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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!

CAMOM - great idea if you are fortunate enough to have a receptive teachers. Just have to find some of those 'round here
(sorry - had a "gutfull" of the "professionals" for the time being)

CAMom,

You are my hero. What an amazing idea.

Along the lines of "poor estimators," I emailed the DS's math teacher and mentioned he'd been spending two hours on homework. She wrote back that she'd estimated ~30 minutes!

My husband sat down to do the work. He estimated that the kid would need 1.5-2 hours to do the problems.

The teacher is going to dial down.

Thanks for all the input. I see value in homework, but also think that children shouldn't be working 10 hours a day. That's even a lot for an adult.

Val

Raddy- I hope you can find some receptive teachers! My DS has certainly had a mixed bag. Overall, I sadly believe lots of people fall into elementary school- they don't necessarily choose it. So they become elementary teachers because they like kids, not because they are inspired teachers. My DS had an amazing teacher last year... the year before? Dreadful... like the teachers in Matilda!

Because I have the opportunity to see it from both sides daily, I know that teachers are immediately defensive when parents present things to them. If you can remove the emotion and go with just plain data, you'll have better luck every time.

Not that I remember to do it myself though! I have a tendency to wait too long, until I'm already mad then it's hard to dial it back and have a quality discussion.

Any idea why?

Val

OT but from my observation (4 years in the classroom and 6 years in admin) I'd say that 80% of the parents that come in are pretty much wrong. They either have total rose colored glasses on about their own child, they have only impressions but no facts to back up their ideas or they are certain that the teacher is out to get their child.

I have an HG+ kid who is grade skipped and subject accelerated- so I am not quick to judge parents! But a small example- I had a parent recently demand that her child be accelerated two years in math. She wanted her eligible for a special summer program next year and was insisting that her daughter was ready.

With no debate at all, we gave her the placement test for one year up... she scored 47%. Mom insisted the test was unfair and demanded a different test (after calling the school board to complain about me being anti-gifted LOL). So we gave her daughter a different placement test, designed by the university, for Algebra readiness. She bombed- less than 30%.

Mom is still insistent now a month into school that her daughter needs more. But her performance, her grades, her standardized test scores, her homework and her attitude show that she is very properly placed.

This happens to me about once a week, in all levels and all subjects. By the time the parents get to me, they've already tried to work it out with the teacher. Granted, there are times where the teacher is wrong and it does happen! But there are far more times that I see with general population of students where the parent is just off base. This makes it hard for the teacher to listen, even when a parent has a totally valid concern.

CaMom - the calendar is a great idea (I'll get one prepared). Our boy's senior school was marked down by inspectors last year for overburdening the boys with homework. But in the UJK, maybe in the US, school's reputations are ade by exam results and I wonder how long before the workload increases again (especially if the exam grades drop a coupla pips)

CAMom -

I don't know if this was already on your agenda, but maybe after teacher and administrator, you should consider author.

Your insights are intriguing and all of your follow-up posts lead me to ask more questions...

Seems to me like a book is needed.

thanks for sharing,

EW

CAMom, I'm so glad you are sharing your unique perspective. I love what you have to say. My thought is that if this is happening every week, perhaps a 3-5 page worksheet to give the parents to organize their thoughts and observations is worth generating. I think it's great that you give the end of year tests without debate - so awesome!

My idea is to give parents some kind of rubric that they can follow to convince themselves that they are operating under rose colored glasses or impressions without facts. They you could list some afterschool enrichment activities that are open to all (Math Clubs, Odyssey of the Mind, Chess Clubs etc.) Talent Search Information, Any local Tutor/Mentors in various subject that you might have particular faith in.

As US society becomes more polarized, and the gulf between 'winners' and 'losers' becomes wider, and while jobs are so hard to find, I think we are going to see lots of parental anxiety. As US educational copetitiveness becomes questioned by US parents,and US parents start to get that this matters, I think we are going to see lots of parental anxiety. If we can help channel that anxiety into positive action, then I think that's a good thing.

Should a parent wait for a whole system to be fixed before doing what's right for their child? Is that fair to children whose parents have neither the ability nor interest to take these same actions? Is the unfairness a reason not to do it? This is one of the key questions we have to ask ourselves over and over.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Grinity

I have a shed load of parental anxiety (see my other posts).

What to do? - there's the rub!

For example at school learning Latin starting at Grade 7. They might be better off using the time learning Mandarin?

Good High School graduation results - then what?

Boy - I'm anxious

@EastNWest- thank you so much for the compliment! I have considered author, have started several times, lost my way and put it down. I feel like my situation offers a vantage point that few parents or teachers actually get to see. It is certainly interesting!

@Grinity- I love the idea of a worksheet/rubric. That would really cut down on the useless complaining without a solution. It might also bring out something I've missed, allowing for a new discussion about placement. Because I work at an arts academy, we have an intense level of competition surrounding the arts but it is only just beginning to spill into academics.

