Have a great summer. And, if you’re looking for a book to read yourself, please take a look at the book list I just added.

Intrigued, I emailed his mother, Julia Rhodes, to find out a little more. She told me that her son, who had been diagnosed with a learning disability when he was young, was “smart as a whip,” but struggled in school. His grades in elementary school reflected his refusal to do homework and when he went to high school, he decided that he would negotiate a deal so that he wouldn’t have to do homework. “A great communicator,” her son talked to his teachers and made deals with them. He told them he would help them, tutor other students, and do well on his tests, but that he just couldn’t face doing the “mundane, day-to-day work.” And his teachers, eager to keep the personable athlete in their Sonora, California, high school, agreed. Even through college, her son negotiated deals with teachers.

Rhodes, a single mother and a teacher for many years, instilled in her son “the belief that he could do anything. I didn’t care about his grades,” she told me. “Not everyone has to be an A student. I’d seen too many driven kids, and they weren’t happy or passionate about what they were doing. I just wanted my son to believe in himself and I helped him learn how to advocate for himself.”

Math students in this high-performing school district used to rush through their Algebra I textbooks only to spend the first few months of Algebra II relearning everything they forgot or failed to grasp the first time.

So the district’s frustrated math teachers decided to rewrite the algebra curriculum, limiting it to about half of the 90 concepts typically covered in a high school course in hopes of developing a deeper understanding of key topics. Last year, they began replacing 1,000-plus-page math textbooks with their own custom-designed online curriculum; the lessons are typically written in Westport and then sent to a program in India, called HeyMath!, to jazz up the algorithms and problem sets with animation and sounds.

Read the story here.

A Former Graduate Student Speaks Out

I admire your mission. The subject of how I spent my life doing homework and what turned out to be worthless schooling is a subject I often cry and get angry about, but a past situation I would for one like to make up for, and also a situation that I would like to help others on. I am turning 30 now, and have a lot of living to catch up on and have wasted many of my best years.

Actually my grade school, middle school, and high school were mostly fairly run and had opportunities for the smart and driven students, but they forced students to do work whether they liked it or not. The harder courses were taught by efficient, inspired, and helpful teachers. The dumber courses were run like penitentiaries. I myself was a very smart and driven student, eager to get work done early.

The problem that I and most students faced was that doing our work better and faster only led to getting placed into harder courses that assigned even more work. There was no incentive to reach completion since we were like hamsters caught in a wheel. The faster we ran, the more the wheel turned. The dumber courses did not teach anything, but just wasted time, and assigned about the same amount of work- just dumber and more repetitive. Students who were non-compliant or who failed certain mandatory tests were forced into yet more schooling, summer classes, and force-fed education-–which we all feared.

The good thing is that I used my high school to place out of 35 college credits–through the advanced placement program, and earned full scholarships to college. The down side was that I was putting off living a normal life, believing the sacrifice would pay off.

Even with scholarships though, the work in college was grueling, while keeping the scholarships depended on maintaining stringent GPA requirements. I graduated with a degree in physics and minor in mathematics with a good GPA, but once again, I had put off living a normal life.

The beginning of the senior year in college, I realized there was not really any available employment with just a bachelor’s degree and so I was persuaded to take hard courses in order to get into graduate school. Being successful at them, I then went on to graduate school to be a research scientist, and did all the requirements of a master’s degree, but never finished my thesis since there was lack of funding for that field of research and I had realized that I was pursuing a dead-end career.

Since then, I’ve spent 5 of the last 6 years either unemployed or severely under-employed, all the while desperately looking for work. In spite of my immense knowledge, talent, and work ethic, my credentials and experiences were considered worthless. My former teachers only recommended more schooling to earn Masters and PHd’s–though many of their students were also unemployed and many deeply in debt from their schooling. None of the people I had spent so much time with and worked so hard for had any real leads at all to any employment, just more schooling. Even a dean of my undergraduate college said to me that “Education is nice to have, but it does not really matter. We just do whatever, anyway.”

At first I felt unfortunate, but then I felt betrayed. Among the jobs I had the last 6 years, I sold watches in the mall, folded shirts in a department store, washed dishes in a restaurant, cleaned toilets, and mopped floors at minimum wage to find work. I never imagined that my diligence would lead to that. Obviously, most of the recent jobs have not contributed anything to my resume or finances. The one good job I had was as an engineer’s assistant, but the position only lasted a year until we completed major projects. I thought I would find similar work soon, but all the companies I had found were either outsourcing or laying off their workers.

I would sure like to use my talents to earn a living wage, but for now, I am just doing a part-time government job which is just 20 hours a month and below $15 an hour. I have lived with my parents for the last 6 years and we are all very concerned since the economy has only gotten worse.

In some ways though, the past few years were a blessing to catch up on life, and to get to know my own family better–a few of them who only had a few more years left in them. I enjoy living myself, having nearly missed out on life, and I have been grateful to reclaim a life of my own.

And so, I say to everyone as a hard learned lesson: There is a world of difference between a mirage of promises and what is truly rewarding in life. Live lives of meaning and purpose and to thy own self be true.

We Hold Their Hands Too Much
by K, a College Teacher

Having your teen carry a cell phone is a good idea for many reasons. But, I would argue, it is also a bad idea for those same reasons. If your teenager gets a flat tire, they should be able to fix it without calling daddy. If they find themselves alone at home and hungry, they should be able to feed themselves without calling a parent. This topic is covered very nicely by Lenore Skenazy over at freerangekids.

You may think that I exaggerate, but many college students can scarcely survive a day without having their parents run interference for them. For example, I teach a study abroad course in the Caribbean. The charter flights operate on Caribbean time: Planes have been late, rescheduled, cancelled, and we were once told that our flight didn’t even exist. If you travel a lot, this probably sounds familiar. When it happens to you, you go into problem-solving mode, right? You stay calm and kind, but insistent. You figure it out. What has been fascinating is some of my students’ reactions. I have seen them cry, throw up their hands and say “we’ll never get to the beach”, and call mommy and daddy.

They also call mom and dad for fairly routine situations. When I had a van
break down on a trip, one students starting crying, saying, “now we’ll never get home”, and, again, called mommy and daddy. By the time I had arranged to tow the broken van and had ordered a rental replacement, I had several parents call my cell phone to make sure that little Jimmy or Jane was okay. In some cases, it isn’t even a problem that prompts the need to call their parents. Recently, a student was on the verge of tears because there wasn’t cell phone coverage at our remote location. She said, “I have to talk to my parents every day, otherwise they worry.” Does a young adult really have to report to mom and dad that she has survived another harrowing day in college? Another child called mommy for an hour-long chat every single day of her year abroad in Japan.

Anyone who has finished high school should know how to cook a meal, do their own laundry, read a map, and fix a flat. They should be able to cope with life’s routine challenges without requiring advice. I find it disconcerting that a twenty year-old woman told me she was frightened about flying a commercial airline without a “grown-up” to help her find the gate (true story). How can they be expected to get a job, pay their bills and contribute to society if they can’t help themselves through the airport? Eighteen year-old “children” are serving our country in war zones: We should expect more of the ones who stay home – they can handle it.

As much as students are accustomed to mommy and daddy holding their hands through every routine bump and bruise in daily life, they are used to teachers holding their hands through every academic challenge. Each assignment is expected to include a laundry list of expected content, page limits, citation expectations (down to precise numbers and acceptable sources), and instructions on how they should introduce and conclude their work. Assignments that should be outlets for creative and innovative thinking and problem solving become big fill-in-the-blank worksheets. These assignments become hopelessly tedious, but they are so easy that we can have students do more of them. More is better, right?

It wasn’t always this way. While we have needlessly increased the volume of written work, we have dumbed-down our expectations. In literature courses, my father (in the 1950’s) always had one weekly writing assignment. The assignment never varied – he was to write an essay on “some facet of this week’s reading that you found interesting.” Nothing more needed to be said. By the time I was in school (in the 1980’s), the assignment had been fine-tuned to one broad question about the specific work that we should address. Apparently, we have continued to add specificity to the assignments until they have become meaningless. While I don’t really advocate leaping back to “write about something interesting,” I propose that we support intellectual development by giving fewer, but more meaningful, assignments. We should only assign work that has defined learning goals and requires students to demonstrate mastery of content or independent thought.

Teaching requires putting students into situations that they can only escape by thinking. This is true whether we are teaching life lessons or academic ones.

Interview with Kerry Dickinson
by Sara Bennett

“I encourage parents to be respectfully vocal”

–Kerry Dickinson, parent, Danville, California

What prompted you to try to change homework policy in your community?
Last year, when my older son started eighth grade, he had a really bad experience with an algebra class and he started saying he hated middle school. He had always had a great outlook on life and had always loved school, so I felt sad that he was suddenly saying he hated it. I started looking back on his schooling, and I realized that each year he liked it less and less. At the same time, I had a sixth grader who had been struggling since second grade with tests, school and homework. I focused on homework because I was sick of helping them with their projects and feeling like the homework wasn’t turning them on to school but, in fact, was having the opposite effect.

What did you do?

I got together with my friend Julie Kurtz, who also has 2 teenage boys. and who had faced similar issues about trying to raise well-balanced kids in our fast-paced, high-achieving community. We sent out an email to 10 friends and held an informal meeting at my home.

One of the things that spurred me was The Homework Myth by Alfie Kohn. I discovered that Kohn articulated a lot of the feelings I’d been having about education and homework. I shared the book at that meeting and we started talking about how the problem was multi-dimenionsal, from homework, to over-scheduling our kids, to the quality of instruction, etc.

We decided that Julie and I should go to the Superintendent’s office with our concerns. We were going to focus on the quality and quantity of homework with the hope that the district would re-write its outdated homework policy to better address these issues.

Before we went to the Superintendent’s office, we took an informal homework survey of 100 children. When I tallied it up, parents thought that 50-60 percent of the homework was of high quality, which means that 40-50 percent of it was low quality. We also asked the parents to ask their children to describe homework and most had negative things to say such as “stupid” or “boring.” The kids described their best homework as fun projects.

I typed the survey results into a spreadsheet and we took that, along with Kohn’s book, some articles I’d found on the internet, information I’d gotten from you at stophomework.com and a copy of the District Policy, which had been written in 1995.

We met with the Director of Curriculum Instruction, who was a dad with children of his own and had an appreciation of the problem. We felt like we made an impression because within a week, he got back to us, said that the District agreed that the policy was outdated invited us to be on a task force to rewrite the policy.

