Other Journal Article No.1 Time Magazine January 25, 1999 Education / The Homework Ate My Family - by Romesh Ratnesar

The article was subtitled "Kids are Dazed - Parents Are Stressed - Why piling it on is hurting students".

The focus was on an eleven year old sixth grade girl in San Francisco named Molly. Starting at 3:30 when she arrives home from school Molly hops on the computer to write a book report then proceeds to do her math assignment followed by a geography assignment. Not done yet, she reviews a semester's worth of science. By 5:30 she sits down to practice the piano for an hour. According to researchers at the University of Michigan, students come home with more school work than ever before and at an earlier age. Some parents were expressing concern over the amount of homework and the difficulty level of some of the assignments. Many parents are choosing to help their children with homework projects so they will not look bad when compared to other students. One parent showed so much frustration over homework that he made his three elementary school children's teachers pledge not to lower their grades if they didn't do assignments. They were lost in class discussions so the father allowed them to do homework but he is suing the school district for violating his civil rights.

The article included several side bars, one written by Howard Gardner expressed the view that homework should not be seen as a threat to parents but as an opportunity. Gardner also was in favor of young children having homework that was not more than a few minutes a day. As a student progresses in age and grade, he believes homework should be increased gradually.

It was made clear that homework does improve over-all learning, more so for middle school and high school students. The argument seems to be over how much, and how soon homework should be given.

My thoughts tend to lean toward a little homework is good thing, but like anything in life it can be overdone. In our quest to be the brightest, smartest, fastest, etc. I hope we keep student's sanity and well being in mind.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 1999

Answers

Hi Gregg! Thank you for the interesting article. I also agree that some homework is valuable as long as it's not busy work. Unfortunately some give homework just for the sake of homework. We can't forget that baking cookies, helping change that oil in the car, or working in the garden are also valuable learning experiences.

-- Anonymous, January 26, 1999

Hi Gregg,

This is a very interesting article. I was having a conversation with a colleague of mine a few days ago about this very issue. Mel(my colleague), has a son who is currently a freshman, and often comes home with a huge amount of homework at night. She said his daily and nightly routine consists of him going to school all day, going to hockey practice after school, coming home to eat dinner, relaxing for maybe a half hour to an hour before going to his room to do homework for the rest of the night. She and I both agree that homework is not a bad thing, but too much of it can overwhelm and create a lot of stress for a student. A student usually has at least five or more classes that could involve homework on a daily bases. When a teacher gives homework out daily, and we'll say that most teachers are consistantly doing this, you can see that this can really add up to being a lot of homework. Mel made a good point - Students are in school all day studying and working hard. They shouldn't have to come home at night and spend another 3-4 hours on homework. My thoughts are that you should give homework when it is necessary, but you should also try to give classwork a good portion of the time. What do you think?

-- Anonymous, February 18, 1999

Hi Greg, Well, I guess I get to be the dissenting view. So, lets get started. First, at least half of my students do not work hard in school during the day. It seems more like an eternal recess than hard concentrated effort. Second, the amount of homework they actually do on a daily basis is microscopic or nonexistant. School is for learning formal education, not for changing oil in the family car! As for the idea that we are creating stress in their lives; Is there no stress in that unruly, disorganized, hurly-burly thing we call the "real world?" It was always my beleif that we, as teachers, are to be preparing our students to survive in that place. I feel that the real problem is not that there is too much homework, but that the students have too little organization, and poor time management skills. Of course, this is a generalization, and we all know how many exceptions to the rule there are. Still, I think there is value in looking at the average students when trying to identify overall problems. Sorry Mr. Piaget, but that "garden" you speak of so fondly has alot of thorns in it!

-- Anonymous, February 22, 1999