Stop Homework

Today’s guest blogger, the mother of a second grader, lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She holds a masters degree in psychology and works full time doing psychometric testing of adults. She has written two previous entries here and here.

Why Homework Doesn’t Work
by Psych Mom

I’ve become a believer in the last year that homework is not the way to go. Despite this, my 8 year old started Grade 3 this year and serious homework is a part of that at our school. We parents got the schedule from the teacher of when various tasks were being assigned and when that’s all due, the implication being that we would be monitoring and reminding, I guess. It was expressly written that the work is the child’s responsibility. It was not expressly implied what my duties were but informing me, I assume, is tantamount to making me a part of it all. This weekend I knew there were things my child had to do for math homework. She never talked about them….the sheets sat on top of her binder all weekend. Sunday afternoon, against my better judgment, I suggested that she get those sheets and we’d take a look. She did. This is how it unfolded. It wasn’t pretty and I freely admit that it was all, my fault. I am not a good teacher.

She couldn’t read all of the instructions….she needed me to read some of the words. She only read the top part….nothing of the bottom of the page instructions. The instructions were confusing because she was to make a
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This coming Monday, November 2, is the first Monday of the month. As I suggest every month in this blog, I hope you’ll send a note expressing your thoughts about homework to your children’s teachers or, perhaps, to a school administrator or School Board member. Even better, join with a few friends and send a collective note. Ask for a public discussion of the problem. Ask the school to be responsive. If you need help in formulating a note, look in The Case Against Homework for some examples, or see the kinds of notes parents have been writing by browsing Moms (and Dads) on a Mission on this blog. If you do send a note, please post a comment and send me a copy of your letter. And if you get a response from the teacher or school, please let us know that as well.

Or, take inspiration from Kerry Dickinson, a parent from Danville, California, who successfully changed homework policy in her community and is still advocating on her children’s behalf. Here’s what she did recently:

Advocacy is an Ongoing Process
by Kerry Dickinson

This year after Back to School night at both the middle and high schools my boys attend, I sent each of their teachers an email. In the email I said I had just read a really interesting book called “Rethinking Homework” by Cathy Vatterott and I had some extra copies I’d like to share with anyone interested.

To my surprise I got a few emails back right away from teachers at both schools saying “sure, I’d like to borrow the book.” Well, just last week I got a nice letter back from my 10th grader’s geometry teacher. I received permission from him to reprint it:

Hi Kerry,

Thanks for the loan of the book. It generated much “rethinking” at lunch in the math dept. While many of us were initially skeptical about a new homework paradigm, we found ourselves agreeing with much of the book. We are opposed to “busy work” and grading homework for accuracy. I hope that my assignments are appropriate, both as regards length of time and amount of practice. In Calculus, I think it appropriate to give homework no weight, but in my classes, I need to reward the effort – about 10-15% seems right.

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Today’s “Dad on a Mission” is Rafael Ortiz, the father of a 7-year-old second grader in a public elementary school in Los Angeles. Ortiz, who has a B.S. in Kinesiology, takes things into his own hands when his daughter’s teachers don’t respond to his homework concerns.

Operation Daddy to the Rescue
by Rafael Ortiz

Since last year, when my daughter was in first grade, she started to question me about why she had to do homework. She told me that she went to school the whole day and then still had school work to do at home, but her mom didn’t have to bring her work from work. I would tell her it’s because that’s what everyone does- it’s school.

But then I started thinking about it and realized that all this homework gives little time to explore out of the box. My daughter used to asked about underwater life, what’s out in space, loved to solve riddles and liked to invent stuff. But homework is burning her out.

My daughter has been bringing home homework since kindergarten. All of it seemed to be a waste of time; none of it was challenging or interesting. Now, in second grade the homework is still not challenging BUT rather longer. It takes my daughter about one hour and 30 minutes some days. She has lost that happy spark she had and she has started complaining that it’s too long.

I discussed it with the teacher and asked her to show me research on how long homework should be because I felt that my child was getting too much homework. Her response was that it’s the district policy that second graders need to spend 30-35 minutes and that if the student spends more time than that they should not advance to second grade. Knowing my kid I knew right away that this second grade teacher took it personally, but I held my ground and told her that it should be quality rather than quantity. She then said that she had been approached by other parents where they demanded that she give more homework. So I told her then to go ahead and give them more but that I was requesting less for my kid.