I eagerly agreed to participate on the task force made up of 19 parents, teachers, and administrators. We met twice a month for about six months and hammered out a revised policy. Sometimes I was frustrated during the meetings, but the upshot is that we have a better policy than we had before which includes a paragraph about the importance of family time that came straight out of Toronto, Canada’s new policy.

Were there things you didn’t get in the policy?
I really wanted an opt-out option, which you recommended to me, and I also wanted a clause that children wouldn’t face punitive measures, such as being kept in from recess, if they didn’t turn in homework.

Were you worried about repercussions for speaking up?
It’s been kind of an emotional roller coaster. Some days I’ll hear positive things from parents about how grateful they are for the new policy. But then sometimes I feel somewhat like an outcast at my kids’ schools. It’s worth it though, so I encourage parents to be respectfully vocal at their schools.

What are you doing now that you have a new policy in your community?
I send out a weekly email that started with 10 friends and now it’s up to 200 people. I write about these issues, send out articles that I think are interesting, and try to encourage parents to email their concerns to the teachers.

Whenever I have concerns about something at either or my sons’ schools, I email the teachers or principals. In the fall, my son’s school instituted a Zeros Aren’t Permitted policy, which required students to finish uncompleted homework during lunchtime. I wrote a detailed email to the principal about why this was such a bad idea, and the program was turned into a voluntary program.

I also asked the district to change the homepage on its scheduling website so that students wouldn’t see their grades as soon as they log on. It may seem minor, but it helps the students and parents to be less focused on grades. I’ve also become an advisor to the film Race to Nowhere. I’ve helped to bring the film to our district, and I keep on thinking about, reading about, and talking about these issues with friends and teachers.

In my own home, I almost never say the “H” word anymore. I do not require my kids to come home and do homework. I encourage them to go out and run around or chill out. I almost never help them with homework. If they ask, I’ll help, but I don’t hyper-parent their homework and tests like I used to. I’ve encouraged my older son not to add an extra class into his high school schedule. I think an extra hour of sleep is more important. And, I moved my laptop out of the kitchen and into our home office. I didn’t want to model working 24/7 and not give my kids my full attention when they were talking to me.

Interview with Paul Richards, Principal of Needham High
by Sara Bennett

” Schools need to look at their own practices.They need to educate teachers, parents and students on the culture of stress.”

–Paul Richards, principal, Needham High, Needham, Massachusetts

Is stress really a problem for high school students?

Yes. In the twenty years since I was a high school student, the demands on students’ time have increased dramatically. The problem is created by the culture. Many parts of school culture in suburban schools are very positive and show definite links to achievement. But there’s an underside to it which affects both the physical and mental well-being of our students.

The affects are individualized. For some kids, it can be academic stress–too many AP classes, too much homework, too much competition. For others, it can be the overscheduling afterschool–homework competing with piano lessons or sports or community service. For some kids, it’s social stress.

At Needham High, we’ve chosen to focus entirely on academic stress because that’s our business. At the same time, we’ve been very clear that the parents have a big stake in reducing the stress. Many students will say that the primary stress comes from their parents’ expectations, namely name-brand colleges, high grades, and resumes full of accomplishments and activities.

What is the school’s role in creating stress?
Schools need to look at their own practices to see how they contribute to the amount of stress students face. They need to look at the way they use grades, rankings, GPAs, how much homework they assign.

What kind of steps have you taken to reduce stress?
We stopped publishing the school honor role in the newspaper a few years ago. We’re rewriting our homework policy this year. We’ve helped students with their schedules. When students sign up for courses, they map out their week, including how many hours they’ll be in the classroom, hours of homework, hours on extracurriculars, hours on personal hygiene, etc., to make sure they haven’t overloaded themselves.

We’ve had several parent assemblies, we’ve spoken to 8th-grade parents, and we’re going to have a community forum to share techniques.

The students developed a contract that they have their parents sign so the parents won’t look at the electronic grade book. Our system allowed parents access to the electronic grade book and some parents were a little too close to it, monitoring their children’s progress every day.

We’ve talked to the parents about why they shouldn’t micromanage, about how it’s important for the students to become responsible over the course of the 4 years so when they go to the college they can handle it and not be at their parents’ doorstep. These days, even graduate students and adult employees are coming back to their parents for help. We need to end that.

We’ve also been very active in providing stress management techniques. We partnered with the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, which runs programs in schools wanting to teach kids stress management techniques. Last year, 150 sophomores and juniors took part in their workshops. This year, they worked with the entire sophomore class.

And, our primary goal has been to move towards standards-based learning. That’s considered good practice–measuring kids against standards rather than seat time or homework completion. One of the benefits is it deemphasizes grades, and that’s a part of the stress equation. Some teachers have started grading with rubrics, which still translates to a bottom-line grade, but deemphasizes the 20 or 30 grades in a term, where every single piece of work counts.

One thing principals can do is determine what our relationship will be with the College Board. Some schools have dumped AP courses so that they can cover material in more depth. Still, we are stuck with state-mandated tests and, as a school, you have a legal and ethical obligation to cover the material that’s going to be on the test.

When students feel that their education is authentic, and when they have a good relationship with their teacher, they report feeling less stressed by the work, even if there’s a lot of it.

Any parting thoughts?
The sinking feeling in my gut is that we’re producing a generation which can perform very well on what we give them. They can study for a test and regurgitate the material, but the creativity, the individuality, the innovation, continue to be pushed aside. My sinking feeing is we’re producing a generation that will have the wrong skill set for what society really needs.

Later this month, he is sitting down with the administration at his school to look to develop a meaningful policy. So far, they have all agreed that the research does not support a policy that focuses on ‘time in each subject’ per night. “We want to lessen the load and create more teacher independence in decision-making regarding homework.”

Interview with Anthony
by Sara Bennett

“As a teacher, there’s a tension between what I want to do and what I’m supposed to do. I have to take small steps before I can take big ones. I have to go through the channels, go about it the right way.”

–Anthony, New York City fourth grade teacher

Why did you decide to research homework?
I teach in a very diverse school with a wide range of ethnicities and family economic statuses. Most of my students qualify for free lunch. Homework in elementary grades was a no-brainer of a topic for me. I hear so much about homework: stories from my parents of kids up too late, guidelines for how much to give each night from “above”, my “higher achieving” students asking me “why” they have to do homework, the lack of quality of the assignments, the time to check it taking away from my time in preparing better lessons, and mostly to me, how I’m not seeing its positive effects.

What are your school’s guidelines on homework?

The culture at our school is that homework is expected to be given. We receive a written breakdown of the time students should be spending in each academic area per night. (i.e. 40-50 minutes of reading, 20-30 in math, etc.). Even if you add up the minimum times across five subject areas, it totals 100 minutes per night in the fourth grade. I’ve noticed that as the quantity increases, the quality decreases. It looks like kids are trying to finish it and are not engaged in the assignments”

Do you follow the rules?
I’m in a bind. I’ve spent the last couple of months reading and reading and reading and conducting a literature review to see what the existing research out there has to say. And there’s no showing of a correlation between homework and academic achievement. But. at the same time, I have to follow the rules and make sure I give homework each night. I have to remain fairly consistent with my grade colleagues.

I’ve told my Assistant Principal that I’m studying homework and he’s very open to what I’m doing. He realizes there’s little correlation between homework and achievement and he’s open to having a conversation about what we’re doing and why.

Do you think your students get anything out of the homework?
It depends on the assignment. I try to create more assignments that both meet the requirements of our school’s policy and are valuable at home–assignments that involve students working with their families, communicating, and problem solving. But to a certain extent, a lot of the homework is busywork.

I do encourage my students to read for 30 minutes each night and I want them to read something enjoyable. So I let them choose what they’re going to read.

Do you discipline your students for non-compliance?
No. Luckily, that’s left up to the classroom teacher. I’m not going to stop one of my students from having recess, that’s much too important. I have kids who do less than 5 percent of the homework. I talk to them about why and get a lot of excuses.

However, as professionals, I think we need to stop placing blame on the students (and their parents) who don’t do homework and start looking at why they are not completing the assignments and at the assignments themselves.

Does homework take away from your teaching?
The one thing that’s become more clear to me is how less homework could make an enormous difference to both my students and to me, as a teacher. I don’t think many teachers realize how much time homework takes up–collecting it, checking it, passing it out, disciplining students for not completing it. And I don’t mean checking it to make sure it’s done properly–just to make sure it’s done. We don’t have time to provide feedback.

Given this new push on data, and given all of the testing, it’s a little scary how heavy our duties are. A change in homework policy could help us use our time in so many more effective ways.

Unfortunately, there’s this culture right now that “more is better.” Give the kids more time to write at home, give them more math to do at home, and they’ll get better at it. But we all agree deep down that that’s not logical and probably not even beneficial. We need to think more about the quality of our teaching. What could we be doing, how could we be doing it? What’s being missed? Where’s the breakdown in the learning? That’s what we need to focus on.

Interview with Mike Falick
by Sara Bennett

“I drive my 6th grade son and his friends to and from Boy Scouts. One of his friends said, “Homework’s killing me. I’m working 3 hours a night. When are you going to get rid of it?”

–Mike Falick, School Board Member, Spring Branch, Texas

Why did you get involved in the School Board?
I wanted to have a meaningful impact on school policy. I had been on a number of parent committees over the years, and I had been president of the PTA council, but I knew the only way I’d have systemic impact was if I became a School Board member. I ran and lost in 2002 and ran again and won in 2004. I ran unopposed and was reelected in 2007. There are 7 people on the Board.

What kind of positions do you take?
I’m a school reformer, but I’m not a grenade thrower. I try to bring everyone
together. I have focused on homework reform and on making sure that we provide the best educational opportunities to all kids. Our school population is unique. We have kids from both the richest and poorest zip codes in the state. The district as a whole is heterogeneous, but the schools are pretty homogenous. We have serious economic segregation. Some schools can raise $150,000 at an auction and some can’t raise $500 at a book fair.

Making sure that all kids get what they need is a challenge. Our Board developed a 5-year goal–to be the premier college-focused district in the state. What it means is that we don’t just focus on the academics–in fact most schools do provide good academics–but we focus on the emotional and social development of our students as well.

What is your role in trying to change your District’s homework policy?
I know, not only from my personal experience with my own children, but also from talking to other kids and my friends, that we’re beating the love of learning out of our kids.

In the summer of 2007, I read The Case Against Homework and it really resonated with me. Shortly after that, I got the District to put together a homework task force to study the issue. No Board members are on the Task Force. It’s primarily made up of faculty and staff.

