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conuly
One of these shows up every year. As always, the comments are really funny. For some reason, the ones that are all "Oh, we need lots of homework so our students can compete are always misspelled. "Our brain is like a mussel", anybody? (And who says that the best way to exercise is to do repetetetetetetive busywork? There's no exercising your brain by cooking, doing chores, taking music lessons, playing with your friends?)
After Donna Cushlanis’s son kept bursting into tears midway through his second-grade math problems, which one night took over an hour, she told him not to do all of his homework.
“How many times do you have to add seven plus two?” Ms. Cushlanis, 46, said. “I have no problem with doing homework, but that put us both over the edge. I got to the point that this is enough.”
Ms. Cushlanis, a secretary for the Galloway school district, complained to her boss, Annette C. Giaquinto, the superintendent. It turned out that the district, which serves 3,500 kindergarten through eighth-grade students, was already re-evaluating its homework practices. The school board will vote this summer on a proposal to limit weeknight homework to 10 minutes for each year of school — 20 minutes for second graders, and so forth — and ban assignments on weekends, holidays and school vacations.
Galloway, a mostly middle-class community northwest of Atlantic City, is part of a wave of districts across the nation trying to remake homework amid concerns that high-stakes testing and competition for college have fueled a nightly grind that is stressing out children and depriving them of play and rest, yet doing little to raise achievement, particularly in elementary grades.
Such efforts have drawn criticism from some teachers and some parents who counter that students must study more, not less, if they are to succeed. Even so, the anti-homework movement has been reignited in recent months by the documentary “Race to Nowhere,” about burned-out students caught in a pressure-cooker educational system.
“There is simply no proof that most homework as we know it improves school performance,” said Vicki Abeles, the filmmaker and a mother of three from California. “And by expecting kids to work a ‘second shift’ in what should be their downtime, the presence of schoolwork at home is negatively affecting the health of our young people and the quality of family time.”
So teachers at Mango Elementary School in Fontana, Calif., are replacing homework with “goal work” that is specific to individual student’s needs and that can be completed in class or at home at his or her own pace. The Pleasanton School District, north of San Jose, Calif., is proposing this month to cut homework times by nearly half and prohibit weekend assignments in elementary grades because, as one administrator said, “parents want their kids back.”
Ridgewood High School in New Jersey introduced a homework-free winter break in December. Schools in Bleckley County, Ga., have instituted “no homework nights” throughout the year. The Brooklyn School of Inquiry, a gifted and talented program, has made homework optional.
“I think people confuse homework with rigor,” said Donna Taylor, the Brooklyn School’s principal, who views homework for children under 11 as primarily benefiting parents by helping them feel connected to the classroom.
The homework revolution has also spread north to Toronto, which in 2008 banned homework for kindergartners and for older children on school holidays, and to the Philippines, where the education department recently opposed weekend assignments so that students can “enjoy their childhood.”
Research has long suggested that homework in small doses can reinforce basic skills and help young children develop study habits, but that there are diminishing returns, said Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. The 10-minute guideline has generally been shown to be effective, Dr. Cooper said, adding that over all, “there is a minimal relationship between how much homework young kids do and how well they test.”
Still, efforts to roll back homework have been opposed by those who counter that there is not enough time in the school day to cover required topics and that homework reinforces classroom learning. In Coronado, Calif., the school board rejected a proposal by the superintendent to eliminate homework on weekends and holidays after some parents said that was when they had time to help their children and others worried it would result in more homework on weeknights.
“Most of our kids can’t spell without spell check or add unless it comes up on the computer,” said Karol Ball, 51, who has two teenage sons in the Atlantic City district. “If we coddle them when they’re younger, what happens when they get into the real world? No one’s going to say to them, ‘You don’t have to work extra hard to get that project done; just turn in what you got.’ ”
Homework wars have divided communities for over a century. In the 1950s, the Sputnik launching ushered in heavier workloads for American students in the race to keep up with the Soviet Union. The 1983 report “A Nation at Risk” and, more recently, the testing pressures of the No Child Left Behind law, also resulted in more homework for children at younger ages.
A few public and private schools have renounced homework in recent years, but most have sought a middle ground. In Galloway, the policy would stipulate that homework cover only topics already addressed in class.
“It’s been a fairly rote, thoughtless process for a long time, and schools are starting to realize this is a problem,” said Cathy J. Vatterott, an associate education professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis and author of “Rethinking Homework.”
But Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, views policies dictating how to do homework as “taking something that should be professional practice and making it into an assembly-line process.” Dr. Giaquinto, Galloway’s superintendent, said the goal of the proposed policy was to make homework “meaningful and manageable,” noting that teachers would have to coordinate assignments so that a student’s total homework would not exceed the time limit.
