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I wish the word "snowflake" would be retired from the English language. I have seen enough doctors on the news telling us how carrying all these heavy books are causing our kids to have back issues at a very young age.
Any school that gives hours of homework isn't do their job. One way to get kids to really hate school is to give them so much homework that they can't have any fun after school (I'm talking elementary school). My granddaughter is in 2nd grade and she gets a little bit of homework but never on the weekend because her teacher at the charter school she goes to says weekends are family time and I agree 100%.
Nice, easy sounding answers, but totally incorrect. We're talking book bags that weigh as much as the kid does at that age. And homework that completely consumes all the family time until bed. If you don't understand the problem, you haven't experienced it.
Our middle school had this issue, as well. Part of the solution was our PTA helping to pay for a classroom set of texts, while the school system paid for the text's of individual students. The kid's books stayed home, and in classes the classroom set of texts was used. The surprising result -- texts lasted longer and almost none were ever lost.
As far as homework in elementary school, we always had a little when I was in school back in the 50's. Maybe 20-30 minutes worth. But what helped was that it wasn't in excess because you had the same teacher for all regular subjects. I think part of the issue can be if students have multiple teachers in core subjects...which teaming SHOULD resolve.
Homework does not have to be textbooks, in fact many districts don't have true textbooks for all subjects, opting instead for write-in textbooks (all pages are perforated, a combo text and workbook) or electronic versions.
My elementary assigns HW nightly, usually consisting of math + reading, depending upon grade level. Lower grades often assign a choice sheet or tic-tac-toe of various activities. In fifth grade, our HW is usually math (a tear out page from the write-in textbook, sometimes in combination with watching a video from the publisher), along with 30 minutes of reading. While many of my students will willingly read longer than 30 minutes, some have to be pushed. The math usually takes students 15-30 minutes.
I have not had a parent complain about the amount we assign, but they will usually let me know when the student has trouble with it. It also gives parents (if they monitor or check for completion) a window into their child's work habits. We don't grade homework, but when they move to middle school next year, it can be a grade.
My friends and I were "nerds" and at the end of sixth grade, I remember my friend saying "Oh, I can't wait to have homework!" He was referring to the coming year, 7th grade. This implies that we never had homework before then. This was in the 70s.
I also have a younger relative and I talked with him after the first day of 7th grade and he said he had tons of homework, which he never said before.
Is it true that K-6 kids don't have homework? Maybe it's different today.
I started having homework in kindergarten or first grade.
Some districts in some states are phasing out homework in lower grades. I think this is a fantastic idea. I actually don't enforce homework on my 1st grader, and I explained that to his teacher. I think busy work for the sake of busy work is tedious work that does little for retaining information and learning. The current research and data supports this. Instead, we read, and do other activities, but no homework.
My 4th grader doesn't get a lot of homework, but she explained to me that she completes a lot of it at school before coming home. I was curious about the amount of homework in middle school. My oldest typically has a little math work to complete, but not usually much, and a writing assignment here and there.
I assign both girls two hours of reading everyday.
I wish the word "snowflake" would be retired from the English language. I have seen enough doctors on the news telling us how carrying all these heavy books are causing our kids to have back issues at a very young age.
Any school that gives hours of homework isn't do their job. One way to get kids to really hate school is to give them so much homework that they can't have any fun after school (I'm talking elementary school). My granddaughter is in 2nd grade and she gets a little bit of homework but never on the weekend because her teacher at the charter school she goes to says weekends are family time and I agree 100%.
A big gold star for you.
One school my kids went to had homework in Middle and HS. But it was limited by subject and time. Math on Mon, science Tuesday, etc. There was also a 30 minute limit.
Both my school teacher daughters and their teacher cousins, aunts and uncles think most of the time it is busy work.
Some of my neighbors frequently called, crying at 10PM to borrow a book or something. They'd been doing homework since they got home from school. That is too much.
In the 1990s, our daughter had TONS of homework in elementary school. It was a private school with K-12, and was academically focused (12% of her 12th grade graduating class matriculated as freshman at MIT; another 15% at Stanford.)
Nice, easy sounding answers, but totally incorrect. We're talking book bags that weigh as much as the kid does at that age. And homework that completely consumes all the family time until bed. If you don't understand the problem, you haven't experienced it.
This was exactly my son's experience (he was born in 1991). Subjects were team taught by 3 or 4 different teachers each day, homework in every class every day, he sat down to do homework at 3:30pm and often didn't get done until 9 or 10. And he was an excellent student, currently employed as a software developer for an international company, making a high 5 digit salary
Most of his classes were structured to the student actually learning the material on their own through homework, with class time dedicated to quizzes, exams, other assessments, and mopping up questions about the previous nights homework. This was definitely not just busy work, as it would all be tested later.
And yes, this homework was graded just like an exam, not just a check mark in a grade book for turning it in.
We don't assign much homework. Parents may even say we assign no homework. Our district's policy changed a few years ago and does not allow hw to be graded. That has cut down on the amount.
The student day is structured for most of the 6 hours and 40 minutes they are in school. Let them do other things after they leave the building.
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I have seen enough doctors on the news telling us how carrying all these heavy books are causing our kids to have back issues at a very young age.
