Guest Blog­ger: A Father’s Epiphany and Home­work Reform

Today’s guest blog­ger, Frank Bruni, the father of a 12-year-old sev­enth grader, lives in Toronto, Canada. Frank, who has been quoted exten­sively in the Cana­dian press, has been a dri­ving force in push­ing the Toronto Dis­trict School Board to review and revamp its home­work policy.

A Father’s Epiphany and Home­work Reform
by Frank Bruni

Last year, when I was sit­ting in the doctor’s office with my 11-year-old son, the doc­tor said, “he should get more exer­cise.” I thought to myself, “and when he would do that?”

It is hard to describe the impact that that day had on every­thing that would fol­low. I started to think about how our fam­ily manip­u­lated our lives around home­work. In fact, we rarely made any deci­sions about how we were going to spend our free time with­out tak­ing home­work into con­sid­er­a­tion. I remem­bered my own child­hood and could not recall hav­ing as much home­work as my son. He was miss­ing being a kid. It both­ered me — it both­ered me a lot.

And then I read “The Case against Home­work”. It was just the moti­va­tion I needed. I was going to tackle this issue.

I started to do more research and although I grav­i­tated to the lit­er­a­ture that agreed with my point of view, I was care­ful to read arti­cles that dis­agreed as well, know­ing those were the argu­ments that I would have to over­come to achieve mean­ing­ful change. I was deeply dis­turbed by the ris­ing rates of child­hood obe­sity and juve­nile dia­betes and felt the exces­sive home­work was, at the very least, a con­tribut­ing factor.

I decided that I was going to try to influ­ence change board-wide, a daunt­ing task, but I was naive at the time. I started with my local rep­re­sen­ta­tive (called trustees in Toronto) and asked her to hold a ward ( local dis­trict ) meet­ing on the sub­ject. It was one of the most well attended that year, espe­cially by par­ents. With that suc­cess under my belt I was encour­aged to make a pre­sen­ta­tion at a sub-committee of the Toronto Dis­trict School Board that would be respon­si­ble for putting a rec­om­men­da­tion for­ward to the full board. I would have two min­utes to make my case.

I remem­ber that evening vividly. I had prac­tised my pre­sen­ta­tion about 50 times. I knew I could deliver it in two min­utes but I was wor­ried about the ques­tions after­ward. Did I know my mate­r­ial well enough? What if some­one asked me a ques­tion about an arti­cle that I had not read?

Luck­ily, every­thing went extremely well and I learned the most valu­able les­son that I have learned thus far. You must have an advo­cate. Some­one on the school board that will help you nav­i­gate the organ­i­sa­tion and pol­i­tics of the board. My advo­cates came in the names of Trustee Josh Mat­low and stu­dent Trustee Nick Kennedy. With­out their advice and coun­sel this issue would not have the pro­file it does in Toronto.

Now, the Toronto Dis­trict School Board is hold­ing pub­lic meet­ings to gather input from par­ents, teach­ers and stu­dents, and then, along with the avail­able research will come up with pro­pos­als for change that will be pre­sented to the school board.

I have learned a few things from that may be of value to those of you who are try­ing to moti­vate change in your own com­mu­ni­ties. First, excess home­work is no one’s fault. Even if it were, there is no ben­e­fit in fin­ger point­ing. Sec­ond, avoid the need for per­sonal glory. Politi­cians hate glory-hounds and will dis­miss you very quickly if they think you have an “agenda”. Third, get the press inter­ested in the issue. Politi­cians hate bad press and react to the per­ceived pres­sure that it cre­ates. Lastly, and most impor­tantly, find an advo­cate on the school board, some­one who will take up the cause, and BELIEVES IN IT.

There will be many road-blocks along the way. Per­sis­tence and being rea­son­able will keep you sane and give you hope.

Here in Toronto we are well on the way to mean­ing­ful home­work reform. With the hard work of par­ents edu­ca­tors and the Toronto Dis­trict School Board (and staff) we will achieve it — for the kids.

