There was some study mentioned on the news the other day about homework not having any effect on the grade and testing of students. They profiled some families with children talking about how much homework they have and discussed how due to large amounts of homework children miss out on extracurricular activities, playing outdoors and sports.
My son is now in fifth grade. During first and third grade he had lots of homework, second grade was not that much and fourth was less than third.
It also seems that the most time he spent on the computer was in second grade, doing some animal reports and they had several computers in the classroom.
Computer time was nil in the third grade, with computer lab on a weekly basis in the fourth grade. The homework thus far is math, spelling, reading for twenty minutes a book taken out from classroom library and writing a synopsis of the chapters and a science page here and there.
There was one class trip last year towards the end of the school year. I am gearing up for middle school and looking into charter schools. How much homework do kids get once they are in middle school?
Please share how much homework your child has and the grade they are in. What type of activities do they do in the classroom?
My son gets no special services due to his autism, the resource person consults with the general ed teacher. It is written in the IEP that he gets to sit close to teacher during instruction time, but they moved all the students recently and I might have to look into this. He also get extra time for the state testing and does this in the library with other students from various grades.
My son was the Treasurer last year for the Student Council and is undecided if he will run for President or Vice President this year.
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Comments: 33
http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/ca/586
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2003260752_hometeacher16.html
My second grader has homework she brings home on Mon., it is due back on Friday. She has one sheet a day to do.
Unsure of what they do in school each day as both my kids tell me "nothing" when I ask. LOL
I've had 7 kids, four are out of primary and secondary school. Three of them are out of college.
I've seen that some teachers pile on the homework, believing that parents want it. Some parents do.
I see a lot of busywork type stuff mostly. Worksheets with rows and rows of math problems, Fill in the blank English stuff, things like that.
I've seen a real move away from things that teach critical thinking, like a few questions that require paragraph-type answers. I am told this is because teachers simply do not have the time to grade these kind of papers anymore with all the other paper work they now must do.
I think that the best homework you can give a kid is something they have to do hands on, eyes on, or a combination of both. Go to a cultural event, historical site, read a book, take pictures or write a report. I've seen the kids get really excited about having to make dioramas, costumes, or set up projects that make them think outside the box.
My daughter is 4th grade and she gets between a half hour and an hour of homework each night, about 3 ages on average.
I don't think homework accomplishes much beyond annoying the student and making them sick of learning all the time. :)
I think that studying is important, and knowing how to study properly to pass tests and drive home certain concepts to make sure they are fully understood. Studying, however, is something a student can do at their leisure with no due-dates or requirements of any kind.
The best thing I think my daughters school did for her was when they started requiring a half hour of reading every night and the parents have to sign off on what the kid read. This spurred my daughter to do a lot more reading that she did not normall do before, but I think she gained a certain amount of pleasure from reading because of this, and initially it was not something she really cared for doing.
As I said before, STUDYING over HOMEWORK I think would work best.
I think Homework is useful, and it should be done for a variety of reasons. One is, so that the parent has an opportunity to show the child that learning is important and is valued. The question is not, should be do away with homework, but what is the best way to give children homework so that they do not burn out, and so that it accomplishes it's purpose, with is wider learning.
I had two children who didn't need homework. They could read the material once and Ace the test, even weeks after reading it! I had two kids who needed the homework. I find this true with my nephews also, some need homework and some don't.
I had a teacher call me one time about my son who refused to do his homework. He told her he didn't need to that he already knew about what the were studying. She told me she was going to have him take the test immediately to prove him wrong! "He had told her he would Ace it" I warned her that if he said he could Ace it that he would! I let her know she wouldn't be teaching him a lesson he would be teaching her one! He Aced the test with %100 correct!
I did have a talk with him about doing his homework and turning it in! You see he would do the homework and leave it in his locker on purpose! He has a high IQ and would get bored in school so he would find ways to ammuse himself!