The Task Force read The Case Against Homework, The Homework Myth and The Battle Over Homework. They then recommended a policy to the Board that wasn’t acceptable to me. Less than a page long, it had very little definition and, in my opinion, was weak. As with all proposals, we had a first reading at one meeting and then, at a later meeting, a second reading where people can make amendments.

I proposed 27 amendments. I took many of my ideas from a Toronto, Canada, policy I’d received from you. Toronto is one of the first jurisdictions in North America to pass a substantive homework reform policy.

The Board flipped out at all my amendments, but I wasn’t going to give up. Another Board member suggested we reconstitute the Task Force to add parents and community members, which we did. That Task Force met this past fall.

No matter how I feel about the new proposed policy, this is my community and I have to work with it. You might not get everything you want, or even any of you want. You just have to do your best.

Do you have any advice for other people who might want to run for School Board?
It’s a big time commitment, so you have to really be willing to work hard. And, you can’t just focus on a single issue. But, if you keep in mind that you’re there to serve the kids, then you will always make the right decision.

.

Interview with Jodie Leidecker
by Sara Bennett

“I made a vow that I wouldn’t stop until every kid in the state gets recess”
-Jodie Leidecker, parent, Berea, Kentucky

How is it that elementary schoolchildren don’t get recess?
In 1990, Kentucky passed the Kentucky Education Reform Act, which put a lot more pressure on teachers to meet test scores. As a way of getting in a little more academics, a lot of schools eliminated recess. My own daughter didn’t get recess regularly in elementary school at all–maybe a discretionary recess here and there, but there was no guarantee. Kentucky isn’t the only state where kids don’t get recess. This is a problem nation-wide.

How did you decide to challenge this?

I attended school advocacy classes at Forward in the Fifth (Congressional District)–classes set up to train parents to understand school governance and become education advocates. I live in one of the poorest regions in the country and they have these classes to try to increase both parental involvement and the numbers of high school graduates. They give you dinner and a stipend to attend.

There, we learned a lot about our rights, responsibilities, and what we could actually influence in our schools.

The recess issue came up over and over again. One day they brought in the research which conclusively shows that kids need recess. So I said, “well, my gosh, at least we can do this. This is something simple.”

What steps did you take?
I started talking to a lot of other parents about the importance of recess. I made little informational flyers (1, 2), including when the School Board would meet and whom to call, and I tucked them up wherever I went. People began calling the school and talking to their parent representatives on the Site-based Council.

I brought the issue to the Site-based Council, and they told me it was an issue for the School Board. So I went to the School Board and was told it was an issue for the Site-based Council. The lawyer at the School Board quoted pieces of statutes, which I didn’t really understand, but then when I went home and read the statutes, I saw it wasn’t saying anything I wasn’t.

Because parents were very strongly in favor of recess–I got 500 people to sign a petition to the Council, which I also sent to the State Board of Education–the Council finally made the decision that elementary children could have 15 minutes of recess a day. It’s not much, but it’s something.

After we got recess in our school, I wanted to see every school in Kentucky give their children recess. I started calling legislators, I got my friends around the state to put up flyers which said to call the legislative hotline, I emailed every education professor in the state, every professor at the colleges of health, and anyone else I could think of. Many have been interested and supportive. I finally got my legislator to agree to sponsor a bill, but he hasn’t done it yet.

These kinds of bills have been in the House and Senate before, primarily because of obesity. No one’s really talking about the importance of free play being crucial to a child’s health and development, but they will talk about obesity.

Were you worried about repercussions for speaking up?
I know there can be repercussions, but my daughter was such a good student and she never got in trouble, so I didn’t think it would come up. No one ever got resentful towards her. So that was lucky. I know that can happen.

Why did you decide to take on the issue of homework as well?
I first came across the issue of homework in an article in Mothering Magazine. Then, at the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year, I contacted you for advice, some resources, and some support. Since I’d already been through the recess issue, I started to do the same things. I made flyers with the fact sheet from The Case Against Homework, and passed them out in the car rider lines at both the elementary and middle/high schools. I got a good response from parents. A lot of them told me, “oh, I hate homework; it’s horrible for our family,” but no one contacted anyone or said anything to the school. So I contacted the school myself. The elementary school principal told me that there was already a homework policy in place and that he would remind the teachers not to exceed the time limits of 20 minutes in grades 1-3 and 20-40 minutes in grades 4-5.

Then I was invited to bring my concerns to the site-based Council–the same place I’d been with the recess issue. They decided they’d come up with a survey and they developed a fair-minded one, but then they decided not to implement it because they said they wouldn’t know what to do with the data.

Any parting words?
Children’s voices really get lost. Kids hate homework. Why is that? Kids love to play? Why is that?

Parents are concerned about their kids but they don’t have the resources to take on these issues. I just got an email from a parent who said, “I’m concerned, but I don’t have time. I have to help my kids with their homework right now.”

To kick off this series, I’m thrilled to introduce Christine Hendricks, the principal of a K-4 school in Glenrock, Wyoming, which implemented a no-homework practice in the Fall of 2007. Hendricks, who started out teaching 24 years ago and has been a principal for the past 12, is the single mother of a college-age daughter, a 7th-grade son, and a fifth-grade daughter. This coming Fall, she is moving to a new school in Fort Collins, Colorado, where the staff is “eager to learn more about her no-homework practices.”

Interview with Christine Hendricks
by Sara Bennett

“So many of our students are coming to school in survival mode, and I think, as a school, we need to help let kids be kids.”

–Christine Hendricks, principal, Grant Elementary, Glenrock, Wyoming

What motivated you to eliminate homework at your school?
We had been struggling with the concept of homework for awhile. There was a lot of conflict between teachers and students and students and parents over homework, we had parents asking for homework clubs, and I’d experienced the problem first-hand with my son, who’d been fighting me for years on doing his homework.

In the Fall of 2007, Kim Bevill of Brain Basics in Colorado came and did a workshop and she talked about how the research shows that homework doesn’t work. We went to a break and about 10 of my teachers came and said to me that we need to get rid of homework. And we just decided to try it.

Did you have the support of all of the teachers?
There are 25 teachers in my school, and most of them bought into it from
the beginning. Maybe it’s because we were struggling with homework; maybe it’s because most of my staff have children. My staff is pretty open and gung ho as far as trying new things. We do a lot of programs; we’re implementing an RTI model and we have a lot of programs in the area of literacy and math. For example, some kids get 60 minutes a day of extra reading. We were thinking: if kids were getting that much extra, they have to be exhausted and need time to go out and play. It was time to give them a break.

Were you worried about telling the parents?
I knew I was going to have to inform the parents of our decision. I contacted you and you gave me a letter another principal had written to his parents when he had taken a similar step. I adapted that letter and sent it out.

A lot of the parents were very grateful–”thank you so much, this is great.” At the beginning of the school year, kids are involved in a lot of activities, and some of them are 18 miles away. So parents are doing a lot of driving, their kids are getting home late, and everything just freed up.

But some parents wanted homework. We had discussed that as a staff in advance and we had decided that if parents asked for homework, the teachers would give them packets. So, in the beginning, a lot of parents were coming in and asking for packets. But that tapered off as the year went on. I think parents realized their kids were doing fine.

One of the biggest parental concerns was that homework was a way for them to know how their kids were doing in school. Our response was, “if you go through your child’s papers, you’ll have a great understanding.” We also tried to redo our report cards to better communicate how they’re doing.

You’ve had your no-homework practice for almost two full school years now. How is it working?
Even though we eliminated homework, we know what the research says about the importance of reading, so we encourage kids to read. We don”t require it, it’s not a homework assignment, it’s a suggestion. Many parents whose kids were struggling with reading started coming in and saying, “you know, he likes to read again. It’s not a struggle because he doesn’t have to fill in a journal entry, or answer questions about what he’s read.”

I don’t have any data, but I can tell you that not having homework isn’t hurting. I can tell you our test scores haven’t dropped, they continue to rise.

My teachers would attest that there’s less conflict at the first part of the day because there’s no homework. Children who didn’t do their homework used to start off the day on a bad note. The teacher would ride them about homework, they might have to call their parent, they might have been sent to my office. So there’s a big difference now in the relationship between the teacher and the student. And there’s a lot less conflict at home, too.

We also surveyed families and found that kids had more time to play outside, more family dinners, more reading, and an improved attitude towards school.

Some parents don’t realize that we don’t have homework, because their kid is still bringing home work that they didn’t finish during the day. So we have to change that. The kids aren’t using the class time wisely and the parents think they have homework. We have to figure out a way to work with the kids better so that they finish their work in class.

Did you have any trouble with the School Board?
No. I implemented a change in practice, not a change in policy. In fact, the middle school principal is trying to get his staff to give less homework.

Any parting words of advice?
Kids need to be kids again. They need to play, be outside, get enough sleep, they need interaction and talking and we need to get back to eating dinner together. Our society places so much stress on our kids. I know I do not like to work all evening after a day at school and would much rather spend time with my children than working on homework. I would guess teachers don’t like to work all night either, and I am sure neither do the children.

I don’t believe in high stakes tests. I wish they’d let us show that we’ve grown a kid each year rather than show how the child has done on one test.

I am currently a PhD student in the Mathematics and Science Education Department at the University of Georgia. For my dissertation, I want to investigate a school that has implemented a no homework policy, preferably a school that has continued to meet AYP and has had other positive benefits attributed to the homework policy. Do you know of a really good school(s) that would help me out with this?

If you have any ideas, please email Tonya Brooks.

Here’s how it begins:

A musician wakes from a terrible nightmare. In his dream he finds himself in a society where music education has been made mandatory. “We are helping our students become more competitive in an increasingly sound-filled world.” Educators, school systems, and the state are put in charge of this vital project. Studies are commissioned, committees are formed, and decisions are made—all without the advice or participation of a single working musician or composer.

Since musicians are known to set down their ideas in the form of sheet music, these curious black dots and lines must constitute the “language of music.” It is imperative that students become fluent in this language if they are to attain any degree of musical competence; indeed, it would be ludicrous to expect a child to sing a song or play an instrument without having a thorough grounding in music notation and theory. Playing and listening to music, let alone composing an original piece, are considered very advanced topics and are generally put off until college, and more often graduate school.

As for the primary and secondary schools, their mission is to train students to use this language— to jiggle symbols around according to a fixed set of rules: “Music class is where we take out our staff paper, our teacher puts some notes on the board, and we copy them or transpose them into a different key. We have to make sure to get the clefs and key signatures right, and our teacher is very picky about making sure we fill in our quarter-notes completely. One time we had a chromatic scale problem and I did it right, but the teacher gave me no credit because I had the stems pointing the wrong way.”