Posted in category Guest Bloggers, Moms (and Dads) on a Mission on February 13, 2008 at 10:39 am
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6 Comments on “Guest Blog­ger: A Father’s Epiphany and Home­work Reform”

  1. Jan Marman says:

    Well pre­sented write up Frank! And I cer­tainly val­i­date your obser­va­tion that weekend/weekday out­ings are also planned and some­times even cur­tailed for the nev­erend­ing streams of home­work. I fear there is less teach­ing in the class­rooms today (and as such the task of com­plet­ing assign­ments falls to kids/parents in the form of moun­tains of home­work). For years I’ve been hear­ing the same com­ment too: teach­ers are spend­ing valu­able class time dis­ci­plin­ing kids — some­thing the par­ents should be doing!

    February 13th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
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  2. Judy Gershon says:

    Wow, Frank, con­grat­u­la­tions on tak­ing on this beast of an issue. I recently con­tacted our school trustee, here in Thorn­hill, won­der­ing if York Region is con­sid­er­ing home­work reform as well. I don’t know if you came across “The Home­work Myth” by Alfie Kohn, but he also makes very com­pelling argu­ments against home­work through an exhaus­tive look at the huge body of research on the sub­ject. It got my blood boil­ing and I’m anx­ious to try to affect some change here as well. Just thought I’d also men­tion the “10 min­utes a day per grade” notion. Our fam­ily of schools has adopted this into it’s home­work pol­icy, and while it puts a cap on home­work, it has this crazy reverse effect of mak­ing teach­ers feel pres­sured to assign work each night so that kids are putting in this pre­scribed amount of time (I think it also gives par­ents the idea that this amount of home­work is “good for their kids”, which the research clearly show is not the case).
    Thanks for the advice…going to start look­ing for that advo­cate at the board level!

    February 21st, 2008 at 11:04 pm
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  3. Josh Matlow says:

    I am so proud of the work Frank has done to advo­cate for home­work reform in Toronto’s schools.

    At the Toronto Dis­trict School Board, we now have a real oppor­tu­nity to return pre­cious time to fam­ily life, allow chil­dren to dis­cover more of their own pas­sions and inter­ests and for our school sys­tem to be more respon­si­ble about we make demands on stu­dents and their par­ents after the bell has rung.

    March 15th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
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  4. Anonymous says:

    How are kids today sup­posed to grow up to com­pete on a global scale when they do only half the work com­pared to stu­dents from other countries?

    The pur­pose of the edu­ca­tion sys­tem is equip stu­dent with the skills needed in the real work­ing world, and that includes time management.

    April 1st, 2008 at 1:27 pm
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  5. Kerry Dickinson says:

    Frank,

    Keep up your good work. I love the Toronto pol­icy. We’re try­ing to revise our home­work pol­icy in Danville, Cal­i­for­nia, and I’m hop­ing to use some of the Toronto pol­icy as a model. How is your dis­trict doing now, after the new pol­icy has taken place? Do you see any real change? Is it still too early to tell?

    April 7th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
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  6. Frank Bruni says:

    First to Kerry,

    The new pol­icy is not in place yet. The Toronto Dis­trict School Board will vote on April 16th for imple­men­ta­tion in Sep­tem­ber 2008 so keep check­ing this site for more information.

    Sec­ond to Anonymous,

    I have heard your argu­ment before and frankly it doesn’t hold water. Other coun­tries are not giv­ing their kids more home­work , so says the research.. Sec­ond, the pur­pose of the edu­ca­tion sys­tem is not solely to pro­duce employ­ees for business.

    Third, and most impor­tantly, isn’t it impor­tant to raise chil­dren with a sense of work life balance?

    Seems to me that you don’t teach time man­age­ment by hav­ing kids do one thing all the time. You teach time man­age­ment by hav­ing them have a vari­ety of things to do so that they have to make priorities.

    April 8th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
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