Stop Homework Now

For years, while Megan was attending elementary school, I had a pretty set routine: After dropping her off, I'd immediately stop at the Starbucks around the corner and get a latte. Most days, I'd drive back home and go to work – unless I was stuck on something. Then, I found it helpful to just stay at Starbucks and use the HotSpot there (something about a change of scenery and getting away from the tyranny of nagging household chores, which can be a tempting way to avoid writing).

Of course, working at Starbucks has its own temptations, in the form of all the other moms who do the same thing in the morning. There were plenty of days when I ended up just gabbing with them. Then again, those impromptu kaffeeklatsches often provided new fodder for my blogs, so I like to think of them as research (and therapy).

But my life has been less orderly since we began the middle school chapter of our lives, back in September. For one thing, Megan's magnet school is six miles from home, and there are no nearby coffee joints with wi-fi. Another complication has been the lifestyle changes I began implementing over the summer (and am still trying to make permanent, with varying success). I'm talking about the horrible, restrictive weight loss diet and the clinic I must visit daily for weight counseling, as well as my thrice-weekly sessions at a local gym. I no longer have the luxury of working straight through Megan's 8:00 – 3:00 school day. On top of that, the round trip to any of those destinations and back to my house is about 20 minutes. Three or four of those in the course of a day would mean spending an hour or more just driving.

I try to minimize the driving time by combining these trips. And for two or three days in the course of the week, I simply don't go home, staying in the vicinity of the school/clinic/gym. I'm HotSpotting at Starbucks more than ever now, just not at the one where everybody knows my name.

And so that's where I wrote Tuesday's post, lamenting about the tough start we had this week. And just moments after I finished it, my husband called.

Hubs likes to get to work really early in the morning. That's when he's most productive, because he can work in peace before everyone else arrives at his office. So our alarm goes off at 5:00 and he's kissing me goodbye by 6:00, so we don't actually get to talk until around lunchtime, when he usually calls me (unless he's having a particularly busy day).

The first topic of conversation is usually our daughter.

"I hate that she has to get up so early in the morning," he said.

I hate it, too. But for the time being, I don't see any way out of it. As long as our daughter is involved in a demanding sport like gymnastics, which requires her to train for four hours a day after school and get home after 8:00 p.m., which barely gives her enough time to eat and chill out a little before going to bed, managing her homework is going to be an issue.

I pointed out that all of Megan's teammates are in the same boat, but that most of them just stay up until the homework is done (sometimes at 11:00 p.m., which is way too late for a sixth grader). In this respect, our daughter takes after me: after a certain time of day, our brains are no longer capable of focusing on anything more involved than watching something mindless on television. But after a good night's sleep, we're fresh and energetic and can tackle the work in half the time.

At the end of the phone call, the woman sitting beside me introduced herself. "I'm sorry for listening in on your conversation," she said.

She told me she's a teacher on sabbatical, working on a Master's thesis that will prove that the kind of homework routinely assigned to young children today are beyond the abilities of kids under the age of 14.

She also told me that Mondays are the WORST day of the week to give kids a lot of work, especially the first day after a long winter break. "They need some time to get their minds back in gear," she said, adding that in her classes, she NEVER assigned Monday homework.

We chatted more about the homework issue, and how it's changed so much from when we were young. She said that it's not just anecdotal that kids are loaded down with more work today; it's a fact. It doesn't just get in the way of children's extracurricular activities, the homework load interferes with important family time as well.

She told me that her sister is a retired middle school teacher, and would often assign essays just to meet weekly grading quotas, even though she would end up having little time to actually read them. So the kids would just be graded on whether or not the work was done. "Kids can tell when an assignment is just bulls**t," she said.

And she directed to me to this site, which advocates reducing the ridiculous amount of extra work our kids are being assigned; work which is being proved IS NOT HELPING our kids learn better or more efficiently. Oddly enough, I'd seen it before. Another teacher who stops by here regularly also directed me there.