In their wisdom, educators soon realize that even very young children can be given this kind of musical instruction. In fact it is considered quite shameful if one’s third-grader hasn’t completely memorized his circle of fifths. “I’ll have to get my son a music tutor. He simply won’t apply himself to his music homework. He says it’s boring. He just sits there staring out the window, humming tunes to himself and making up silly songs.”

In the higher grades the pressure is really on. After all, the students must be prepared for the standardized tests and college admissions exams. Students must take courses in Scales and Modes, Meter, Harmony, and Counterpoint. “It’s a lot for them to learn, but later in college when they finally get to hear all this stuff, they’ll really appreciate all the work they did in high school.” Of course, not many students actually go on to concentrate in music, so only a few will ever get to hear the sounds that the black dots represent. Nevertheless, it is important that every member of society be able to recognize a modulation or a fugal passage, regardless of the fact that they will never hear one. “To tell you the truth, most students just aren’t very good at music. They are bored in class, their skills are terrible, and their homework is barely legible. Most of them couldn’t care less about how important music is in today’s world; they just want to take the minimum number of music courses and be done with it. I guess there are just music people and non-music people. I had this one kid, though, man was she sensational! Her sheets were impeccable— every note in the right place, perfect calligraphy, sharps, flats, just beautiful. She’s going to make one hell of a musician someday.”

Waking up in a cold sweat, the musician realizes, gratefully, that it was all just a crazy dream. “Of course!” he reassures himself, “No society would ever reduce such a beautiful and meaningful art form to something so mindless and trivial; no culture could be so cruel to its children as to deprive them of such a natural, satisfying means of human expression. How absurd!”

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a painter has just awakened from a similar nightmare…

]]> http://stophomework.com/a-mathematicians-lament/1282/feed 7 http://stophomework.com/a-mathematicians-lament/1282 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/-dA_NoTP2yI/1280 http://stophomework.com/rational-american/1280#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 11:16:35 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1280 Since the beginning of Stop Homework, I’ve been corresponding with John Painter, a father of two from Readington, New Jersey, who maintained an active web site for five years where he wrote a number of interesting articles on such topics as scripted learning, cheating, and homework. He has recently started a new blog called Rational American. Stop by and take a look.

]]> http://stophomework.com/rational-american/1280/feed 5 http://stophomework.com/rational-american/1280 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/aPTbly5oXd4/1278 http://stophomework.com/homework-in-a-stop-homework-household/1278#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 10:59:51 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1278 At the end of dinner last night, I said, “I have to go write a post for Stop Homework tomorrow.” And without skipping a beat I turned to my daughter and said,”and I guess it’s time for you to do your homework, too.” Her response, “you write for Stop Homework, and I do homework. Kind of ironic, don’t you think?” Of course, I do my best to change homework policy, both at her high school (where I’ve been talking to the principal), and in the world at large, but obviously there’s still a lot to be done.

Let me know what you’ve done recently by posting a Comment. Even though the school year is winding down, it’s not too late to talk to your child’s teacher or principal, talk to other parents, write a letter to your local newspaper, start a petition, run for School Board,….

]]> http://stophomework.com/homework-in-a-stop-homework-household/1278/feed 7 http://stophomework.com/homework-in-a-stop-homework-household/1278 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/2h0xSTDTtb4/1269 http://stophomework.com/guest-blogger%e2%80%93a-grad-student-speaks-out/1269#comments Thu, 21 May 2009 11:14:54 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1269 Today’s guest blogger, Candace Hanson, is a graduate of Oral Roberts University and is currently studying Counseling at Valparaiso University. She is originally from Atlanta, Georgia. She just sent me the following piece a few days ago and her timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The Comments to Monday’s blog post are about this very topic.

Homework Discriminates Against Children from Dysfunctional Homes
by Candace Hanson

I have long thought about how productive homework actually is. In school I was the type who aced all of my tests, participated in class, and generally learned the material. But it never failed–the more homework I had for a class, the worse I did in it since I didn’t do the homework and completion was counted as a part of my grade.

Why would such a smart kid not do homework? Especially if it was the only thing that stood in the way of getting an A? Well my home life was not really one in which it was easy to do homework. I had an extremely dysfunctional family. There was always yelling and fighting. My parents were both pretty checked out, so my sister and I kept the household going. We were the oldest so we cooked, cleaned, did laundry, and helped the younger kids with homework and baths etc. When we got home, we were pretty much the heads of the household, and doing our homework was not only physically impossible, but school was not even on our minds at home–we were concerned with surviving and our siblings’ survival.

Now when I look back, I think of how many kids there probably are out there like me. Home is chaos, dysfunction, or overflowing with unreasonable amounts of responsiblity for whatever reason. How can these children be graded on their ability to complete tasks at home, when home can be an unpredictable, uncontrollable environment? How can a teacher mark a child’s grade down for not doing homework, and mark another child up because he completed it, when the fact that the child did not do the homework may be completely out of his control? Maybe home life is easier for child #2. His parents encourage him and help him with his homework. He has not much to worry about other than cleaning his room and practicing the piano. Is it fair for child #1 that his grade is dependent on his home, which is not his fault, and under which he rarely has control?

It’s just another reason why homework needs to GO! A student’s achievement as far as grades go should be measured in the class, during the school time. Whenever grades are influenced by something the child is supposed to do outside of the class, I would go as far as to say that this could be construed as discrimination. Students from less stable or healthy families are discriminated against.

Could the presence of homework be one of the many factors that is causing and perpetuating the stratification of society by socioeconomic status and race and contributing to the achievement gap?

]]> http://stophomework.com/guest-blogger%e2%80%93a-grad-student-speaks-out/1269/feed 8 http://stophomework.com/guest-blogger%e2%80%93a-grad-student-speaks-out/1269 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/zdzOyn76LGI/1254 http://stophomework.com/teacher-revised/1254#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 11:53:27 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1254 Through Tracy Stevens, a former teacher whose blog is called a better education, I discovered Teacher, Revised, which is a blog “for teachers and by teachers. It is an education grab bag of classroom reflection, a compilation of news that matters to teachers, essays, interviews with the brightest minds in pedagogy, and even the occasional book and movie review. Basically, it deals with anything that affects teachers, could make teachers’ lives better, or that we all should be very, very afraid of.” I highly recommend taking a look.

]]> http://stophomework.com/teacher-revised/1254/feed 11 http://stophomework.com/teacher-revised/1254 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/Ugfln8DM_rQ/1265 http://stophomework.com/a-college-professor-speaks-out/1265#comments Tue, 19 May 2009 11:32:55 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1265 A few weeks ago, a college professor posted a comment that deserves highlighting:

I am a college professor. While some may argue that some of my assignments are overly challenging… all of my assignments are designed to force students to consider complex issues independently. They are meant (usually) to take little time, but be addressed seriously.

It stuns me how much training I have to commit to showing our incoming freshmen how I intend their “homework” to be used.

For example:
- Students have typically been “trained” to rewrite all of my questions prior to typing their answers. What a gratuitous waste of time – I should know what I asked.

- Students typically ask “how long it has to be”, where, to me, if you address the questions as asked, the length is unimportant (as short as possible to answer the questions). More meat, less filler.

-Students have been taught to “read” the textbook. No one should literally read a text – it is a reference, use it to gain information, not to follow word-for-word. Use it to glean key features, organize material, identify differences between similar ideas, and so on.

-Homework is not an opportunity to force students to teach themselves something that you don’t find interesting enough to cover.

Now that my children are working their way up this system, it is that much more infuriating.

]]> http://stophomework.com/a-college-professor-speaks-out/1265/feed 4 http://stophomework.com/a-college-professor-speaks-out/1265 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/0eFHwNxUBO4/1212 http://stophomework.com/a-home-without-homework-is-a-happy-home%e2%80%93plumsted-new-jersey/1212#comments Mon, 18 May 2009 11:23:29 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1212 Several times over the past year, Diane Hewlett-Lowrie of Plumsted, New Jersey, wrote about the overwhelming amounts of homework her second grader was getting in his local public school and the toll it was taking on her family. In January, she moved her son to a democratic community school. Last week, she wrote to the School Superintendent of her son’s former school (and cc’d his former teacher and principal) to tell them how her son was doing at his new school. (You can read her earlier posts here, here, here and here.)

A Home Without Homework
by Diane Hewlett-Lowrie

Dear School Superintendent,

As I sat down to write to you, I figured out how long my son has been going to his new school and am surprised to realize it has been over four months! Wow, four blissful months without homework – how time flies when you are enjoying life!

As you know, my family had a philosophical difference of opinion with the amount of homework our 6, then 7-year-old son was getting – 45 minutes to 2 hours, several times a week. The homework issue, along with the impending years of statewide testing, the years of being taught how to pass the test, reduced recess, and the regimented atmosphere of the public school system were all factors in our decision to try something different. We looked into Montessori, but decided upon a democratic community school which, coincidently, was only 10 minutes from my office! The homework policy for this school is that there may be one or two home-related assignments in the academic year and if the children don’t get their daily math assignment finished, they have to bring it home to complete. [My son has had to do this twice, with absolutely no trouble. He took responsibility for completing the assignments and just did them.]

My son loves his new school. I tried to get him to play hooky with me on Inauguration Day, but he refused; he would not take the day off school in case he missed something! Now we have been there for 4 months, I can safely say, on the homework issue alone, there is a huge difference in our quality of life. I drive home from work looking forward to spending a relaxing, or exciting, evening with my family. I no longer have “that sinking feeling” when I reach the halfway point knowing that a folder full of papers, notices and assignments are awaiting me and my son.

My dining room table no longer doubles as a school desk – we can eat
food there now. Stress and tension over school work are gone! My son and I rarely argue any more. Tears are reduced to an absolute minimum and reserved for issues more important than schoolwork. We can pick and choose our evening activities.What Freedom!!! In the winter months, my son went to swimming lessons, tried fencing, and learned how to play chess and “Stratego”. Now, with the good weather, he is spending most of his free time outside. Yesterday, we rode our bikes to the stream and 4 boys armed with fishing nets went searching for frogs. Tonight they are looking for food for the frogs (We’ll release them tomorrow). Any minute now his friends will be called inside for homework and my son will come in to do a couple of chores, relax, get to bed early, and read another chapter of his book.

