Please do not let my children end up in Saturday detention, lest a Judd Nelson wannabe speaks words that cannot be unspoken in my precious baby's ears.
Earlier this week, my older girl and I attended an orientation at the high school for rising 9th graders. No, this post is not going to be a mother’s lament about how her baby is going to high school in seven months and approximately five days (not that I’m counting) and where has the time gone? (Also, I’m pretty excited for her.)
Actually, what I want to talk about is the unbelievable workload placed on today’s students, because if you don’t have a child in middle or high school, you might not be aware of how many hours the average student works in a day and over the course of the week. It’s more than full time, believe me.
My girls have been in the public school system here in our town since kindergarten. The schools are terrific and, as far as I know, they meet the needs of all students, not just the ones who struggle and/or the ones who are the very brightest. I have been impressed with and pleased by the educations my daughters have received.
Have you heard that Lake Woebegon expression “where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average? While it has become synonymous with the human tendency to overestimate one’s abilities, I see the last part of that expression as a fitting description of how our school system views our students: All of the students have great potential, it’s just a matter of unlocking it.
I have a great deal of admiration and respect for the educators who work with my daughters and their peers day in and day out. I have no doubts about their commitment to educating those students and preparing them for life. These days, I’m particularly in awe of the middle school faculty and staff, because I cannot imagine what it must be like to spend so very many hours cooped up inside with 600 hormonal middle schoolers. In fact, I shudder a little to even think about it.
Starting in 7th grade, the school system works with the students to think long term about their goals and dreams. It might seem a tad bit early, but I think it’s great. College and vocational prep take time, so it’s good to get the kids thinking about it while they have time to do some research.
The one issue I have with our middle school is the overwhelming amount of homework these kids have. There are no breaks — not on the weekends, not over Thanksgiving, not over the winter holidays. And given that the high school (you know, the one with older students) has had a policy this year of specifically telling the teachers via email not to assign homework over the Thanksgiving and winter breaks, I have a real problem with the middle school’s stated policy of dumping a metric shit-ton of work on the kids for their days off. On any given day, my girls come home from their full day of work at school and then still have another 2-4 hours of work to deal with.
Am I correct in assuming that no one likes to work overtime? I know I don’t. What the middle school is doing is making the students work all day, then do overtime at night and on their days off — you know, those times when they should be relaxing, reading for pleasure, and oh I don’t know sleeping to recharge their exhausted brains.
Experts agree that teens need an average of 8.5-9 hours of sleep a night, but I can assure you that the girls in my house are not getting that. By the time they finish their work and unwind a little, then go to bed, they’re getting around 7-8 hours. And that unwinding time between finishing work and going to sleep is critical for the brain’s processes. You finish a massive report for work, hop straight into bed, and see how quickly you can get to sleep. Not so easy, is it? Pediatricians generally recommend at least 1-2 hours of down time away from computers and other screens before sleep can occur. Pediatricians also recommend a larger amount of time for running around outside, participating in sports, and generally getting away from the stresses of the day, but by the time middle school students finish their homework, there simply is no time.
Allow me to expand on an earlier comment: Over the Thanksgiving break, only one of my two daughters’ combined 12 teachers assigned homework. The rest gave the girls a small break. I told said daughter not to do the work assigned by the one teacher and then I emailed that teacher and explained that I had instructed my daughter not to do the assignment, as my family had had a challenging autumn and we really needed the long weekend to be together as a family, without school and work intruding. I’m not going to share her response here, but I’m pretty sure y’all would have been as unhappy as I was when I read it. She shut down my rational concerns and gave my daughter a zero on the assignment.
(On a related note, this teacher has stressed my daughter out so much that even though this is normally a subject my girl enjoys, she is absolutely hating it this year. The amount of homework is ridiculous. Furthermore, while the teacher does not grade homework for accuracy, she does give zeros if the students do not show all of their work in excruciating detail. Suffice it to say, while my daughter’s test scores are great, her homework scores are not.)
(BTW, the teacher in question does not have children who are old enough for homework. In my experience, teachers who have kids doing homework themselves are far more reasonable about these things.)
(When I’ve tried talking about my concerns about the middle school workload with the principal, he was not receptive to what I had to say.)
For the past week, I have had two extra middle school girls at my house while their parents are out of town, so I have had the opportunity to observe all their workloads. From the first day back from the winter break (a break during which they all had homework), they have been overloaded with work. Granted, tomorrow is the end of the term, so there have been term tests and end-of-term projects, but all of this has taken up most of the girls’ already limited free time.
Most nights, there has been at least one girl sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of books until 9 p.m. or later. Last weekend, they all got up on Saturday, ate breakfast, and hit the books. They worked much of the day and then two of them continued their work on Sunday. And the work is relentless: Just as they reach the top of the load, more is added. These students have no time off, ever.