So this is the 8th week and we still go back and forth on the homework issue. The teacher still hasn’t modified my kid’s homework, so I took what I called “Operation Daddy to the Rescue,” where I looked at the homework assigned for that day and I choose a few problems (math, English , vocabulary, etc) and I tell my girl to do for example 5 out of 20 math problems and the rest I give her the answers. It seems to be working because her so called weekly test scores have not gone down.

The reason why her teacher says she gives the students a lot of homework is because of some number that schools get assigned every school year by some government test. The higher the number, the more prestigious the school is. Who cares!!! They are using my daughter like a robot – they want output and zero creativity.

For her x-mas vacation I plan to let the teacher know that my 2nd grader has plans and will not do HOLIDAY HOMEWORK!

About a month ago, Deidra Hewitt, who lives in Denver, North Carolina, where she has two children in a public elementary school, wrote about how the school required her to sign off on her children’s homework more than 400 times a year. Today, she writes about what happened after she wrote to the school Superintendent to tell him about the policy. Read the background here.

Advocacy Can Make a Difference
by Deidra Hewitt

I emailed a letter to the school Superintendent and the Board of Education, regarding the “sign or your child will be punished” policies, that I find so offensive. The Superintendent contacted me for a meeting. I was really pleased with the outcome of this encounter. The Superintendent of Schools completely agreed with me, about parent signatures being voluntary. He was against children being held accountable for parent behavior. He indicated that changes were in the works. Starting at the county level, he advised me that the “accountability agreements” were being phased out, and that they will be gone next year. He stated that he is actively searching for ways to engage parents of disadvantaged students. He agrees that countless signatures do not accomplish this goal. He is prepared to investigate the objectives of requests for parent signatures, and certify that signatures are voluntary.

In an interesting side note, the Superintendent informed me of a parent committee, that meets with him, once a month, regarding parent issues. There is, apparently, a parent representative, from every school. I am a parent who does my research, and I was shocked that such a committee existed! It seems that the parent rep. is chosen, by the Principal. The Superintendent printed me a schedule, and advised me that the meetings are open, and I am welcome to attend. I will, most assuredly, be there!

My advice to everyone is to never give up! If you cannot get satisfaction, from teachers or principals, utilize the resources of Superintendents and School Boards. They are not just there for educators, they are there for parents, too!

Today’s guest blogger, Tracy Stevens, is a former high school Spanish teacher who infrequently gave project-based homework to her students. She wrote here last year about her son’s difficult experience in first grade in a public school and her decision to have him repeat the year at a Waldorf school. This year, she decided to homeschool her two boys, and today she writes about that experience. You can also follow her on her blog, abettereducation, which is full of interesting interviews (including one with Daniel Pink) as well as reports on her experiences with homeschooling.

Experiences in Homeschooling
by Tracy Stevens

I got laid off in July of this year and after not finding any jobs that could keep our two kids in private school, I decided to homeschool. My older son is 8 and he did first grade at a public school two years ago. It was a very difficult year as he, one of the youngest boys in the class, struggled to learn to read at the pace they set for him. To “help” him learn to read, they kept him from recess to do more worksheets. This was in addition to the tutoring and the ridiculous load of homework.

So we decided to repeat fist grade, but this time in a private Waldorf school. The year went much better. There was no homework, plenty of art and nature, and the expectations of reading come much later in a Waldorf school.

I knew when I lost the ability to pay for a Waldorf education that he would be even worse off in a public school than the previous year, because now we were on the Waldorf reading schedule, making him even further behind the public school reading demands. This lead to my decision to homeschool my four and eight year old sons this year and surprisingly it has been an outstanding experience so far.

I take an eclectic approach, with influences from Waldorf and Democratic schools. We work on reading through art, stories, and manipulatives like magnet letters, in addition to old fashioned paper and pencil. We do math

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Today’s guest blogger, Mary Sullivan, is a freelancer writer and mother to two fifth graders and a seventh grader in suburban Chicago. I tracked her down after she posted a Comment linking to her webpage, Too Much Homework, and I asked her to write about what motivated her to post her own page.