I am not at all concerned about the fact that he has no homework. I think the way he is spending his time now will, in the long run, be much more beneficial to his overall development. By spending his free time playing with other children, exploring nature and reading books for pleasure, he is advancing his “21st Century Skills” (creativity, innovative thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration). He’s seven, sociable, smart and happy, loves school, and is reading “The Hobbit”; what more could I want for him at this age?!?!

In short, our Home-without-Homework is a Happy Home and a young boy without homework is a creative, fulfilled, energetic, problem-solving, fun-loving, fit, healthy, and happy boy! We feel free again … I wish this upon all young children and families everywhere!!!!!

Thank you for taking the time to listen to our views last year. I wish you all the best in your career with Plumsted Schools.

Yours sincerely,
Diane Hewlett-Lowrie

]]> http://stophomework.com/a-home-without-homework-is-a-happy-home%e2%80%93plumsted-new-jersey/1212/feed 42 http://stophomework.com/a-home-without-homework-is-a-happy-home%e2%80%93plumsted-new-jersey/1212 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/awYmVFAzj0o/1257 http://stophomework.com/a-k-8-principal-speaks-out/1257#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 11:57:43 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1257 A principal of a K-8 school in New Brunswick, Canada, recently posted the following comment:

I am a principal on the east coast of Canada. A large k-8 school of 800 kids. We are revisiting our homework policy/procedures to ensure that we have an equitable system in our school. We are aiming to have no homework, based on much research.

Read Alfie Kohn: The Homework Myth.

Rocks.

Homework is just one more structure to keep the marginalized down.

Schools can do a better job teaching. And parents could assist with spending their energy in to just “being” with their children: talking, dreaming, playing, etc.

My two cents.

]]> http://stophomework.com/a-k-8-principal-speaks-out/1257/feed 1 http://stophomework.com/a-k-8-principal-speaks-out/1257 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/AMjSTjcXNFY/1210 http://stophomework.com/from-my-mailbox%e2%80%93a-seventh-grader-speaks-out/1210#comments Thu, 14 May 2009 11:48:40 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1210 I got this compelling email the other day from a Connecticut middle school student:

Dear Sara,

The life of a middle school girl is one of total chaos–cliques, peer pressure, friendships, guys, emotions, and lots lots LOTS of homework. I don’t understand why children are expected to complete assignments that have NOTHING to do with their goals for life. For example, I want to be an author when I grow up, and I’m always working toward that goal. WHEN in my life will I ever be required to do algebra? Why must I complete 50 algebra problems a night, when I COULD be working on my journal? Doing so many problems only makes me hate math more than ever. Plus, when these assignments are graded, I always end up getting the last twenty or so wrong. By this point of the assignment, I am so completely drained that I do the rest haphazardly. THAT is not helping my education. I usually eat dinner while completing homework, because I have so much of it. Therefore, sometimes my dinner is a bowl of Captain Crunch or a bag of chips. By the time I actually have time to myself, it is 9:30, and I have to go to bed. It doesnt matter though. I’m usually up until over 11:00, worrying about tests, quizzes, and whether or not I did all my homework correctly. That is not a healthy lifestyle, but I’m gonna have to deal with it for seven more years.

I’d like to thank you for your incredible website. It has really comforted me to know that other people feel this way about homework- especially adults. Thank you for reading this!

]]> http://stophomework.com/from-my-mailbox%e2%80%93a-seventh-grader-speaks-out/1210/feed 11 http://stophomework.com/from-my-mailbox%e2%80%93a-seventh-grader-speaks-out/1210 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/ETDmc3-0NyQ/1234 http://stophomework.com/a-kindergarten-teacher-responds-to-kindergarten-cram/1234#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 11:37:42 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1234 A kindergarten teacher posted a comment that I want to make sure everyone sees. This is what s/he says:

As a kindergarten teacher (don’t shoot me) policy and curriculum is not set by the teacher and many times not by the school, but by standards set by the state and federal government. I agree that we are overtesting and not giving children enough “free” time. We do not even get “recess” for our kindergartners. What kind of social skills are we giving them? What adult wants to go somewhere for a meeting/educational activity without much of anything but a bathroom break in 3-4 hours? This is what many kindergarteners face. I am proud of the parent that “checked” out the school she was sending her child to and their policies. Most of my parents are not even aware of no recess in our schools….. We are burning out our kids on reading before 2nd grade because we are not teaching the LOVE of reading but attaching a test every time they read a book. The teachers do not have control. Parents need to get involved and push for change. Teachers would lose their jobs if they didn’t do what is considered their job “the way the standards” make them teach……

]]> http://stophomework.com/a-kindergarten-teacher-responds-to-kindergarten-cram/1234/feed 8 http://stophomework.com/a-kindergarten-teacher-responds-to-kindergarten-cram/1234 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/vhUR_wdVois/1231 http://stophomework.com/listen-to-sir-ken-robinson/1231#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 11:54:54 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1231 Almost a year ago, I posted a link to a TED lecture by Sir Ken Robinson on how schools kill creativity. Amanda Cockshutt of New Brunswick, Canada, sent me a link to a new talk by Robinson on “How our fast food education system is killing children.” You can watch it here.

And Rae Pica, at BAM radio, has a wonderful interview with him as well. You can listen to it here.

]]> http://stophomework.com/listen-to-sir-ken-robinson/1231/feed 23 http://stophomework.com/listen-to-sir-ken-robinson/1231 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/VarkfawzxWA/1245 http://stophomework.com/upcoming-documentary%e2%80%93race-to-nowhere/1245#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 11:18:02 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1245 A few months ago, I wrote about an upcoming documentary which was tentatively called Slipping Behind. The film, which looks at the fact-paced, high-stress lives of many of today’s students, is now called Race to Nowhere and you can view the trailer here. You can pre-order the film here or set up a screening. Let me know what you think of the trailer by posting a comment.

I think it’s going to be the perfect way to either start, or supplement, a conversation in your community, so be sure to spread the word. FULL DISCLOSURE: I am an Advisor to the film and I appear in it as well.

]]> http://stophomework.com/upcoming-documentary%e2%80%93race-to-nowhere/1245/feed 4 http://stophomework.com/upcoming-documentary%e2%80%93race-to-nowhere/1245 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/uam4Elrj7pg/1241 http://stophomework.com/california-school-district-abolishes-homework-for-elementary-and-middle-school/1241#comments Fri, 08 May 2009 13:29:32 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1241 The Helendale School District in California is instituting a no-homework policy for students in K-8th grade beginning this fall. According to vvdailypress, “First- through sixth-graders will complete any independent work during daily lessons, while seventh- and eighth-graders will get an added ‘homework time’ class period.”

Which school district will be next?

]]> http://stophomework.com/california-school-district-abolishes-homework-for-elementary-and-middle-school/1241/feed 3 http://stophomework.com/california-school-district-abolishes-homework-for-elementary-and-middle-school/1241 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/dVWVCfwbRcw/1201 http://stophomework.com/more-from-yesterdays-high-school-senior/1201#comments Thu, 07 May 2009 12:24:55 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1201 I got a second email from yesterday’s high school senior, who had even more to say on the problems with homework.

More Thoughts on Homework
by a high school senior
Camarillo High School, California

As always, the homework load depends on the individual teacher.

When homework is excessive, it simply turns into “drill.” The teacher assigns “stuff” (worthless worksheets, pointless projects) which are to be taken home. Very little of “it” was even taught in class, nor will be tested in the future.

The next day in class, students discover they did a lot of the work incorrectly. This leads to low scores and frusteration among students. (I’m sure some cheated w/ peers.)

Class time simply becomes a time for grading and going over homework rather than teaching, therefore making the environment stressful and tight schedules. This leaves very little time to cover the new material, which therefore leads to more homework. It’s a vicious cycle. Confusion among students and classroom complexity lead to students lagging behind.

One solution to less homework is more effective use of class time and better teaching methods to ensure that the students and teachers are on the same page. Another solution is simply not to assign the work, because some assignments are just ridiculous. (You’d be surprised to see what some teachers assign!)

There’s a common myth floating out there that teachers tell and parents purchase. “Homework teaches kids how to manage time and have good study habits.” That’s a lie. Since most of it is unproductive, or better yet counterproductive, it simply is a waste of time. Many students simply don’t know how or won’t study for tests because the homework serves no real purpose for test preparation.

My True story of excess homework (one of many)

When I was in 6th grade the whole class had difficulty understanding basic statistics: (mean, median, mode). She assigned six math worksheets over the weekend. The problem was the students weren’t understanding the material, not that the students didn’t practice enough.

]]> http://stophomework.com/more-from-yesterdays-high-school-senior/1201/feed 11 http://stophomework.com/more-from-yesterdays-high-school-senior/1201 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/2xTL2ghg3lE/1199 http://stophomework.com/from-my-mailbox%e2%80%93a-high-school-senior-speaks-out/1199#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 11:29:57 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1199 Here’s an email I received from a senior at Camarillo High School in California:

Dear Sara:

As a high school student I believe most homework is just a waste of time.

Simply put, a lot of the work can actually be done in class or not done at all (I’ll get to that later). Homework is just used as a substitute due to ineffective teaching methods and teachers wasting time.

Most homework assignments are just pointless: fill in the blank questions, word seaches, crossword puzzles, drill assignments, etc. It does not help review the material. It’s just used as a tool for teachers to figure out how to grade. Bad students simply won’t do the homework. Good students will do the homework getting nothing out of it.

Excess homework has created a lazy generation. It teaches students it’s okay to cheat, copy off, or even fake assignments. The more homework teachers give, the more tension there is in the class, the more tension, the more behavioral problems and lower grades students have. It’s a lose for the student, a lose for the teacher. Since there is too much homework, after homework is finished, kids just like to watch TV.

This year I pretty much have no homework. Since my calculus teacher only assigns very few problems, I actually learn how to do them correctly.

Lots of homework is the root of student laziness, not the solution. Having better teaching methods in class is the solution, not homework.

Thank you for your website.

]]> http://stophomework.com/from-my-mailbox%e2%80%93a-high-school-senior-speaks-out/1199/feed 10 http://stophomework.com/from-my-mailbox%e2%80%93a-high-school-senior-speaks-out/1199 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/-nOohOyrhds/1225 http://stophomework.com/guest-blogger%e2%80%93homework-should-be-relevant-interesting-and-personal/1225#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 11:19:34 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1225 Today’s guest blogger, Ben Kestner, is the Middle School Principal at the Berlin Brandenburg International School, where he initially started as curriculum coordinator for the IBO Middle Years Programme. He studied flute at the London College of Music and in Berlin with Andreas Blau and after spending time playing and teaching he pursued a career in education after completing his PGCE in the UK. He wrote to me several weeks ago to tell me he’s an “avid supporter” of Stop Homework. He has a blog that’s worth reading.