As our student population drifts away from intensely arts focused students and into a broader range, it has brought up some questions. If our mission is arts academy, do we lose some focus by broadening our academic offerings? Yes. But is that loss of focus worth it? I'm not sure yet. It means that my admin hat is very very different than my parent hat, if nothing else!

Sorry if this is going off topic of what the thread was about, but I only read the original post.
My daughter (DD14) in 9th grade varies from no homework (though this is rare now), to 3 or 4 hours. I don't have any problem with it. She's going from waking up at 6:00 to get to school by 7:00, and then get home more around 5:00. Since she needs to wake up early, that gives her about until 10:00 to do homework (she does like getting a solid 8 hours, though last year she would stay up until 12:00 a lot of nights, so this is an improvement). That means that she has homework until 8:00 or 9:00 a lot of nights. This gives her, an hour of free time on those nights. I actually think this amount of homework is great, because she has become more responsible and she likes to be busy. I also think this prepares them for in college when the course load might be greater.
Of course, some parents might disagree. Maybe it is too much homework, I don't really know. I just generally think it's good to have a good amount of stuff to be busy with.

Writing a book is a daunting task. Start with a blog where you can write at leisure about subjects as they affect your day or week. Not only will you be able to reach out to others, but it will help build a platform of followers if you ever do decide to write the book. In today's publishing environment, having a platform through a blog or guest speaking or appearances in media are almost requisite for nonfiction books where one is writing as the expert. (Sorry to deviate off topic, but thought I'd offer the advice in case you were in earnest about the idea.)

I don't like much homework. My kids are in 2nd and 4th. I like the 10 mins per grade rule and then stop at 2 hrs. Max. I think kids miss out if they don't have time for music, sports, helping out around the house, family time and being with freinds.

DS7 is in 7th and we have a rule, 2 hours max. I told his teachers that because of his age I wouldn't ask for anything more than that and they agreed. If his homework doesn't get done, they all know that it wasn't because he didn't try and they accept that. He just can't write as fast as your average 7th grader so it takes him longer to get it done.

The rule at the school is that middle school gets 2 hours, high school gets 3, but in all fairness most of the high school kids are dual enrolled at the college so their homework isn't really determined by the school.

The chances are small, but at least everyone can be somewhat satisfied that nothing was overlooked. I have to tell people medium-bad news everyday, and I feel better when I can say: 'I take comfort in that you've done all you could.'

Smiles,
Grinity

these are tough questions. I wish I had the magic formula for creating consensus. I had a lot of friends who were in Art programs growing up, and they all 'felt dumb' when it came to Academics. Very different than the kids in band. It broke my heart. Seems like you are dealing with a different community. I wonder, at least in some subjects, if the arts can be used inside traditional academic classrooms to enrich the experience.

When I visited my son's new school, we sat in on a class where the kids were presenting Powerpoints about 'The history of Broadway, by Decade, and how each Decade of Broadway History was influence by the current events of the time.'

Picasso's Painting Guernicacomes to mind as a way to study History and Politics. And Mary Cassatt jump up as a way to study gender politics.

Still that hasn't addressed the needs of the hyper-visual kids, who like drawing, on any deep level.

I wish I had more ideas in this area.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I think the shed load must be shed (or at least in the process of being shed) to make really good decisions.

What has worked in the past?

I like journaling, posting, venting to a trusted friend, and a particular kind of meditation that is 'downward' instead of 'Transcendence' oriented:

http://www.iam-u.org/index.php/how-to-learn-meditation

Best Wishes,
Grinity

BWBShari
2 hours a night. How old is 7th grade - 11? 12?
I know the kids are expected top do it - i just wonder why. i look at the KS3 and KS4 texts here in the UK and I honestly can't see how this curriculum can't be delivered during a normal school working week.

I recall somebody saying that the whole KS2 (Grade 6/ages 11) curriculum in maths could be successfully delivered in 50 hours - 75 hours max allowing for slower pupils. English, Maths & Science KS2 translates into 4 years at school here in the UK. I know other stuff goes on, but even allowing for 3 hours per day academic . Do the math (15 hours per week, x 30 weeks a year x 4 years = 1800 hours). Then add some homework. I'm surprised myself!

I guess I'm either naive or stupid or missing something or maybe all three? dunno?

Raddy, saying the curriculum can be "delivered" assumes that the kids are like buckets to be filled; they hear it once, it's been delivered to them, they understand and can use it. But they aren't buckets.

Some (rare) kids are like that for some subjects, but the vast majority are not; most need to have a lot of rote practice, see variations on the concepts, and extend and apply the concepts themselves before they "get" it and it's theirs to keep. Retention rate on lecturing alone: ca. 10%. Retention rate on active learning tasks: closer to 75%.

OTOH, two plus hours of homework load isn't reasonable; it leaves pretty much no time for other learning I think is just as important. Learn to wash a car, iron a shirt, use a bank card, play a musical instrument, the rest of life that isn't academic but is important.