The news item you saw could have come from the release of a new book by education writer Alfie Kohn about homework. Check it out on alfiekohn.org, I think. His argument is that there is zero, absolutely zero scientific evidence that homework has any effectiveness before the age of high school. He is a powerful thinker who looks into the depths of things and while I have not read this new book, I have been much influenced as a teacher by his work, so I expect that it is well worth reading. As a teacher, I give very limited homework which students must sit down and do with a parent, translating English into a foreign language. It's powerful and purposeful; it gives parents insight into where their money is going but I don't do it that often. If the teacher is getting the job done in the class, learning is taking place. If it takes more drilling at home, the teacher has not reached long-term memory in the student brain.
So now she is a mainstream highschool in suburban/almost rural MA. It's a huge, very well funded, new school facility with two new theaters (she is a drama major, or was in the Art school, and is in the arts-related track at this new public school). Because she was an all A and B student last year at ACMA, she selected honors and AP classes. AP Pre-Calculus and AP American History/English and honors in a couple of others plus all the chorus and drama she can get. So she is busy from the moment she gets home from school until bedtime, but she takes several mental health breaks to go blast music, sing, and dance around. She gets that from me. I go into my home studio and record music or write music as a hobby. I would say the workload is 2.5-4 hours a night. She may encounter tougher grading then she has ever seen. I asked her if she wanted to lighten the load by dropping down a level in any subject, and she was adamant NO, she wants to do the hard classes. Good for her. Tough choice, but a smart one.
As for the quality of homework as a learning tool. This is a tough question and anyone claiming to have the universal answer is fibbing. Some homework is essential to some kid's and their learning style, other homework is annoying, demotivating busy work. Often the same assignment has elements of both. For example, if you can factor an equation or figure the apogee of a projectile do you really need to do 5 of each? I could argue YES because each one puts a tiny twist on the wording that introduces a subtlety that maps to a real-world scenario. I could argue no because once you get the paradigm for solving or the algorithm to work it out you can do it so move on. Some kids need the redundant practice, some don't. My daughter is somewhere in between. I believe she benefits from it, but it is maybe twice as much busywork as is really necessary. These comments apply primarily to pre-calc. I see those problems because she sometimes needs help, whereas most other subjects she is self sufficient. Her teacher has been teaching at this same town's high school for 43 years! He knows the content, despite the age he is pretty adept at teaching it to 16/17 year olds. He also reaches out to parents to determine their ability to help. I think this class will be very good for her despite the extra busywork.
I am a single parent now. I have a short temper when trying to explain math because I just get it and don't understand why other's don't. So my wife had done a lot of the coaching in prior years. Last school year was her first full year without her mom. We yelled and tore our hair out a couple of times and ultimately settled into a decent daddy/daughter working relationship. THis year I made her move cross country and abandon her beloved art school. But she said she would do it and not resent me and she has stayed true to her word. I have to continue to practice patience because she's just a teenager with math homework that annoys her, I need to provide guidance and direction without judgement or snide remarks (which I sometimes make despite my best intentions).
I used to tease her at Art school when she got a B in an academic subject. In fact, I even teased her when she got straight As with the goofy father classic "straight As, is that the BEST you could do?" She wisely warned me that those jokes weren't funny. Guess what, now that it's harder, the stakes are higher (Advanced Placement classes), and Cs first quarter are a probable reality I will regret that teasing and have to work extra hard to be supportive. I certainly make mistakes as a parent but I work hard to improve as I go!
So circling back to does homework and help and what's the right amount? That's like asking what career should a person go into and how much can they earn? It is different for every individual. It is up to us as parents to help make what they are getting work.
We do have to be realistic about what to expect and how much is reasonable. Unfortunately for elementary school teachers, they spend so much time just getting students to focus on learning, and then having to cover things for state proficiency exams, etc, a lot of real teaching is missed. That's where parents working with their kids on homework becomes really critical if we are to truly educate children and prepare them for the world ahead.