Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Atlantic article on excessive homework

Well, be realistic.


All of those seven-to-ten-year olds had better be brought up to snuff somehow before they get into high school.

After all, how else are they going to manage the workload in those seventy AP classes that they need to take, hmm?

{gasp} What?? You don't plan for your four year old to be taking more than a couple of those?? {shakes head sadly}

Oh my... your poor child... Doomed to a Life of Mediocrity and Worse by your inability to understand the Glossy and Impressive Competitive Benefits Which Shall Accrue as a result of Highly Prestigious and Rigorous High School Coursework(tm). You can't start thinking about (elite) college too soon, you know.



What? Nobody else sees this connection? It's operant conditioning. Revolting, to be sure, when the subjects are children. But it's the only way that they'll eventually be able to endure (well some of them can) 6+ nightly hours of high school homework. How else will we know who the valedictorians are?!

(No. I am not kidding. Well, I am-- obviously-- but not about the 6+ hours or the sort mechanism.)

HK, the story for why DD needs all that HW is "to prepare for middle school." I think last year it was "to prepare for 4th grade."

Of course, she CAN do it, because she doesn't have ADHD, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, etc and despite being immature and anxious, etc., she is relatively organized and responsible. The kids in her grade who DO have LDs (and they exist--the GT program, to its credit, definitely does not exclude them) are barely keeping their heads above water. The only thing I can say is that, um, there seems to be a lot of grade inflation? Is that a positive?? What I mean is, the kids who are tanking the homework are not failing.

In a survey, Harvard students said the following about how much they studied in high school and anticipated studying in college. Their high school workloads looked reasonable.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/9/5/freshman-survey-academics-extracurriculars/
Freshman Survey Part III: Classes, Clubs, and Concussions
The Class of 2017's Academic and Extracurricular Lives
By MADELINE R. CONWAY and CORDELIA F MENDEZ, CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
September 5, 2013


The survey has attracted some media attention because 10% of incoming Harvard students surveyed admitted to cheating on tests in high school (42% on homework). I wonder how that compares to college students in general.

"Homework" and "studying" are two very different things.

If my DD's friends and peers are anything to go by-- a lot of them rationalize not-quite-cheating (that is, what THEY consider to not "really" be cheating) by offering up the idea that if they didn't cheat, they honestly feel that no human being is capable of doing what is sometimes/often asked. In some instances, students actually articulate that they feel that it's OBVIOUS that cheating is intended, at least tacitly.

I know that I've also seen that sentiment associated with such studies before.
To be clear, my family and I see nothing defensible about academic malfeasance of any kind, and we have a great deal of disdain for it. If you have to cheat, you have by definition just admitted your own incompetence. It saddens me that this conclusion seems to be slipping over time.

Now, I'm certainly not defending the practices that the father in this article is illustrating... BUT... having read the specifics of what was being demanded, I have to also say that my DD, at 10 (when she was a freshman in high school) would have been polishing off that entire evening in about two hours flat, maybe less. But then again, she is HG+. So.

There is a component to this that parents like our erstwhile Homework Dad don't really want to examine too hard. That is, that not all kids ARE "elite" material. His daughter seems to be struggling (though not terribly hard) to keep up with the workload. My question is-- why is he not seeing this as an indicator that maybe this placement demands too much for her to keep up with?

I understand his angst. The work itself isn't the problem-- it's the output demand that is the issue. That is a separate issue, but it's the one underlying this phenomenon; there is no more depth. Only volume. That is what "GT" means now in secondary in almost every instance I've personally seen. It's rigid, inflexible, and very much like a sausage-grinding operation-- I'm reminded of the line from Dune; Spice must flow.

We've struggled with this throughout my DD's school career ourselves. But I knew better than to think that I was going to be successful in reducing that volume through complaints about it. Output demand has always been the limiting factor in my DD's academic placement. She could DO the material in AP Comp as a nine year old. She just couldn't keep up with the written output demands and all of the assessments daily.

But here's the part that I'm perplexed by-- why on earth is HomeworkDad not doing something about this toxicity? Why didn't he see this coming? We did. We opted NOT to place our DD into high school at a point in her life when she could not realistically keep up with those output demands.

This goes along with the topic quite well. I'm still laughing! lol http://www.huffingtonpost.com/clair...html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

What do you think he should do?

Because this is my future. It's already my life, to some extent. I don't want to homeschool--at all. My kids are in the best placement possible for them, as far as I can tell. We have politely expressed our dissatisfaction with the HW level at the school.

I DO see it coming, HK. But I don't see a way out.

To be clear, I believe my kids will handle what is thrown at them. DD is a straight A student--top of her grade. But I think it's going to suck.

Yes - I saw this on FB and thought someone should post it here, but forgot to do so. Mind you, come to think of it... My DS's (high achieving) school has a very welcome no-homework policy, which is what lets DS play two instruments and do an AoPS course out of school and spend nearly two hours travelling every day and not quite go crazy - and I DO send work in with him; his AoPS challenge problems!

As for why this dad hasn't done something about it - I don't think it's nearly that easy. Home education isn't an option, never mind a good option, for all families, school choice is limited and involves compromises, schools may or may not be receptive to requests for flexibility...

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here, HK. It's not like there's a choice. College track = excessive homework, just as rigor = more homework. And HomeworkDad's daughter is in 8th grade. Eighth graders aren't exactly given a lot of choice about their schedules. It seems unfair to question the girls abilities or HomeworkDad's assessment when the system is the problem. What's the point of making 98 calculations about distances to state capitals? Or of reading 79 pages of a novel in one evening while also pulling out three "important and powerful quotes" and analyzing their significance? These assignments are frivolous.


Plus, HomeworkDad did do something about it. He communicated with the other parents in his daughter's class. And he got hauled into a meeting with the vice principal and accused of cyberbullying for his efforts. So then he wrote an article in a high-profile magazine. It seems to me like he's trying. Hard. IMO, nothing will change until this problem moves into the popular consciousness, and people like the author of the article and of books on the subject are trying to create a solution.

TBH, the whole system strikes me as being guided by irrationality. I agree with you completely about lack of depth. US schools seem to use volume to compensate for this problem. This is hardly surprising in a system where a "highly qualified" teacher is defined as a having any bachelor's degree, rather than a subject-specific one.