Homework Should be Relevant, Interesting, and Personal
by Ben Kestner

I am currently the Middle School Principal at an International School in Berlin, Germany.

Over the last two years, I set out to examine the whole idea of homework at our school. After reading relevant books and research I decided that we really needed to re-think the whole idea of homework and go back to the question of why we set it. Then, during the current academic year, I pulled together a task force in the Middle School to look at the issue of homework. Throughout the year we have discussed the issue in staff meetings, parent meetings, and student leadership groups and during the last two years student surveys were conducted. It has become clear that homework is certainly a topic which creates a range of opinions and emotions amongst staff, students and parents.

The student survey was interesting. To the question “Do you find your Homework interesting”, 61% said no, only 4% said yes, with the rest answering “don’t know”, suggesting that the last group had no particular feeling about their homework assignments. The survey also revealed that 83% of our students take part in extra curricular activities in or outside of school on an average of 3 times per week, which shows that they are using their time after school for relevant tasks, and that additional homework can overwhelm that benefit.

My overall conclusions from both surveys were:

• Most kids in our school don’t find homework interesting.
• Most kids agree with the idea of work at home, if they see a reason for it.
• Most kids don’t have enough time to do their homework

Some students interviewed members of our community about what they thought about homework, and it saddened me to see one response from a middle school student who said, “Home is for fun and school is for work,” implying that the learning he was experiencing at school wasn’t fun.

The Task Force which I started, made up of a small voluntary group of people from school, is close to finishing a document about a replacement to the old idea of homework, instead focusing on learning outside of school as an extension to classroom learning. We have decided to use the acronym R.I.P., which stands for Relevant, Interesting and Personal. We see this as describing the main point of our document, that some learning beyond the classroom is acceptable in middle school as long as it fulfills these requirements. In other words, work at home should be:

Relevant to the unit of learning or the topic being covered in class

Interesting to the individual student – something they actually want to continue learning outside the classroom, preferably where they have a choice of tasks

Personal to the student – the learning should be at the level of the student’s current understanding without the need for extra help from parents or tutors.

I am not an advocate for no work at home. Surely we are trying to create learning experiences for our students in school which they want to continue with outside. I am an advocate for middle school students having time at home to be with their families, relax and continue to have curiosity and passion for discovering new things.

]]> http://stophomework.com/guest-blogger%e2%80%93homework-should-be-relevant-interesting-and-personal/1225/feed 2 http://stophomework.com/guest-blogger%e2%80%93homework-should-be-relevant-interesting-and-personal/1225 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/tSHGswlF-7I/1228 http://stophomework.com/kindergarten-cram/1228#comments Mon, 04 May 2009 11:18:44 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1228 Yesterday’s New York Times Magazine had a great article, Kindergarten Cram, about the problems with today’s kindergartens. One of my favorite lines: “How was it that the same couples who piously proclaimed that 3½-year-old Junior was not “developmentally ready” to use the potty were drilling him on flashcards?”

Here’s the beginning of the article:

About a year ago, I made the circuit of kindergartens in my town. At each stop, after the pitch by the principal and the obligatory exhibit of art projects only a mother (the student’s own) could love, I asked the same question: “What is your policy on homework?”

And always, whether from the apple-cheeked teacher in the public school or the earnest administrator of the “child centered” private one, I was met with an eager nod. Oh, yes, each would explain: kindergartners are assigned homework every day.

Bzzzzzzt. Wrong answer.

Read the rest of the article here.

]]> http://stophomework.com/kindergarten-cram/1228/feed 8 http://stophomework.com/kindergarten-cram/1228 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/BURPJ8i3Vtg/1220 http://stophomework.com/does-your-pediatrician-ask-about-homework/1220#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 12:03:17 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1220 I received an email from a father in southern California who told me:

My 14 year old daughter was told by her doctor she was 40 pounds overweight, at 139 pounds and almost 5′ tall. The doctor said she was “too driven” and asked about homework. She carries a 3.8 GPA, but often stays up until midnight or beyond, and wakes up sometimes between 3-5 am just to finish homework assigned that day!

I just ordered your book and I look forward to reading it and discussing with her teachers the information it contains. I had no idea this movement existed, and I will be actively involved from now on.

This is the first time I’ve ever heard of a pediatrician asking about homework. Kudos to him/her and it made me think that all of us should suggest to our children’s pediatricians that they start asking their patients that same question.

This same father also told me that he stumbled across stophomework on facebook. Have you posted a link to stophomework on your facebook? If not, please do.

]]> http://stophomework.com/does-your-pediatrician-ask-about-homework/1220/feed 4 http://stophomework.com/does-your-pediatrician-ask-about-homework/1220 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/PJUtH3F0WKs/1215 http://stophomework.com/more-from-yesterdays-principal/1215#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:56:47 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1215 In yesterday’s blog post, a former principal and current teacher wrote about some of the problems with homework. As we continued our email exchange, he offered more insights which I’m sharing with you today:

Are we teaching or are we preparing for exams so that we can demonstrate accountability?

In a knowledge based model (the lowest level of the continuum of learning) we must ‘push’ through material and ensure that we ‘cover’ what needs to be covered. I am all for exit outcomes, but creating curriculums to be covered for the sake of covering allows a mindset to develop. It is one in which certain rituals are necessary to demonstrate accountability: (a) show that there is a ample amount of cleverly written curriculum, (b) develop a rigor and pace that will force this curriculum to be covered in a stringently set amount of time, (c) demonstrate the rigor and breadth of the curriculum by stressing teachers, stressing students, and stressing parents — stress, after all, is the hallmark of success; (d) give lots of homework to prove the validity of the curriculum and the rigor of the approach. Homework becomes an indicator of something that ought to be real. It’s not real, however. It’s a facade meant to placate the accountability police.

I was in China recently visiting a private school… whoa, they study from morning to night and create great students… er, regurgitators of knowledge. And with all their great results, they send their students in the thousands to Western schools (as do many Eastern countries) to understand play, freedom, fun, creativity, joy, diversity, individuality, self-determination…. I have dealt with educators from China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan and all of them are awed by our system… why? They see the uniqueness of our education — the soul. Yet they can’t change because they are caught in the illusionary dance of sequences… so they send their kids here to get their hearts back, to learn about their souls……

]]> http://stophomework.com/more-from-yesterdays-principal/1215/feed 3 http://stophomework.com/more-from-yesterdays-principal/1215 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/aQBB7kADPF0/1206 http://stophomework.com/from-my-mailbox%e2%80%93a-former-principal-offers-an-opinion/1206#comments Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:08:44 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1206 I got the following email from a former high school principal and current teacher who is located in British Columbia, Canada.

Dear Sara,

As a — past — high school principal and teacher… I have never seen the value of more than a little homework. And that ‘little’ has to be considered for its merit before it should be issued. I believe that there should be a ‘through’ line where kids are thinking about their studies and planning and preparing at home, but not homework in the traditional sense.

You know what I really really believe — not popular — homework is a way of lessening the demands of the teacher to teach during the day and giving them an out that says “here’s the work that has to be done — if you waste your time during class, you will have homework.” Or, “we have to get through x, y, and z, and you will have extra work at home because the curriculum is too much to be covered at school.” TEACH differently then!

Sorry. I get passionate about this. WE MUST TEACH DURING THE DAY AND HAVE THE STUDENTS WORK HARD IN CLASS. Then, other than planning and preparing, we are done. Our focus has to be on TEACHING students to organize, memorize, categorize, sort, and LEARN. We teach, they learn. That’s the contract. That’s the agreement. Parents aren’t teachers.

Anyways, thought I would drop you a line of support. I just got your site passed along to me about three minutes ago and that is my first volley of emotion.

I am currently back in the classroom, and I love teaching. My kids love my approach too. Stimulating and demanding during the day, but not too much more at night.

]]> http://stophomework.com/from-my-mailbox%e2%80%93a-former-principal-offers-an-opinion/1206/feed 10 http://stophomework.com/from-my-mailbox%e2%80%93a-former-principal-offers-an-opinion/1206 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/KG-jTQJH3UY/1186 http://stophomework.com/guest-blogger-first-grade-in-public-school-was-pure-torture/1186#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:22:54 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1186 Today’s guest blogger, Tracy Stevens, is a former high school Spanish teacher who infrequently gave project-based homework to her students. Currently a telecom salesperson and the mother of two boys who attend private school after a difficult year in public elementary school, she is the author of abettereducation.blog, which is full of interesting interviews (including one with Daniel Pink) and thoughts. Today she writes about her son’s experience in first grade in public school and her decision to have her son repeat first grade in a more child-friendly atmosphere.

First Grade in Public School was Pure Torture
by Tracy Stevens

My son was born in August and attended a Montessori Pre-School since he was 1-1/2. When it came time to consider 1st Grade, we met with his teacher and the head of school and we felt that, despite being one of the younger kids, he was socially and academically ready to handle the rigors of public school, especially in the public Montessori Elementary School that we found for him, where he would experience a familiar classroom and learning system.

It was a year of pure torture for the entire family. The teacher encouraged reading through competition. Each kid had a thermometer that showed his level of reading. If you were a girl or an older child, your thermometer was pretty full. My son’s low thermometer was humiliating for him, and was also a marker of his confidence and curiosity as the year progressed.

Because he wasn’t up to the reading level that was stipulated for that grade, the teacher’s way of remedying the problem was to provide more homework. Each 1st Grader had at least an hour of math and reading homework every night. My son struggled with his and this hour would turn into longer to get it finished. If he were not finished with his schoolwork to his teacher’s satisfaction, he would stay in for recess to finish it. He also had a tutor during afterschool care that would help him with his homework. This boy was in school from 8:00 in the morning until 5:30 in the evening, sometimes with limited or no recess and little play time left in after care. Then he would have at least an hour of homework at night. Where was the balance in his life? Where was the time for play, movement, creativity, socializing, and family time? We began to make it a point to provide this for him, regardless of what was required by the school. At first we had him do no more than 15 minutes of homework each evening. Soon, though, we just stopped complying with the homework mandate all together. It was causing misery, frustration, and daily crying sessions.