When I have expressed my concerns to teachers and administrators, I have been told these are honor students, they can handle the work. Yes, yes they can. HOWEVER, just because they can doesn’t mean that they should.
If you are a parent or educator, I encourage you to read The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins. It is an eye opening study of the negative effects of pushing teens too hard.
I’m not suggesting that we allow students to slack off and not do their work, but I do think we need to be looking at how much work is piled on these kids and if it’s merited. Recent studies about Finnish schools show that students thrive when they’re not being tested constantly and overloaded with after-hours work.
I do understand that homework is never going away, even though there are numerous studies that cite the negative impact of homework. (For the record, there are some studies that support homework.) What I do think needs to be done is for schools to ease up on the students. Assign less homework overall (e.g. one page of math instead of two, three, or four) and don’t assign any at for weekends and school breaks.
I know I’m ranting, but this has been building up for months and now I just need to explode a little. I know that it’s possible that the folks at the middle school will see this and I’m fine with it. I also recognize that my rant will have no effect on the students’ work loads, but I think it still needs to be said.
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It’s a vicious cycle. If you opt your kids out of this rat race, they’re not going to the colleges they will want to go to–if you don’t opt out you perpetuate the cycle.
I would actually consider getting a group of like-minded parents together, getting on the agenda at a school board meeting and presenting your research and requests. Nothing to lose by trying, right? Maybe include the girls–it will look good on a college app
I agree with Jenn, Jen.
if anyone can turn things around, it’s you! I don’t have kids, but I imagine my reaction would be the same as yours.
I totally agree with you. We don’t have much homework yet, but I hate it. They don’t have enough time to play!
I also disagree with the PP. There are lots of great colleges out there and there are very few professions that require you to go to an Ivy League or similar school. Both my husband and I went to “lesser named” schools…he went to UVm and I finished at Centre College (bonus if you know where that is!) and we both went on to get master’s degrees and pursue decent careers. It is a myth that you “need” to go to a certain college to have a chance at life.
Thank you for saying that. I absolutely agree. It’s time to stop the madness.
I am a 7th grade science teacher (fancy private school) and I have a daughter in 7th grade (Catholic school).
I think middle schoolers should have about 2 hours of homework.
I assign homework that takes most of my students 20-30 minutes (if they are not distracted by Instagram). Because we are on a block schedule, they always have at least two days to do an assignment. Also, they have non-academic classes that don’t assign homework. So a typical student should spend 60-90 minutes on homework each night, with another 30 minutes available to make progress on a longer-term project, if they have one at that time.
It is important to me and the other teachers at my school that the students have a reasonable work load that helps them learn and doesn’t negatively impact their interest in learning. I discuss this with my students in Advisory; they report that they have enough time to chill out a bit, get their work done, go to their practices/music lessons/scout meetings, etc., watch a TV show or play on the computer, and go to bed, so I think we have the balance right. I really hope so!
Sometimes I have a parent come talk to me about how much time her daughter is spending on homework. We find that either 1) the student is multi-tasking during homework time (texting, Instagram) which is extremely inefficient; or 2) the student is overdoing things – re-copying their work to make it look perfect, for example, which is NOT necessary on a regular daily homework assignment.
I agree with your thoughts on your daughters’ homework load. My daughter has the right amount (like my own students, she still has time for 2-hour drama rehearsals and playing with her brother and sister before going to bed at 9:00), but I know that it is very common for schools to overload the kids on homework, especially in a middle school where the students have all their classes every day of the week. However, I do think students should have homework on weekends (not the longer breaks). It should be the normal amount – one night’s homework.
Well, this is a ridiculously long comment – obviously it’s a topic that I think about a lot as a teacher-parent!
I can’t say that we’ve personally experienced the issue with homework overload; in fact, we’ve had years where there was no homework at all–and that can be equally as stressful (as you and I have discussed). Currently, my main concern with homework is what happens to it once it is returned to school. When my child submits homework with EVERY SINGLE ANSWER incorrect, clearly demonstrating that she does not understand the concept, we work with her to correct it. But we turn in her original work and the revised work along with a note stating our concerns that she needs remediation. Do you know what response we get? [crickets...] Yeah, we’re still waiting for a response.
I’m to the point with my oldest where we’re trying to guide him toward dual enrollment in high school so that he can graduate with an Associates degree. He loves the Career Academies at PVCC, so I’m hoping those classes will encourage him to seek the classes and hands-on enrichment that he thrives on at the community college level while still in high school. As for my youngest, I’m desperate to pull her out of a mediocre school system that allows children to thrive on mediocrity. She requires physical engagement and an arts-inspired curriculum, everything standardized testing has killed.
