PTO Today

Hi All!

I have been reading about the new trend of schools limiting the amount of homework that can be given out or doing away with homework completely.
It is a pretty debateable issue and it appears more and more schools are limiting or doing away with homework completely.

I was just curious if anyone here has a school that is doing this or is in the process of discussing it. Any Thoughts? Opinions?

My oldest daughter, now a sophmore in hs, has had a few teachers who did not give homework and actually told the kids if I can't teach you what you need to know in the time we have, I'm not doing my job.

Our district is not working to eliminate homework but I wish they would.The kids get up, commute, and give their 6-7 hours a day. Homework for students is like adults that bring work home from the office EVERYDAY - what kind of life is that?

The schools in our district just try to keep checks in place that the homework being handed out, in any grade, is not too much of an overload. The district has begun a push in the last few years to try to teach the kids time management more than anything else.

For example, when students have a half hour or an hour to fill between the end of the school day and the start of their dance program or sport, the school has structured study halls, with volunteer tutors (parents or high school kids looking for community service credits). The kids are able to get a lot of their work done in these study halls, with extra help if they need it, before they go off to their practice and then home.

I think some homework is good, to keep them thinking but too much just backfires on the kids, teachers and the parents. Everyone can get burned out. It's just another one of those fine lines....

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[I]"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it" - Ferris Bueller[/I]

Nope. our teachers are homework fanatics.
I like homework, but I HATE busywork. the differnce, depends on the teacher.

What is the reason some schools are cutting back? I have not heard of this trend. It doesnt sound like a good plan. MOst of our teachers spend more time disciplining their large classes, than teaching. Parents need to spend some time reinforcing at home what was taught. And having homework as a guide is useful to know what they SHOULD have learned.

beignets...You hit the nail on the head in that many feel what these kids are coming home with is busywork and not anything that is really educating them.

Basically the point of the whole trend lies in that we live in a world that is too busy. There isn't enough time to fit everything in. We want children whom are well rounded. They want to do scouts, play sports, take dance, karate, gymnastics, piano lessons, religion classes etc... Plus with recess times in many schools being cut back or taken out completely the question is being asked when do kids just get to be kids.

The one story I heard in one school district started because the parents acutally were just outraged by their kids coming home with 2-3 hours worth of homework a day. The kids could not do the extracurricular activities, do homework, and get to bed at a decent hour. They took it to the school district and basically started a homework boycott and in the end the school did away with the homework. There are other stories where the decision has just been made at the top and they are limiting what the teachers can give or doing away with it completely.

My one daughter comes home frequently with 10-12 things to do for homework and it takes her hours to complete. One night on a day that she had scouts she was up till midnight doing homework. Finally I just said this is insane. Go to bed and I am sending a letter with you tomorrow.

So it is becoming a trend. It is still somewhat in the early stages of spreading.

Funny too, how just this morning my 2nd grader (who has maybe 15 minutes worth of homework each night if they don't get it done in school) was talking about how her teacher told them - just yesterday - that her neice goes to school in a larger city, is also in 2nd grade, and gets 2 to 3 hours a night!!!

Frustrating...our kids have got to be able to have the time to be kids!

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[I]"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it" - Ferris Bueller[/I]

maybe some teachers send tooo much homework home becuase they dont have enough time to teach on acocunt of too many disciplinary probs in the classroom (ie products of weak parenting) and too large of class size (ie budget cuts)

I dont know and am jsut tossing out ideas, botoom line,, its probably a complex issue.

when we get busywork home, we just ask the teacher, what the **** is the point of this, ie what is my kid supposed to learn from this? of course, i ask it in a different way, but letting the teacher know we dont do nonsense work, or rather, want work that is justifiable and has a valid reason behind it, is always good. its just toooo easy for them to copy worksheet pages and send em home......a little more thought and coherence has to go behind it, because at the end of the day, if kids end up doing non productive work at home, they get bored with education and busywork basically defeates the purpose of making them WANT to learn.

There's been a bunch of Harvard and FINE networkj studies done (I'll find the links someday again) that show that some homework reinforces skills taught, learned etc but that there isnt a noticable difference between comprehension, grades, etc between homework and no homework.

IMHO homework should be more of a ever few days thing and to help reinforce good study habits -not this busywork stuff.

I was notoriously bad at turning in homework (even as a small kid- I saw no point in it then) almost to the point of BIIG trouble- and I turned out just fine (graduated 18th out of 879 students in HS)

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[B]Liberalism is not an affilation its a curable disease. [/B]
[I][B]~Wisdom of Shawnshuefus[/B][/I]
[B]The punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to take part in government, is to live under the government of worse men."[/B]
[B][I]~Wisdom of Plato[/I][/B]

In the case of my one daughter who sometimes gets 2-3 hours worth of homework. She is in the 4th grade. They have different teachers for each subject and none of them are communicating with each other in terms of what they are asking these kids to do each night. So combined they have no idea that they have set these kids up to have hours worth of homework.

My daughter is in 2nd and gets about 1/2 hour a few math problems, spelling words, reading. Her teacher said right out at the begining of the year if a child couldn't do the 5 problems given then it wouldnt matter if it was 5 or 50they werent getting it and she wasnt doing her job. Which I totally agree with.
Her teacher on occasions has had them do their homework at school or sent home nothing because she knew the evening would be done doing something. Such as Open Houses, Halloween, things like that. Can you tell she has 4 kids in school? LOL

I think if my child had any more than an hour unless they were in high school then I would be talking to the principal or teachers. Unless it was a paper due and they had a few days to do it something like that I understand but I think a 4th grader with almost 3 hours is a bit much. I do think they should have some kind of homework but I don't believe in the excess of it is a bit crazy.

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Cindy

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"People have the right to be stupid, but some abuse the privelege."