We decided to repeat 1st Grade, this time in a Waldorf school and the experience could not be more different. Waldorf doesn’t believe in homework until the 3rd grade and even then that is only a brief time for a musical instrument. They have a much more gradual approach to reading, in that they do not expect students to begin reading on their own until 3rd Grade. When they do read, they have had years of preparation and familiarity with letters, phonics, comprehension, and other reading skills so that it seems to be a natural, easy thing for them to do. There is no standardized testing at a Waldorf school, so the pressure to quickly get students up to testing level is eliminated, allowing them to learn at a pace that is suited to their needs. Waldorf believes in balance and regards education of the head, heart and hands of equal importance.

My son is happy again. Gone are the homework battles and daily tears over it. His confidence is restored and he is genuinely enjoying learning new things again.

]]> http://stophomework.com/guest-blogger-first-grade-in-public-school-was-pure-torture/1186/feed 25 http://stophomework.com/guest-blogger-first-grade-in-public-school-was-pure-torture/1186 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/8H_QwCVHcgw/1193 http://stophomework.com/free-range-kids/1193#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:48:30 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1193 About a month ago, I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with Lenore Skenazy, the author of the blog, free-range kids. We had a great time chatting about homework, education, childhood, and being parents of “free-range kids.” Skenazy is not only full of common sense but has a great sense of humor. Her book, Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry, which just came out this month, is equally full of common sense and humor.

In case you’ve managed to miss the brouhaha about Skenazy, she holds the moniker “America’s Worst Mom” (google it and see), because she allowed her nine-year-old son to ride the New York City subway alone. While a lot of the media and a lot of parents thought she was careless and had put her son in grave danger, others applauded her for knowing her son’s capabilities, allowing him a little independence, and not giving in to over-hyped fears about dangers that don’t really exist.

You can get a copy of her book here. And visit her blog, too. There’s always a lively discussion there.

]]> http://stophomework.com/free-range-kids/1193/feed 1 http://stophomework.com/free-range-kids/1193 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/CdeBqnkEBfk/1188 http://stophomework.com/easing-homework-overload/1188#comments Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:09:37 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1188 Here’s a piece I wrote for Natural Awakenings magazine titled “Easing Homework Overload.” The free magazine is in health food stores around the country.

Here’s my suggestion: If you find a copy in your community, pick it up and leave it on a park bench, at the library, on the steps to the school, at the pediatrician or orthodontist’s office…. You never know who will read it and have their eyes opened.

Easing Homework Overload
by Sara Bennett
Natural Awakenings Magazine

These days, beginning as early as kindergarten, homework is a consuming nightly activity. According to a 2006 joint National Education Association/Leap Frog report, on average, children ages 8-13 work at it from 1½ to 1¾ hours a night. Most require almost 3 hours of help a week from their parents. It’s no wonder that parents complain about homework almost as much as, or more than, their children.

Their complaints are well founded. A 2006 Duke University review of more than 180 research studies found that there’s virtually no correlation between homework and academic achievement in elementary school. Even in middle and high school, the only correlation is that students who do their homework do better on teacher-created tests and grades. But no proof supports the misperception that homework helps with such long-term educational goals as creating life-long learners who are creative and analytical thinkers.

Many short-term education goals aren’t strengthened by homework either. Consider the time-honored tradition of weekly word study for a spelling test. As early as the late 19th century, research has found no link between the time spent on drills and student performance. That’s why, as so many teachers and parents know first-hand, students who can spell a new word on Friday won’t be able to incorporate it into their writing, or even remember how to spell it, the following Monday.

Read the rest here.

]]> http://stophomework.com/easing-homework-overload/1188/feed 4 http://stophomework.com/easing-homework-overload/1188 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/6B64b93oDc8/1096 http://stophomework.com/why-teachers-quit/1096#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:23:53 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1096 Whenever I talk to teachers, I try to keep in mind how hard their job is. It helps keep our conversations respectful and it also helps keep the focus on our common interest–the student.

Here’s an article from Teacher Magazine about the pressures on teachers and why so many of them are quitting:

It wasn’t her teenage students who drove Meghan Sharp out of teaching—it was the crippling inflexibility of her administrators.

All the innovative curriculum ideas and field trips she proposed to engage her 10th grade biology students were promptly shot down, and she left the profession after just two years.

“I still enjoyed teaching, but it was a constant battle with the administration,” says Sharp, who worked in an urban district in northern New Jersey. “I had to do things like submit weekly lesson plans. There was a lot of bureaucracy.” She now goes by her maiden name and asked Teacher Magazine not to identify her old school because she works as an education policy analyst.

Read the rest here.

]]> http://stophomework.com/why-teachers-quit/1096/feed 0 http://stophomework.com/why-teachers-quit/1096 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/1UePuFgcYXo/1184 http://stophomework.com/inside-the-minds-of-school-board-candidates/1184#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:57:15 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1184 I came across this piece, where candidates for the Houston Independent School Board were asked whether the District should have a “no homework policy.” I have a feeling that the positions taken by the various candidates are typical of those in many communities and thus worth a look, just to know what you might be facing in your own community.

]]> http://stophomework.com/inside-the-minds-of-school-board-candidates/1184/feed 2 http://stophomework.com/inside-the-minds-of-school-board-candidates/1184 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/oZ3JZ-s6cwM/1180 http://stophomework.com/some-canadian-school-eliminate-homework/1180#comments Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:47:05 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1180 I’ve written many times about places in Canada where homework has been eliminated. This month’s Today’s Parent, published in Toronto, Canada, has an article titled, “The End of Homework?”, which looks at a school in Barrie, Ontario, which eliminated homework this year. The article concludes:

But a year after [Barrie's] Prince of Wales eliminated most forms of homework, students’ marks have improved by an average of three percent, [principal] Olson says. Is this due to less homework? Hard to say. But he points out that the new policy has forced teachers to cover more of the curriculum more effectively during class time. Students are more focused on classwork now, and reports of students not sleeping because of homework have disappeared, said Olson. “One family told me it’s the first time their daughter is involved in competitive sports because, previously, she never had time.”.

Read the article here. (And a big thanks to Amanda Cockshutt for sending me the article.)

]]> http://stophomework.com/some-canadian-school-eliminate-homework/1180/feed 1 http://stophomework.com/some-canadian-school-eliminate-homework/1180 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/OX6n-S_iO_w/1176 http://stophomework.com/moms-and-dads-on-a-mission-update-from-toronto-canada/1176#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:04:59 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1176 Today, Frank Bruni, the moving force behind Toronto, Canada’s family-friendly homework policy, writes about how the year-old homework policy is working. You can read Frank’s earlier entries here, here, here and here.

My Thoughts on the Anniversary of Toronto’s Adoption of its New Homework Policy
by Frank Bruni
April 16, 2009

It is one year today that the new homework policy was adopted in Toronto and it has been in force since September.

Amazingly, (forgive the sarcasm) the sun still rises in the morning, the birds still sing, and our kids have not become duller.

What has happened is that Toronto students have more time. More time with family, more time for extra curricular activities, more time to be kids.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still challenges. The new policy is a work in progress and there may be individual educators that are having a tough time adjusting. In addition, like most new policies in any organization, now that it is not front and center, it quickly becomes part of the background noise that is our everyday lives.

Still there has been much progress.

In my own case, I have noticed a marked change in my teen’s attitude towards homework. While most kids would, I think, prefer no homework, he is more engaged in what does come home because the busywork has all but disappeared. The number of nights where there is no homework has increased dramatically and he reads, every night, he reads for pleasure. Because the homework that is assigned is done so in blocks, my son has had to learn time management, surely a good thing.

And no homework on vacations – pure heaven!!

Yep, things are good in Toronto, not perfect, but better.

For those of you fighting this battle in your own communities don’t give up! There is currency at the end of your struggle, the most important currency of all – time.

]]> http://stophomework.com/moms-and-dads-on-a-mission-update-from-toronto-canada/1176/feed 15 http://stophomework.com/moms-and-dads-on-a-mission-update-from-toronto-canada/1176 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/PqqVv_bnRs0/1174 http://stophomework.com/on-spring-break-until-april-20/1174#comments Thu, 09 Apr 2009 00:53:35 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1174 http://stophomework.com/on-spring-break-until-april-20/1174/feed 1 http://stophomework.com/on-spring-break-until-april-20/1174 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/L0NDeLq8FqA/1144 http://stophomework.com/moms-and-dads-on-a-mission-more-from-halifax-nova-scotia/1144#comments Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:09:20 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1144 A few weeks ago, Psych Mom, the mother of a second grader in Halifax, Nova Scotia, wrote about why she wasn’t going to make her daughter do any upcoming creative projects and how she was trying to reduce her daughter’s homework load.

She provides an update: “Update on the reading homework my 7 year old was assigned a week before March Break. 4 days before the homework was due, and it wasn’t done, I wrote a long letter to the teacher explaining that my daughter was much more interested in another book and that she was enthusiastic about answering questions I had designed (still trying to get to a little more depth out of the story). The teacher gave me feedback today and was right on board with everything and very encouraging. It has worked out beautifully, and gives me confidence to keep speaking up.”

]]> http://stophomework.com/moms-and-dads-on-a-mission-more-from-halifax-nova-scotia/1144/feed 2 http://stophomework.com/moms-and-dads-on-a-mission-more-from-halifax-nova-scotia/1144 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/l400ixJzOeQ/1093 http://stophomework.com/homework-and-the-brain/1093#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:27:44 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1093 Kerry Dickinson, who was instrumental in changing homework policy in her Danville, California, community last year, sent me an interesting article on how homework effects the brain.

“Once the frontal lobes start to develop, teenagers start being able to handle higher-level, more abstract concepts,” says Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, research neuroscientist at the UCLA Semel Institute’s Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity.

“The fiber tracts—highways that carry information from the sensory areas of the brain to the frontal lobes, and back again—have to be paved for information to travel.”

Molnar-Szakacs explains that the paving, known as myelination, is the process by which the fiber tracts are insulated. With more learning comes more paving, and as the pathways become more efficient, the brain gets better at integrating information.

Read the entire article here.

]]> http://stophomework.com/homework-and-the-brain/1093/feed 2 http://stophomework.com/homework-and-the-brain/1093 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/TYiDaUEPWxA/1166 http://stophomework.com/is-test-prep-educational-malpractice/1166#comments Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:42:33 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1166 Read this interesting article in Teacher Magazine, “Is Test Prep Educational Malpractice”. And, just in case you don’t want to read it, the conclusion is a resounding yes.

