DSS20 is a great example of how excessive homework (especially when combined with attention issues) can kill one's spark for education. He went from being in gifted pull outs in elementary, through still being identified in the gifted range in middle school, to barely graduating high school. It wasn't that he wasn't smart enough or did not want to do it, he simply was not able to concentrate on the homework load after coming home from school where he had to keep it together and concentrate for 8 hours. And I am not talking about some challenging private school or big city magnet. I am talking about regular 7/10 score suburban school district. Granted he had a lot of undiagnosed challenges but his friends had the same issues of too much to do for every single class. When you start seeing homework for the GYM class, it just makes you wonder ... frown And when I brought up his attention issues and other problems, rather than getting him tested I was told he was "lazy". I wish I had known back then what I know now and had him tested privately! But even for a non-LD kid, the workload was crazy! And the way weight was assigned to homework / in class assignments / tests made very little sense too. Homework in many cases was a matter of passing or failing the class. Thankfully DSS20 was great at test taking and barely made it through high school by getting As and Bs on mid-terms and finals.

Last edited by Mk13; 09/23/13 01:47 PM.