Ms. Cushlanis, a single mother of triplets who are in different classes, is looking forward to having things standardized. Last year, in second grade, her son Nathan had twice as much homework as his brothers; this year, her son Jared has the most. If the boys do not finish their homework, they must do so the next day during recess.
“They shouldn’t be bombarded with homework,” Ms. Cushlanis said. “Kids need to be able to play; they need outlets.”
But William Parker, a construction worker who attended the Galloway schools and has a nephew in first grade, said the policy might lead children to focus on the clock rather than on their studies.
“This is so stupid,” Mr. Parker said. “Part of growing up is having a lot of homework every day. You’re supposed to say, ‘I can’t come out and play because I have to stay in and do homework.’ ”
After Donna Cushlanis’s son kept bursting into tears midway through his second-grade math problems, which one night took over an hour, she told him not to do all of his homework.
“How many times do you have to add seven plus two?” Ms. Cushlanis, 46, said. “I have no problem with doing homework, but that put us both over the edge. I got to the point that this is enough.”
Ms. Cushlanis, a secretary for the Galloway school district, complained to her boss, Annette C. Giaquinto, the superintendent. It turned out that the district, which serves 3,500 kindergarten through eighth-grade students, was already re-evaluating its homework practices. The school board will vote this summer on a proposal to limit weeknight homework to 10 minutes for each year of school — 20 minutes for second graders, and so forth — and ban assignments on weekends, holidays and school vacations.
Galloway, a mostly middle-class community northwest of Atlantic City, is part of a wave of districts across the nation trying to remake homework amid concerns that high-stakes testing and competition for college have fueled a nightly grind that is stressing out children and depriving them of play and rest, yet doing little to raise achievement, particularly in elementary grades.
Such efforts have drawn criticism from some teachers and some parents who counter that students must study more, not less, if they are to succeed. Even so, the anti-homework movement has been reignited in recent months by the documentary “Race to Nowhere,” about burned-out students caught in a pressure-cooker educational system.
“There is simply no proof that most homework as we know it improves school performance,” said Vicki Abeles, the filmmaker and a mother of three from California. “And by expecting kids to work a ‘second shift’ in what should be their downtime, the presence of schoolwork at home is negatively affecting the health of our young people and the quality of family time.”
So teachers at Mango Elementary School in Fontana, Calif., are replacing homework with “goal work” that is specific to individual student’s needs and that can be completed in class or at home at his or her own pace. The Pleasanton School District, north of San Jose, Calif., is proposing this month to cut homework times by nearly half and prohibit weekend assignments in elementary grades because, as one administrator said, “parents want their kids back.”
Ridgewood High School in New Jersey introduced a homework-free winter break in December. Schools in Bleckley County, Ga., have instituted “no homework nights” throughout the year. The Brooklyn School of Inquiry, a gifted and talented program, has made homework optional.
“I think people confuse homework with rigor,” said Donna Taylor, the Brooklyn School’s principal, who views homework for children under 11 as primarily benefiting parents by helping them feel connected to the classroom.
The homework revolution has also spread north to Toronto, which in 2008 banned homework for kindergartners and for older children on school holidays, and to the Philippines, where the education department recently opposed weekend assignments so that students can “enjoy their childhood.”
Research has long suggested that homework in small doses can reinforce basic skills and help young children develop study habits, but that there are diminishing returns, said Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. The 10-minute guideline has generally been shown to be effective, Dr. Cooper said, adding that over all, “there is a minimal relationship between how much homework young kids do and how well they test.”
Still, efforts to roll back homework have been opposed by those who counter that there is not enough time in the school day to cover required topics and that homework reinforces classroom learning. In Coronado, Calif., the school board rejected a proposal by the superintendent to eliminate homework on weekends and holidays after some parents said that was when they had time to help their children and others worried it would result in more homework on weeknights.
“Most of our kids can’t spell without spell check or add unless it comes up on the computer,” said Karol Ball, 51, who has two teenage sons in the Atlantic City district. “If we coddle them when they’re younger, what happens when they get into the real world? No one’s going to say to them, ‘You don’t have to work extra hard to get that project done; just turn in what you got.’ ”
Homework wars have divided communities for over a century. In the 1950s, the Sputnik launching ushered in heavier workloads for American students in the race to keep up with the Soviet Union. The 1983 report “A Nation at Risk” and, more recently, the testing pressures of the No Child Left Behind law, also resulted in more homework for children at younger ages.
A few public and private schools have renounced homework in recent years, but most have sought a middle ground. In Galloway, the policy would stipulate that homework cover only topics already addressed in class.
“It’s been a fairly rote, thoughtless process for a long time, and schools are starting to realize this is a problem,” said Cathy J. Vatterott, an associate education professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis and author of “Rethinking Homework.”
But Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, views policies dictating how to do homework as “taking something that should be professional practice and making it into an assembly-line process.” Dr. Giaquinto, Galloway’s superintendent, said the goal of the proposed policy was to make homework “meaningful and manageable,” noting that teachers would have to coordinate assignments so that a student’s total homework would not exceed the time limit.
Ms. Cushlanis, a single mother of triplets who are in different classes, is looking forward to having things standardized. Last year, in second grade, her son Nathan had twice as much homework as his brothers; this year, her son Jared has the most. If the boys do not finish their homework, they must do so the next day during recess.
“They shouldn’t be bombarded with homework,” Ms. Cushlanis said. “Kids need to be able to play; they need outlets.”
But William Parker, a construction worker who attended the Galloway schools and has a nephew in first grade, said the policy might lead children to focus on the clock rather than on their studies.
“This is so stupid,” Mr. Parker said. “Part of growing up is having a lot of homework every day. You’re supposed to say, ‘I can’t come out and play because I have to stay in and do homework.’ ”
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-12 07:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 03:45 pm (UTC)It's not mentioned in this article, but they've found in some cases (using hidden cameras) that some teachers do practically nothing in class and then send their kids home with piles of reading and busywork. Restricting the amount of homework will hopefully get these lazy teachers to do at least the bare minimum of classroom work.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 05:49 pm (UTC)Yes, teachers ought to be using class time for teaching, not for busywork and crowd control. In the interests of that, let's have better wages for teachers, to attract and hold higher-quality people. Let's have smaller class sizes so teachers can actually get to know their students. Let's eliminate all this half-day-early-dismissal nonsense, so students are actually in school five full days a week to be taught. Let's stop wasting half the school day herding children like cattle from classroom to classroom for no good reason, and instead have the teachers do the moving. Let's embrace the 21st Century and put all the teaching materials online, so we can stop wasting money on heaps of heavy paper that quickly become obsolete. Let's chop the amount of meaningless busywork piled on teachers - the endless paperwork, inefficient meetings and pseudo-social obligations - so they actually have time to teach. And finally, let's chop all the fluff out of the curriculum - all the sugar-coated social engineering and fake 'fun' - and get back to teaching essential skills like spelling, arithmetic and critical thinking.
That last is a biggee for me. As a teacher, I fought an ongoing but mostly unsuccessful war against 'fake fun', which I see as being one of the root causes of our problems both in the education system, and in modern society in general. Everything is artificially sweetened; even the textbooks these days look more like comic books, with their cutesie illustrations and colored sidebars of games and jokes. It's the Sesame Street mentality turned into a national epidemic, and it's ruined a lot of people for any real education, because they've been sold on the idea that Learning Is Fun!
Note, I'm not dissing Sesame Street. I love it too; it rocks; it's the greatest children's show in history. That's the point: it's a TV show. It is not school. Sesame Street was originally conceived as a way to smuggle at least some early learning to the disadvantaged little children in the inner cities, many of whom had never handled a book or known anybody who'd read one. If they had nothing but television, better they watched gentle puppets singing about letters, numbers and friendship, than macho stereotypes shooting, blowing shit up and crashing cars - and the puppets had to be amusing enough to hold their interest against the competition on other channels. All fine, as far as it goes.
But school is not meant to be passive entertainment. It's not something you do because it's fun, or because you're bored and there's nothing better on. School is work you have to do, whether you like it or not. School is where your parents send you, probably over your protests, because the law of your society requires that you be taught the basic skills and knowledge that will fit you to be a productive adult citizen. Certainly it's better if teachers are kind and friendly, textbooks are interesting and classrooms are comfortable and attractive - just as it's better if one's adult station in life is comfortable and interesting - but all that is 'gravy', not essential and not guaranteed.
Learning isn't always fun. A lot of learning is hard, painful work, and you can't just change the channel. Adult life is often hard and painful even to those with knowledge and skills; woe to those whose misguided elders let them 'choose' not to acquire them because it wasn't 'fun'.
I say, make school real school again, and not 'play therapy' - six hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year - and there will not be the need to pile busywork homework on students just to make it look like the school is Really Trying. Or better still, put the State's required curriculum all online, let students go through it at their own pace, whether at home or in the classroom, and they graduate when they're done, whether at age 14 or age 24.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 06:35 pm (UTC)Indeed. It makes sense for high schoolers to move around, they all have separate schedules. But when in middle school, when the kids all have the same schedule per homeroom, why not have the teachers go to them? (Heck, even in high school, why not schedule more like college, with longer blocks less frequently?)
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 06:36 pm (UTC)Except that if you didn't grasp the homework first thing, you never ever had a chance to catch up!
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 10:10 pm (UTC)I think it's fine for learning to be fun. There's nothing better than learning about something from a teacher truly passionate about their subject.