Too Much Homework
by Mary Sullivan

Like many parents here, I’m proud of our district and appreciate that teachers care and work hard. But in terms of homework, there are issues with both volume and consistency. Parenting twins has been revealing over the years, as the amounts (not to mention types) of homework they’ve received from different teachers within the same grade has varied dramatically. Other parents of multiples I know locally have said the same thing. Through the PTO we did some research last year with families and found the inconsistency is system wide, especially in about grades 4 and up. Part of this, of course, is that some students take much longer than others to do the same amount of work. But that can’t be the whole explanation.

I still don’t think many teachers know about Harris Cooper’s 10-minutes-per-grade-level rule, its basis in meta-analysis of 40 years’ worth of well-crafted homework studies, and the science behind moderation as the most effective approach to homework. I’m sure many parents don’t know, either, and feel confused and helpless when their kids are overwhelmed and missing out on adequate sleep, exercise, reading for pleasure and other essential “nutrients” for developing minds and bodies. Hoping to reach both parents and teachers, I wrote the Squidoo article based on our family’s experiences and on what I’ve learned over the past several years about homework–from The Case Against Homework and other sources.

Something else we learned through the PTO research is that a large percentage of parents feel their kids should be spending more time on “chores” and “helping others”–which to my mind are closely related. Both household chores and service/volunteerism are “other directed” activities, unlike something like homework, which requires much effort but is ultimately self-directed. (The only beneficiary is the student, through good grades, praise, etc.) I tried to touch on this in the Squidoo article through the box on “what kids could be doing if they had less homework.” Life skills like taking responsibility and acting as a contributing member of a community need to start at home. With hours of homework, kids have no time for chores, or parents take pity and just do things for them. As parents we need to run a “gut check” on all this and speak up when it doesn’t feel right. Kids should work hard, but in a *balanced* way that makes intuitive sense.

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Be sure to visit Too Much Homework.

For three years now, I’ve corresponded every so often with Stan Goldberg, also known as Senior Dad. Stan, who lives in the Bay Area, has his own podcast and has many interviews with educators and other experts that are well worth listening to, including his four-part series on homework, where he interviewed Alfie Kohn, John Buell, Harris Cooper, and me.

A few weeks ago, Stan interviewed me via skype for his new video series. Since he hasn’t written a guest blog entry on this blog for a few years, I asked him to let us know what’s on his mind. Read his previous guest blog entry here.

Senior Dad Speaks Out
by Stan Goldberg

I first started looking at homework when I read your book, The Case Against Homework. It started me down a path that I didn’t expect. Last week we did a video about homework, (posted on YouTube in two parts and in the Homework Briefing Room ), where we discussed our homework breakthrough and your views on homework reform today. That’s not the only good news that I can share with you. Several families at the school my daughter is attending have now embraced homework as the parent’s tool. Armed with homework they are trying different strategies to see what works best for their family and their child. A friend who has a child at another school reports that this year’s second grade teacher told the parents of the class that she is ambivalent about homework. She will continue to issue it but is up to the parents whether the child does it or not. The teacher will not grade homework. No issues either way whether the homework is returned or not.

So I view this as another breakthrough. I find that growing awareness among educators in giving homework as a parent’s tool will ultimately benefit the child. You and I share similar parenting styles. We want our children to be in charge of themselves early on as possible, so that they have comfort in making decisions. Placing a child in charge of his or her own homework is a reasonable step towards those goals.

I believe that the homework reform movement is growing as more people become aware that each child must be treated individually. As more educators embrace this point of view the attitudes towards homework will gain greater momentum.

Race to Nowhere, a documentary which looks at the fast-paced, high-stress lives of many of today’s students, is premiering on Saturday, October 10, at the Mill Valley Film Festival. I’ve written about the film before because I’m an Advisor to the film, I appear in the film, I fully support the film, and I think it’s the perfect tool for either starting, or supplementing, a conversation in your community about the numerous problems facing today’s youth.

If you live near Mill Valley, California, you should try to see the film either at Saturday’s premier or on October 18. If you don’t live near Mill Valley, you can view the trailer here. And you can listen to the filmmaker, Vicki Abeles, talk about the movie on BAM! Radio.

I also highly recommend you contact Vicki and set up a screening. Tell her I told you about the film.