I immediately ordered Sara Bennett's book, The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It. I am looking forward to reading it, because I'm getting tired of how much stress the homework is putting on my daughter and our entire family.

As it's been the last several weeks, the homework load on the subsequent days has been minimal. Although Megan did report to me on Wednesday that she had homework for PE.

P-E.

It was a two-sided sheet with a diagram of the major muscles in the human body. Megan was supposed to label them. Fair enough.

But then she was supposed to COLOR each muscle according to a key on the sheet.

With her limited time, she's expected to do a coloring project?

I don't believe in doing your kids' homework, but I figured this was a time when I could step in and help. I spent a half hour Wednesday night coloring.

Comments

[Liz Ditz]

Thanks for the link to the Stop Homework blog.

Homework for four-year-olds? Sheex.

Until Jumper Girl became a rapid & accurate keyboarder, she dictated her essays/written responses to me & I keyboarded. Then she would edit. I don't think that's too much help.

[Suzanne]

I'm a teacher at an inner-city school. I'd rather work with my students in class having them master the skill than have them take home/not do/loose/etc/ the homework. But...rather than doing the work for her, consider communicating with the PE teacher. I appreciate when my students, fellow teachers, etc. talk to me because it allows me to evaluate the comments and make changes immediately, if necessary. I can't change if I don't know that there's a problem. Just wanted to present the other side! And kudos to you for being involved in your child's education. Over the past 2 years, I've met with a total of 8 parents during Parent/Teacher conference days - no wonder my students have no interest in academics!

[Karen Sugarpants]

I completely agree. My oldest is in Grade 4 and he has about an hour every day! Pile on hockey games, hockey school, power skating, and practices, and he's feeling overwhelmed.
I once sent back a colouring assignment to the teacher and told her he has better things to do. It's not her fault, I know - and he completed the assignment otherwise, definitely reinforcing whatever the subject was. Colouring though? Come on.

[Anonymommy]

I think it's the 4 hours of daily gymnastics that is excessive. 4 hours!? Is she training for the Olympics?! Otherwise, that is insane.

[Donna]

Hi, Anonymommy -- You're right - it IS insane. And I've ruminated over it on my blog several times over the last four years as we got deeper into it. But that kind of training is what it takes in this particular sport (future Olympians train even more), and I'm discovering, it's the kind of time that is being required of our kids these days in a lot of other sports (so I guess it's an epidemic of insanity).

That said, it's really another issue. This post concerned the observation of several teachers I've met who say the real insanity is the type and amount of homework they are forced to assign our kids, from the minute they enter kindergarten. My daughter won't be a gymnast forever. But I hope that the reason she moves on is because she's ready, NOT because she has too much homework.

Thank you for visiting my blog and for commenting!

[Heidi]

First time reader; saw the tagline on "More from Blogher" and had to come read this post. I just wanted to recommend another great anti-homework resource. It's Alfie Kohn's book, The Homework Myth. I'm a former elementary school teacher and when I read his book I was livid. Kohn argues that there's no evidence that HW for anyone under 10th grade is helpful and in many cases there is evidence that it is harmful. Why did this never come up in my teacher training? (I still get riled up easily, sorry.) I don't know how I will handle this when/if I return to teaching or when my kids enter school. I look forward to checking out the book and site you suggested. Thanks for bringing this up.

[Melissa]

My daughter is in the same boat (but for us, it's Premier level soccer and lots of homework). She has soccer practice 3 days a week right now, for 2.5 hours (w/ 40- 60 minutes of commuting), basketball practice one night, and basketball game another night. Add in the hour of homework (minimum), and it's hard to do much else. I feel your pain and I'm going to have to read the books mentioned above.

[Sara Bennett]

Thanks for linking to my blog, www.stophomework.com; you sent a lot of traffic my way. I enjoyed your story of how you learned of my site and book. I really like the grassroots, word-of-mouth aspect

I hope you find both useful in figuring out ways to make life more manageable in your own family. And I hope you can join together with a few other parents and change some policies at your school or in your District. Thanks again.