As for honors classwork, I will admit that I have been advised by MANY PARENTS to keep my children far, far away because of the problems you cited above. Their children had no life other than schoolwork. With regular honors classes being available along with dual enrollment opportunities, parents who withdrew their children from the honors program reported that their children were able to be children again (versus homework-bots), and they went on to excellent colleges. On scholarship.
As for your situation, I agree with others that if there is to be change, you will be one to lead the cause. Please let me know how I can support you; I’m happy to be a sounding board (and I’m happy to benefit from learning from you).
I think it’s pretty clear that homework is unnecessary. But education majors never do learn the research –education schools are too invested in the status quo. Generally, my daughter only has homework if she didn’t get something finished at school. Kids who play around at school have to finish the work at home –an excellent teaching tool in itself. And she doesn’t sit around and watch TV after school either –she has a million interesting projects going on in her head, and loves her free time.
I think the push to get into a “good” college is way overrated. Where you get your BS degree plays a very small role in most people’s professional lives. (However, I’m not advocating that your girls (or any kids) just don’t do the homework, mostly because I imagine it would make the kids feel pretty awful.)
Emma has wondered why her friends take more extensive vacations than we do –well, it’s because we pay almost another mortgage payment for her school tuition. We have very poor schools in our district anyway, but when I see how education works in her progressive school, I know we’d be paying this even if the school district was better. Teaching college, I see the kids that come from the different schools, and I can tell which ones learned to think critically, and which ones learned to perform. The very best students are those that come from home-schooling and unschooling environments –they see learning as something interesting to do, rather than simply going through the motions with the goal of the next school, or job. Unless you’re attending a technical school, education shouldn’t be about anything except learning. But most American schools stomp out the natural pleasure associated with learning something new early on with things like way too much busy-work.
Sorry for my rant –I have very strong feelings about education and how truly backwards it is in this country!!
Cassi, you’d probably appreciate reading this book, too: I’d Like To Apologize To Every Teacher I Ever Had by Tony Danza. It was just published in September.
I have to ask, are you on block days or do your girls have 6-7 class periods a day? My middle schooler has no homework. None. She never brings a book home. Okay, occasionally she has a project but that is it. No homework. She did more daily homework in Kindergarten and 1st grade than she has done in 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th combined. We are on block days so the classes are 90 minutes for 4 classes a day. In a way this makes sense because I remember that out of a 50 minute class period, we had maybe 30 minutes of instruction at best. You HAD to have homework to reinforce what little classroom instruction you got. So she’s getting a solid 60-70 minutes of instruction time out of that 90 minutes. High school is going to be the same way. We may see a little more homeworked assigned, especially if she takes AP courses. But our big dilemma is going to come from whether she applies for Governor’s School. Those selected for that program do so much homework and take so many classes that they can enter college as second semester sophomores. If you know what you are going to do, that’s great. If you have discipline to do something you’ve never had to do (or at least not since you were 7 years old!) than it is doable. My daughters have no idea how to stick to a deadline, how to plan out a project, how to juggle multiple projects and still make time for extra curricular activities and friends. The science fair was not manditory for 7th graders but we didn’t give her the option (she got it in 6th) and yet if I had not been constantly riding her for the next step, it never would have gotten done. As it is, she did not read the instructions carefully and we were rewriting her abstract the night before it was due. I pointed this out to her and asked if she understood if she got into GS she wouldn’t have one project at a time but multiple all due at different times and you don’t wait until the last minute to do something–you do it when it is assigned. I don’t think she gets it. How can she if she’d never had to do homework. But she’s learning and I can see she grasps the concepts and she loves school. But what life skills is she learning? And there is no drive to go above and beyond, no desire than to do just what she has to do to get a good grade. Because she has no idea what hard work and accomplishment are. Just my two cents.
It’s a poorly done block program that has the students in 6 classes a day and the same schedule every day. The “block” part of it comes from insisting all the students have two full periods (1 block) of math daily and the students who need extra help in English have the same two periods/one block for that too. Then they all have a two periods/one block of science one semester and history/civics the other. What that means is that science and history get shafted and the continuity from year to year is poor.
I would be happy with block scheduling if it were a true block plan, with alternating days.
I miss the true block scheduling we had in Loudoun County Public Schools. Our “block” scheduling here is much like yours, Jen, and it is almost useless.
6th grade appears (so far) to be the only year they have a semester of history and a semester of science. Only those that tested as Math 6 get math every day… at first that made me nervous because T1 tested into Math 8 but she did okay with it. Those that elect to take a foreign language get the first year (1 high school credit) over the course of 7th & 8th grade. Hopefully that will lay a good foundation (of course I subbed for 8th grade spanish students and I have my doubts!). I’m not sure I’d be happy with you hybrid block system and overloaded homework either. I’ll just keep trying to pound these multitasking skills into my children.
