a sad statement.</p>
<p>As a society we may think that 3+ hours of homework a night is too much.
Sadly, we compete globally -- and for entrance into good schools -- with people for whom 3+ hours of homework is a breeze, an easy night. </p>
<p>At some point we need to decide: do we want to compete with highly driven students/nations or not? It's OK to say "I want my child to have a childhood." But then let's not complain because our child didn't get into an elite school whose students on a regular basis devote their evenings and weekends to intense study. Let's acce[t it as a value choice and take the lumps that come with that choice.</p>
<p>"I think that the teachers who have (or have recently had) older school-aged kids are the best ones at giving the right amount of homework. Maybe it's because they are living the experience in their own homes."</p>
<p>I totally agree. As a teacher I give a very realistic amount of homework per night ... and rarely get complaints from parents. My own kids had volumes of homework every night - resulting in sleep deprivation on a regular basis (of course they often didn't start their hours of homework until the wee hours)...</p>