DeeDee

DeeDee - I agree.
With the incredible wealth of subjects available to students - thanks to the internet - it is easy for me to see why a 1-hour class 5 days/week isn't enough to cover everything necessary for a rigorous curriculum. For example, consider a middle school social studies World Geography course. The class could simply learn about physical features of the landscape in different countries, the capitals, lakes, mountains, etc. But what if the curriculum went in-depth into political systems, culture, history, economic development.... The possibilities are practically endless. This is why I don't argue about the several hours of homework/day my middle-schooler has. There is no way to fit all of this into a regular school day. Maybe the school year should be lengthened, although that would encroach on the talent search summer programs my kids enjoy, too.

TwoMoose- this is where I fundamentally have struggles with curriculum in the 21st century! Why on earth would you spend time learning capitals of countries? It's easy to look it up on the internet or on a map. Being familiar with the landscape and the locations is one thing, but I see too many teachers spend a month on memorizing mapping. Booooring and totally not practical!

If teachers weren't afraid to work on higher level taxonomy questions for all the students, we'd be better preparing them for problem solving jobs of the future. Even the SATs don't care if you know the capital of Hungary.

Better example- I was observing a teacher last week. She was leading 7th graders in an interesting compare and contrast of the fall of Rome to current US politics. The students were able to draw similarities and differences between what lead to the fall of Rome and the current political climate in the US, make assumptions and conclusions. No homework required, actually no homework even allowed because it would have been unduly influenced by outside opinion.

Or she could have had them just memorize the 5 major factors leading to the fall of Rome...

I think we're saying essentially the same thing. I am trying to contrast superficial learning, that could take just a few hours in a school year, to in-depth exploration of a subject. That's why some out-of-class work is required in my kids' middle school. BTW, state and national capitals show up on the geography bee (required for all students at our middle school) and the AP Human Geography course from what I've seen.

There is evidence that some homework is generally beneficial in 7-12th graders. http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2006/03/homework.html

Anecdotally, my kids have better time-management skills and better study habits than I did - because they have to structure their time carefully.

Boy is this a timely discussion for me. Normally, DD10 has about an hour of homework per night. Last night DD10 had soccer practice and her teacher decided to make it a massive homework night. They didn't get something done in class so the teacher sent it home on top of all their regular work. We get out of school at 4. Soccer practice with travel time takes about 2 hours. She also needs time to eat. We usually can fit in an hour of homework since she's pretty organized. DD usually goes to bed at about 8:30. Needless to say, yesterday by 9 she had come no where close to getting her work done. She was sobbing at this point and I told her that she needed to stop and get some sleep. She had a tough time calming down and going to sleep because she was stressed out that she wouldn't get it all done. She woke up early to try to get things finished before school. She completed the writing assignment, her required reading and spent 45-60 minutes on math. I finally told her that I would write the teacher a note explaining that DD had put in over 2 hours on homework and that I was cutting her off.

I don't always like but can deal with our normal hour of homework. What I find difficult is the unpredictability of the workload. We never know when one of these extra homework nights is coming. Is my 10 year old really getting any educational benefit from staying up late and stressing out because the teacher didn't meet her own goal for getting stuff done in class? I want my 10 year old to have the opportunity to play sports and do other things. I don't think that she has an unreasonable schedule -- she only has practice twice a week. Now, I'm reconsidering whether to let her add private music lessons because her homework load may be too great. Grr!

Could you request advanced notice of the homework for the week? My kids' school has everything on-line, with syllabi for at least 1 week - sometimes 2 weeks - in advance. It helps alleviate those late-evening homework crises.

Sorry your DD had this happen.

Also, could you do the music lessons on Saturday????

deeDee

Sorry for the choice of words - for "delivered" read "taught" - like in:
"the teacher couldn't get the kids to understand some of the lesson so they brought the work home so they could have a go there then be taught it by their parents."

Twomoose - the idea of a curriculum is that boys and girls are taught appropriate stuff in a fixed time frame so they can be examined. Sure, knowledge is infinite, and yes junior could come home from school and spend 3 or 4, or 5, or 6 hours looking at his encyclopedias (or wikipedia) to bone up on Quantum Mechanics but really there has to be a limit.
In the old days there used to be, ah, somewhere where one could study a subject in depth for 2- 3 years, usually at age 18 after being schooled in the basics. Now what was it called - ah yes, it's coming to me - University. They used to hand out Bachelor Degrees to successful students I believe

CAMom - you have it in one (yet again - you're quite a star). Teachers should teach the kids to question, and analyse, and reason and then question again..... That's difficult (more difficult than reciting the capitals of the world for the umpteenth time)

This is loosely related but I thought it was pretty interesting.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...g-the-new-buzz-word-sweeping-the-US.html

Now why didn't I think of that!
In the olden days (in my youth) this was done from a textbook and was known, affectionately, as 'prep'.