My 6th and 7th graders get very little nightly homework except what was not completed in class and my daughter who is in a french immersion program has weekly dictee (spelling and verb conjugation)to prepare for. They get the occasional assignment or project that requires more work at home. They get home from school at 4pm, just enought time for a brain break, outdoor play, homework if required, dinner and off to evening activities (both my kids are involved in competitive sports). I think that 60-90 minutes of homework a night is way too much at this age.
I have nothing of value to add to your debate…I feel your pain and do not look forward to that day. I hated homework and always had a ton because to get all the courses I (thought I) needed I had no free periods. I am also a world renowned procrastinator.
I’m actually complaining my kindergartener doesn’t have homework. Not that he needs a ton, but it would be nice to have something come home to keep us involved in what they are doing.
Homework certainly does have its usefulness but I have struggled with the overload in my house. The stated purpose is to give the students practice in what they learned in class. Fine, I get that and support it — but there ought to be some flexibility for families to take holidays away from it all. We often couldn’t go away for a weekend because of homework. I’ve had it suggested that the student could just log in online and do 2 hours of work in the morning (trying to take a summer school course), and the teacher was surprised when I said, “No, that can’t happen because he will be without internet.” There seems to be a prevailing attitude from multiple sources that we all need to be plugged-in at all times.
I have a very smart kid taking 6 AP courses this year, and he manages to still have time for other activities, but it involves some late nights. I’ve also had a smart kid with a true inability to work quickly. Two hours of nightly homework easily became 6 hours for him. We tried to get an IEP to skip some of those assignments (he was/is very bright and didn’t need the extra practice that homework provides), but the “team” at school noted his good grades and said he was fine. They never listened to our concerns about homework. It was very frustrating. Those examples are from middle school and high school (the last time we tried to get an IEP was 9th grade). But we have also questioned the constant homework in Kindergarten and the early grades, when we would hope that they are actually doing and learning in class.
Perhaps some of this blame should be given to standardized testing and the pressure for teachers to teach to the test. Realistically, we all share the blame.
I’m glad you are speaking up for what you know to be best for your family.
I just finished reading Tony Danza’s book about teaching. I recommend reading it.
I’d Like To Apologize To Every Teacher I Ever HadÂ
I borrowed my copy from our public library. The above link will take you to Amazon.
My sentiments EXACTLY, which is why we opted out of what we were doing and found a way to have our cake (quality education, not quantity of work) and eat it too (quality down time because quality not quantity of work). This isn’t to say that Laura doesn’t work very hard, and I work hard to support her, but she’s (and we) are very happy. That said, what we do isn’t for everyone, I know. I think your girls are fortunate to have a mama who has her eye on the ball. I bet just knowing that you’re in their corner, supporting them makes all the difference in their spirits. That’s the most important thing in the end, if you ask me. Good post, Jen, as usual.
Amen amen amen.
I despise busywork-homework. If it’s taking a ridiculous amount of time or demonstrates no qualitative (or quantitative) value, I’m on the frontlines protesting. I taught for over a decade and assigned a light but steady load to high school kids only because they couldn’t read entire novels or write entire papers in class time alone. In my view, excessive homework has the distasteful side effect of making kids a) hate school, b) hate work, and c) cheat/rush to “get it done.”
And I could go on and on about teachers without children, but that’s a rant I’ll stuff back for today.
I have a hard time dealing with the stress that our school system puts on students and parents. I feel anxious just reading this post, and as you know, I chose to keep my son out of school for two weeks for our trip to Portugal. I guess he could have returned to school today, but he was jet-lagged, so I let him stay home. And that principal? He made a point of telling me that vacations are considered unexcused. What is more enriching: sitting in a classroom, or interacting with people in a new language and a new culture, learning history and seeing art and important historic and geographic sites? Apparently a certain principal thinks it’s the former. He’s all genial and friendly when you see him in person, but he’s like teflon–nothing you say to him penetrates. When my daughter was repeatedly hit on the head by another student on the school bus, he did absolutely nothing.
You get a round of applause from me. I have long been a believer that homework is mostly pointless. 2-4 hours of work a night is ridiculous. I don’t know what an honors student is, so I can’t tell you if I ever was one (or the equivalent of one) but I got good marks at school and went to the equivalent of an Ivy League uni in the UK all the way up to an MA. I know it’s a different country and all that, but I did that on maybe 1.5 hours of homework a night, at most. It gave time for other important things, as you say. When I was 12 or 13 I think my homework load averaged about an hour a night and some nights I had none. Usually, a teacher would make the unfinished classwork homework, which meant either I’d already done it or if not, it didn’t take long. We had stuff assigned over holidays, but it was never overwhelming.
I think most homework is bullshit, and schools are altogether too interested in dictats, illogicality and base authoritarianism. At least that’s what I glean about schools in the UK now from talking to my friends who have kids. If I ever have kids, I’m going to be flavour of the month with their teachers…