<p>I am so happy to have a hs senior. soon it will all be over and I won't have to suffer through his homework ordeals. I am tired when I get home from teaching school, and I don't want to do any homework. I don't blame the kids for not wanting to do any either.</p>
<p>I did not object to the amount of homework so much as the fact that it was often due the next day, leaving no leeway for sudden emergencies, or the fact that on some days, S had classes that ended at 9:30pm. In college, assignments are due one week later, allowing students to budget their time better (as long as they're not total procrastinators).</p>
<p>With the 4 x 4 block schedule, the homework load seems to be much heavier than that which students have on the traditional schedule. With only one semester to cover an entire course, teachers find themselves assigning maddening amounts of homework that is usually due the very next day. As Marite said, when an emergency arises in such a case, your kid is out of luck.
Both of my daughters took APUSH as juniors and had one semester to read and absorb a 1000+ page textbook, not to mention the extra books they had to read for the course and the nightly written assignments. They both did exceptionally well on the AP exam, but both were so sleep-deprived junior year that I had a couple of zombies on my hands.</p>
<p>Looking back, I had fantastic teachers all throughout school, from grade school to high school.</p>
<p>Most of my "busy" work was prevalent in middle school. Beyond that most of my work contained real substance. For all my AP classes the only work that consumed significant time was reading the text, and I know this was to prepare me for college.</p>
<p>It is shameful to see so many teachers assigning busy work. I for one wouldn't complete it, to hell with whatever teacher tried to make me. If it would be a major detriment to grades...then I'd start looking to parents for support. Busy work is no way to prepare a student for college.</p>
<p>I had a teacher who required us to at least start the homework, but once we felt we'd mastered a type of problem, we could stop. </p>
<p>I think this is a good approach. If you need to do more homework to do well in the class, it's your responsibility to do it. If you need to do it to understand the material and you don't, you will fail the tests. But, if you already understand the concepts and doing more problems is just busy work, you should not be required to finish.</p>
<p>I don't really think this would work for High School though, as kids would just not do the hw and then fail.</p>
<p>One kid's busy work could be another's needed reinforcement of a concept. Ideally, homework should be tailored to the kid, but it does not work that way.<br>
Homework is a necessity in some subjects if most of the kids are to gain competency in the subject. There is not enough time in the school day to practice, and reinforce certain skills, and still teach new material that is grade appropriate. Writing a research paper, writing in general is something time consuming enough, and needs practice if students are to gain proficiency in the discipline. Also homework can help kids get into a study mode, when they end up in subjects where they need to reinforce new concepts, even if the homework is not graded.
I don't know what the appropriate amount of homework is. I suspect there is a big range, depending on the goals of the school and students. I have a beef with teachers who do not check homework. It does no good for a student to spend alot of time reinforcing incorrect methods and concepts. If he didn't get it, it should be caught. Homework can let a teacher know as he moves along many topics, how well the class is following. A test is sometimes not thorough enough to diagnose a problem, whereas several homework assignment botched would give the correcter a good idea where the problem is.</p>
<p>A couple posters have said their kids opted out of sports because of the homework load - something had to give. Both of my kids (one now in college, one still in h.s.) feel that sports is their reward (and they could participate in Division III but are not stars) and without it they couldn't do the homework required. They both claim it made them better organized and I think they also felt they got to socialize during the day (otherwise it really was all work and no play.) It has occurred to me that if they were paid for the hours spent at music, academics and sports that it would be illegal at their age.</p>
<p>I haven't looked into it in any great detail, but friends with children in French and German schools, while they have longer school days, are not as involved in e.c.s as American students and I suspect spend more time at home than American students (in general).</p>
<p>My kids seemed to have had an awful lot of homework in late elementary and middle school. Although the teachers may only have given an hour or so of nightly work in the basic subjects (math, vocabulary, spelling), theyd forget that the students had two big tests coming up, a science fair project due at the end of the week, a book that was supposed to be read by the following Monday, and a fun music poster due in two days. I think the teachers forgot about a lot of the long term assignments when they estimated how much nightly homework they assigned.</p>
<p>My sons spent all of primary and part of secondary school in independent US schools that were very fond of homework as a means of ensuring future academic success. When the homework reached a minimum of 2 hours per night for the 14 year old boy who did not get home from school until 6 pm, the volume was oppressive to our family life. The boys felt classroom time was taken up with too many 'silly' discussions amongst immature students.</p>
<p>Then we moved abroad. The boys attended a traditional Eton-esque boys' school. The homework dropped to nothing. In most of the classes, the teacher teaches the material in the first few minutes, then switches to an individual tutorial style. The busy work can be done in the classroom by the brighter boys. </p>
<p>The results? Math and Science education: equal or better. Neither boy would have been allowed to take Calculus in the US school which reserved Calculus for the top 20% of their super bright students. Abroad, S2 took Calculus as a junior. English and History: the boys did not read anywhere near the same number of classic texts as their US peers but they did learn a solid analytical approach to most texts. They did earn impressive SAT scores. They are not burnt out. They still read difficult texts for 'fun'. </p>
<p>No question, their peers in the US got an incredible humanities education in high school. My boys will have to make sure they get that as undergrads. Given the choice again, I'd choose the English system over the American system. I dislike the workaholism promoted by the US--and Asian--systems.</p>
<p>Phillip Johnson used to say to his staff: "If you can't do it in eight hours, you can't do it." He was spot on, if you ask me.</p>