Please don’t forget that today is First Monday. If you need further inspiration, take a look at Comment #4 by Cate, a mother from Australia, who has stopped her child from filling in reading logs and doing time-consuming projects, and describes a system of homework in Australia:

called the Lillico homework grid…. There is also no expectation that the parent will ‘do the homework’, ie, this teacher is very good at making the kids themselves accountable for what they do and this is so much more effective than any nagging from me or my husband. The homework sheet does include a space for the child to write how much reading they have done during the week but this is completely up to the child and not marked.

]]> http://stophomework.com/is-test-prep-educational-malpractice/1166/feed 0 http://stophomework.com/is-test-prep-educational-malpractice/1166 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/JketZoC_2W8/1163 http://stophomework.com/first-monday-12/1163#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:44:00 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1163 This coming Monday, April 6, is the first Monday of the month. As I suggest every month in this blog, I hope you’ll send a note expressing your thoughts about homework to your children’s teachers or, perhaps, to a school administrator or School Board member. Even better, join with a few friends and send a collective note. Ask for a public discussion of the problem. Ask the school to be responsive. If you need help in formulating a note, look in The Case Against Homework for some examples, or see the kinds of notes parents have been writing by browsing Moms (and Dads) on a Mission on this blog. If you do send a note, please post a comment and send me a copy of your letter. And if you get a response from the teacher or school, please let us know that as well.

On the first Monday in February, I sent a copy of my book to the principal of my daughter’s high school–a public high school with more than 4,000 students–in Brooklyn, New York, and I invited him to have a discussion with me about homework. He emailed me back thanking me for the book, told me that he shared excerpts of it with some members of his staff, and invited me to meet with him. I did and we had a very open conversation about homework, stress, testing, and all other kinds of topics and I know we both learned a lot from each other. I also know that our conversation will be ongoing and that he is eager to do what’s best for his students.

I urge you to engage in a conversation with your head of school.

]]> http://stophomework.com/first-monday-12/1163/feed 5 http://stophomework.com/first-monday-12/1163 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/vpcF-uIi2ls/1160 http://stophomework.com/edible-projects-part-2/1160#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:11:38 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1160 Before the day was over, the mom in yesterday’s blog post received a phone call from the principal telling her no parent had ever before complained about the project. And then the mom received an email from the teacher. Below is an excerpt:

The Teacher Responds to a Parent’s Concerns about Edible Art Projects

…I hear and will take every point you made into consideration. You certainly make valid arguments about parents being overly-involved in student work.

Having said that, I think you had a very limited perspective on today’s event and blew it out of proportion.

First of all, the “offering” was secondary to the viewing of the Iliad poster projects that lined the hallway on the way to the classroom. These were done entirely by students, and almost all completed at school.. There was NO parental involvement whatsoever. These projects will be graded. Were you aware of these?

I assigned the UNGRADED food project to allow the kids to have snacks during the day at school. It was a celebration of the end of a unit of study. I assigned this project because some of my students don’t get great grades on tests and homework. They don’t feel good about their classwork, but they feel great having a party and being creative in other ways.

When I said in my previous email that I thought the project would be fun for parents and students, I meant that the VIEWING would be fun. As I said before, I didn’t intend for parents to be heavily involved. And I think with the exception of a very few projects, parents were not overly involved.

.

]]> http://stophomework.com/edible-projects-part-2/1160/feed 12 http://stophomework.com/edible-projects-part-2/1160 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/X7LV4xTNFfY/1115 http://stophomework.com/moms-and-dads-on-a-mission-edible-art-project/1115#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:06:58 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1115 Below is a letter a New York City mother sent to her son’s sixth grade public school teacher after her ex-husband told her that the edible projects at the class’s ancient Greek and Rome festival looked as though they had been made by pastry chefs. A few days before the project was due, the mother had asked the teacher for clarification and had been told: “The assignment (which your son should have in his folder if you’d like to look it over) is to bring an edible object which he can somehow, no matter how randomly, connect to our study of ancient Greece and Rome. It’s simply meant to be fun for kids and parents alike. He can bring hummus and pita or a bag of oreos–he just needs to be creative about how it connects to our festival. One year, a student made Poseidon’s Trident out of a tube of gumballs and tin foil shaped into a fork-like top. Another used a horse shaped cookie cutter to make Trojan Horse sandwiches.”

Dear 6th Grade Teacher

My son’s father just told me that my son felt self-conscious this morning about his “offering” when he saw the other spectacular projects, which is what I had feared. He felt fine about it until then.

My son is absolutely crazy about you as a teacher and I know how wonderful you are and how much they have been learning from you — so I do hope you will take this in the spirit in which it is intended. You have been truly amazing and so responsive to my son, so I do want to say how very appreciative we are for all of these things and that he was lucky enough to get you as his homeroom teacher!

After years of witnessing a certain phenomenon, though, and after reading this book (The Case Against Homework), and seeing this harrowing documentary I mentioned, I feel the need to speak my mind. (So please know that this letter is coming after years of silent endurance for fear of angering the teachers or — even worse — risking repercussions for my son. I trust that whether or not you agree with me, you will not hold anything against my son, who only wanted sincerely to do something wonderful and impressive for you and the class — hence his initial request to me that we build some huge structure out of candy!)

My ex-husband reported that some of the offerings were breathtakingly

spectacular and elaborate. (He commented that some of the parents must be pastry chefs.) My son told me that last year, someone made Greek temple out of sushi with a fountain of soy sauce. Unfortunately, this is the image he had in his head when he was trying to figure out what to make. If I had had the time or belief that it was right to spend hours doing my son’s project, he, too, would have had a spectacular piece of work to show off to everyone. But I had him do it himself because I think it sends a very mixed and potentially harmful message to a kid (especially when one has been striving relentlessly to get that kid to be more independent and take responsibility), for the parent to do that kid’s work.

Unfortunately, even though I gave my son one of my boring lectures this morning about how he should feel proud that he did his own work and try not to feel badly if he sees work that looks like it could not have been done by a 6th grader, he apparently was still “self-conscious”, upon comparing his scones-and-marshmallow trident and thunder-bolt (which I thought was adorable and fine for a 6th grader), with some of the others’ work. From years of experience, and from my ex-husband’s description, I would guess that many of those projects were done in whole or in part by people over the age of 35. I worry about the effect on t he self-esteem of kids who did not get this level of assistance.

On the flip side, I do understand how this seems like a fun activity and that it probably made for a festive atmosphere. (You mentioned in your e-mail that you thought this would be a fun thing for kids and parents to do together.) But I’ll bet if you took a poll, there would be more than a few parents who, like me, only stressed out about it the whole week because their kid so fervently wanted to do something spectacular (like build a trident out of candy!), and who knew (like me) that their 6th grader could not do it independently on that level. (Believe me — many parents are too scared to speak up or just don’t bother for other reasons!)

I happen to be an artist and I have to tell you, this was not fun. Even less fun was hearing of my son deflatedness this morning and worrying that perhaps I let him down by not doing the project with him. By the way, I love spending time with my son doing things together: As you know, we just finished reading Huck Finn, and we will be starting David Copperfield soon. Just last weekend, we built a structure out of hundreds of wood slats and had a blast doing it. There are few things I like more than getting down on the floor with some markers or paints with both of my kids, as I have often done. So it’s not a question of whether a given parent enjoys doing projects with their kids or not: It’s the pretense that the kids did all the work themselves when they did not and the resulting effect on the ones who did.

Perhaps, if projects like this really contribute to the class in some way that is valuable, then the thing to do might be to have the actual makers of the project indicated on the cards that accompany each piece. So if Johnny Smith’s project was done in whole or in part by Ms. Smith, it should indicate that. At least that would be honest to the kids and not leave some with the false impression that they are simply not as good or creative as the other kids.

Finally, if it is something you feel comfortable doing, perhaps you could say something to the class about how you as a teacher value work that is done independently and that you can discern work that is done by a student versus a parent. For a project like this, in which it seems that parents were expected to participate, perhaps you could say something so that kids whose parents did not participate for whatever reason (e.g., single parents who have their hands full as it is, parents who might not have had the extra cash to buy elaborate supplies, parents who simply don’t believe it’s good for their children to do their work), don’t have to feel badly about their efforts.

Thank you for reading this — if you got this far! I do appreciate in advance your understanding and any effort you could make to ameliorate the situation.

]]> http://stophomework.com/moms-and-dads-on-a-mission-edible-art-project/1115/feed 9 http://stophomework.com/moms-and-dads-on-a-mission-edible-art-project/1115 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/hhdS4GrQ4OU/1136 http://stophomework.com/la-times-reports-schools-are-cutting-back-on-homework/1136#comments Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:06:12 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1136 The L.A. Times recently reported on several California schools that have cut back on homework:

Trustees in Danville, Calif., eliminated homework on weekends and vacations last year. Palo Alto officials banned it over winter break. Officials in Orange…are reminding teachers about limits on homework and urging them not to assign it on weekends. A private school in Hollywood has done away with book reports.

Read the story here.

]]> http://stophomework.com/la-times-reports-schools-are-cutting-back-on-homework/1136/feed 0 http://stophomework.com/la-times-reports-schools-are-cutting-back-on-homework/1136 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/wC78DFtAj18/1119 http://stophomework.com/teachers-in-british-columbia-canada-seek-ban-on-homework-until-grade-4/1119#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:12:15 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1119 According to an article in The Province, the president of the British Columbia Teachers Federation says that school kids should not be given any homework until Grade 4 at the earliest. “I’m not in favour of abolishing homework, but I do think we need to consider very carefully the age of children,” she said. “Certainly in the primary years [kindergarten to Grade 3] we shouldn’t be having kids have homework.”

]]> http://stophomework.com/teachers-in-british-columbia-canada-seek-ban-on-homework-until-grade-4/1119/feed 2 http://stophomework.com/teachers-in-british-columbia-canada-seek-ban-on-homework-until-grade-4/1119 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stophomework/~3/4Ob_tmmp2S0/1151 http://stophomework.com/school-district-in-newfoundland-canada-implements-new-homework-policy/1151#comments Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:51:05 +0000 Sara Bennett http://stophomework.com/?p=1151 After some parent complaints that their children were doing too much homework, the Eastern School District in Newfoundland, Canada, implemented a new homework policy. According to vocm.com, “guidelines for Kindergarten students are roughly ten minutes, primary 30 minutes, elementary 40, intermediate an hour, and high school students one to two hours.” In addition, homework cannot be assigned over holiday breaks and cannot be assigned as a form of discipline. Read the policy here.

]]> http://stophomework.com/school-district-in-newfoundland-canada-implements-new-homework-policy/1151/feed 1 http://stophomework.com/school-district-in-newfoundland-canada-implements-new-homework-policy/1151