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Hi all,

My DS 10 is in 7th grade. School just started last week, and so far his homework load seems pretty high --- say, 2-3 hours every night. He had a lot over his first weekend, too.

This seems like a lot to me on top of a 7-hour school day. I was wondering if anyone else has an opinion on the matter.

Thanks.

Val

My son is in last year of Junior School (he is almost 11 y.o). He currently gets about 30 mins a night- which I resent.

Anyhow, in Seniors (High) I am guessing 2 hours a night will be the norm. I look at the curiccula being studied, and despite all the other non-academic stuff that takes place during school time, I am still at a loss to understand how it cannot be taught in a 30 hour school week. I wonder if it is more about preparing them for the world of work, where bringing it home or working late, is the norm. Kids need time to explore their interests, to educate them as 'whole' people, not just exam passing, teacher pleasing automatons.

By the way, I managed several teams of guys in IT. If any one of them couldn't leave the office on time I was asking them why they couldn't do the work during normal working hours. If they couldn't and were obviously not shirking I would request further headcount. (Obviously, not if a panic was on in which case it was all hands to the pumps)

I think the schedule is problematic because it bascially rules out any high level participation in sports or music. A 7th grader shouldn't have to be making those choices.

I'd be interested in how it breaks out by subject and exactly what it is - do you think it's beneficial? Or is it busy work? Do you think his age has anything to do with how long it takes him (just wondering, not trying to imply he shouldn't be in 7th grade!).

I think the schedule is problematic because it bascially rules out any high level participation in sports or music. A 7th grader shouldn't have to be making those choices.

I'm sure I'll be in the minority -

My DD had 3-4 hours consistently in 7th grade. She is very efficient, so I know she wasn't procrastinating. She made a decision to drop sports but is an accomplished musician, practicing 1 hour a day on average.

I think as long as it is not busywork, homework can be valuable. The work they were doing was challenging - reading/analyzing primary sources, writing essays, studying vocabulary, learning classification of bacteria, etc. I think DD has better study habits now than I had in college.

I guess I would ask about the quality of the work. Two hours of inane worksheets isn't going to help develop study habits, but thoughtful writing exercises might.

Like master of none, we have a year to decide what to do with our boy.

I studied for 7 years at high school doing, from year 1 , a minimum of 1-2 hours a night. Everything else by the wayside as I strove for academic success. Am I angry about that now I am middle aged - you bet I am! I will never have those opportunities again, and in the end I was absolutely no better off than those who didn't try so hard but carried on playing. I remember my brother, no academic but played around a lot, laughing at me and my qualifications (hard earned) while he was doing very well thank-you very much, while I just trundled along on the bottom trying to get somewhere (I'm still trying).

Let the kids play. Let them study at school. If they need homework to learn - or to learn study skills - then maybe they are at the wrong school, or wrong type of school! If they want to learn something after school teach them woodwork or something that will be of some use

My DS12 has 3-4 hours of homework every night in 7th grade. I totally agree that he should have homework and that about half of it is valuable practice and development of academic skills like writing. But the poor kid comes home from school, grabs a quick snack, does his homework until dinner, finishes his homework, practices his instrument (also homework), takes a shower, and goes to bed. His participation is sports and band at sporting events just means that he's up later and not getting enough sleep. It's no wonder kids today are getting fatter -- they have so little time to be outside getting physical activity and they're not getting enough sleep. Not to mention their lack of time to do creative activities or to explore other areas of interest. Heck, my DS barely has any time to read any non-school books of interest without having to give up valuable sleep!

So, yeah, doing homework teaches him to work hard and organize his time, both of which will be valuable skills in college and in life (Goodness knows it would have been nice if I'd learned to study before college!) but it's all just too much. I wish there was something to be done about it!

I now have a child in her second year of college, another who is graduating high school this year and one who is in his last year of elementary school. So I've seen the end result for my own kids with high workloads.

When we first transferred into this district, I resented the work load that the teachers put on the kids. But after we adjusted, I've seen some benefits as well.

My kids took a lot of AP (advanced placement) classes in high school which allowed them to test out of the correlating college class if they could pass the test at the end of the year. My son's homework load has been brutal at times - 5 to 6 hours some nights, because he took especially challenging classes, but it has taught him to be efficient, use his time in class wisely, and develop a work ethic (something I thought would take a miracle when he was in mid-school).

We also required our kids to take some type of music instruction in the instrument of their choice up until high school and to participate in one sport, also of their choice. My son was in the marching band through his freshman year, and it was the band instructor who made it too difficult to continue by demanding that my son choose every band practice over sports. So my son quit. Both my older kids chose climbing as their sport and took it very seriously.

The benefit has been that they were too busy to get into trouble during those difficult mid-school and high school years and that we always knew where they were. Their teammates became their friends, and most weekends were spent outside climbing in some remote area of the state - something I was happy to support and encourage. And best of all, college has been an easy transition. My daughter is used to the work load and went in with many of her core classes already credited to her transcript from her high school AP placement tests.

So yes, the homework does dig a bit into family and fun time. But it has also had its benefits.

Val-
This is a topic close to my heart as a teacher and school admin! I just sat my teachers all down this summer and had a big heart to heart. Why on earth do we give kids 3 hours of homework?

Well the answer that I got was "Oh we don't!" but I had surveyed a large population of students, both high achievers and struggling students. The average I got was 2.5 hours in middle school.

What I discovered was that teachers are notoriously poor estimators of how long it will actually take a kid to do something. They are, in theory, experts in their subject area and any work given would not be practice for them.

No idea if your kids' administration would be receptive but we had a great experiment. I had the teachers all swap homework with another teacher and actually DO it for a week. Guess what? It took most of them 2.5 to 3.5 hours!

We established a new policy as a staff that homework for middle school should be no more than 1.5 hours a night, including independent reading time that they are required to document. One month into the school year and it seems that most students are doing about 1 hour a night now. I find this pretty reasonable since they are allowed to choose any type of book for independent reading and that is 20-30 min a night (we require 2.5 hours a week documented)

Long story short- there IS something you can do about it. I would highly recommend keeping a calendar for two weeks of how much time your child spends doing homework. Actual time, not going to the bathroom, getting another snack, texting time. Take it to the particular teacher or to the admin and discuss if they think it's reasonable. Chances are, they have no clue how long it's actually coming out on the back side.

I was reading this thread and I have to say "Thank you CAMom!" You have given great advice!

Having someone on the "inside" gives me a much better perspective.

Sorry, I didn't mean to go off topic.

CAMom, that is a genius idea to have the teachers swap homework. Two things happen: The teachers who are poor estimators are identified. And I think a teacher would be MUCH more likely to take a suggestion from another teacher about the workload level than from a kid or parent. We are nearing the end of this period (D1 in college, D2 a sophomore in high school), but I wish I had heard this idea 10 years ago so I could have suggested it to the head of our middle school!