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Is homework really as destructive as I state?
If you are an adult, no matter what your current age, "homework" has changed dramatically since you were in school. It has changed in both volume and quality.
The volume has increased dramatically -- especially for children who are in so-called "honors" programs. These students bring home an increasing quantity of new material (material that has not been taught in the classroom) that they are expected to master at home. It is common for these students to be required to wrestle with deciphering this new material for up to two or three hours an evening.
Smart children who are allowed to get away with C performance are often able to get through their homework rather quickly. Students of average ability, earning C grades, and low-performing students earning D and F grades, report being burdened by, and frightened of, their homework load. Largely out of a fear of failure, these children can drag out any amount of homework for three or more hours. Their "off task" and careless behavior often ignites considerable family arguing and fighting. In the end the final result is predictable: failure.
The increase in homework has been building for thirty years - probably in exact proportion to the size of the book-bags our children now lug with them. Why? The single most useful answer is: classrooms are increasingly dominated by children with severe discipline and management problems. So much time is taken up with disruption, unrelated questions and pencil sharpening, that little time is left over for instruction.
The problem is compounded by teachers who have virtually no curriculum, little skill training, a sparse background in learning theory or classroom management skills. Many of these same teachers report being frustrated by their poor background in how to effectively teach basic skills such as reading and math. For the most part, university and college teaching programs do not teach teachers how to teach reading, or any other skill. With few exceptions, schools of education are dominated by survey and pop-psychology courses, not skill courses, that teach aspiring teachers about theories of child development and learning styles. Classes in how to teach students to actually read are virtually non-existent (If you doubt this, visit a class or two at your local university.)
Schools have changed. They are no longer places where children go to get hard skills. They are places where children go to get psychological assistance with their self-esteem. More and more time is devoted to process and feelings, sex education, drug education, driving education, gun education... Less and less time is devoted to the hard skills of reading, writing, listening, speaking, information organization and math. These are the fundamental skills our children will require to successfully continue their educations. These are the skills they will need to solve the difficult problems our future will present them.
In a panic about how our new classrooms have lead to a massive decline in test scores, schools increasingly rely on homework to fill the void. So much so, that today it is common for a fifth grader to be assigned in excess of two hours of homework an evening, four or five evenings a week, on weekends, during vacations, over summer break. Today, families are rarely without homework hanging over their heads. This, at a time, when the two worker family requires mom and dad to be absent from the home and unable to offer much assistance. This problem is not as severe for the top 20% who will achieve in-spite of the school, but the rest are often abandoned to their individual ability to sink or swim. Far too many, sink. This carnage is not right.
What can parents do?
Step one: Keep a detailed log of your child's homework assignments and behavior. After one month, tally up your results and email me at roryd@brainsarefun.com.
Step two: Show your log to your school principal and teachers. They may not be aware of the burden they are inflicting. Ask your child's teachers if it's possible to coordinate assignments so that your child isn't given large assignments by two or more teachers on the same evening. (Unfortunately, you will almost always be stonewalled here and told that no one else is having a problem.)
Step three: Ask your principal and teachers if the school has a homework policy. Ask if you may see a copy. Ask how the policy is enforced. Point out where your record is at odds with the policy.
Step four: Make sure your children are on "contracts" in order to insure that thirty minute assignments don't turn into two hour chores.
Step five: No matter how difficult the homework may be, make 15 minutes a night to read aloud to your child. It will do wonders to bring you all back together after a difficult day. See "Donaldson Reading."
Step six: Do not abandon your children to homework failure. They often have never been shown how to do the assignment. They may not know how to read, how to write. Do not allow them to fail. Failure is not an acceptable option for young children. They don't have enough information to assume full responsibility for all of their choices. "Providing your children with appropriate help," is one of the unofficial mottoes of brainsarefun.com.
What can teachers do?
Teachers can take the time to insure that they correct the homework they do assign, making written suggestions, and helping students see both "good" and "bad" examples of what was assigned. How many times has homework been assigned with absolutely no real feedback as to its quality?
Thank you, and Good Luck.
* Since this article was written our nation has been attacked (9/11/01). Did our schools respond by lessening the homework burden? Or, in our attempt to "return to normalcy" did we keep piling it on -- often ignoring the enormous new burden under which our children were newly living? The fact is, in far too many cases, we just kept piling it on. My son for instance, on the very evening of the attack, arrived home with three full hours of "honors" work. This burden was vociferously defended by the school. I did not, and shall not, accept the defense.
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