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?
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.
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.
