How much homework is too much?

[JBS]

In reading one of the other threads on the board, I though of this question:

In regards to school, how much homework is too much?

I am starting to hear of schools that believe in very large amounts of homework. To me, 90% or more of the learning should take place in school. Here is how I break it down:

8 hour school day = 480 minutes of school x 10% (or less) = no more than 48 minutes of homework on any given night

I believe 48 minutes of homework is quite a bit. I am hearing of schools that give out 30 minutes of homework per class. At 5 classes a day, that's 2.5 hours of homework. What are these teachers doing? Are they incapable of actually teaching while the kids are in school?

I could go on forever about this, but here's the kicker. This was a trend I noticed in California and it was a problem with my 4th, 5th, and 6th graders (not my high schoolers). These children all came from different schools and all had a minimum of 25 kids in their classrooms (max of 30).

My children are very young right now, 2 years old and 3 months old. Is this how school is going everywhere now? I have a job, I don't have 2.5 hours every night to help both of my daughters with homework.

[gym law mom]

Boy, JBS you've picked a thread that could go on forever. The school district we're in has the guideline for homework at being 10 min x the grade level(this is really more for elementary school). So, a 1st grade student/parent would expect 10 minutes of homework per night and a 5th grader could be looking at 50 minutes. The district stresses these are guidelines only though--HA! My youngest(the gymnastic one) had a 3rd grade teacher that just buried them in work and her 5th grade teacher gave almost none.

I don't agree with homework for the sake of homework or just giving assignments that are "busy" work. Of course time spent on homework will vary alot with the child just like learning a new gym skill. Some kids are more organized, school work comes easier etc. so homework isn't that big of a deal. To me the real purpose of any homework should be reinforcement of a new concept or time to review material for a test. Certainly if your child is struggling with a subject, then they may need a little extra work on it at home.

[bogwoppit]

Concerning parents helping their children with homework. When a child is young, as in grade k-3 they will probably need help and guidance to do their homework and learn good study skills. By the tiem they are in the 4-6 range they should really only need supervision with the occasional hint or tip. By high school they should be able to work independently with a very minimum of input.

I have always believed that homework should be a the continuation of work done in class, and therefore children should understand the concept being worked on and require little help. I often send my kids back to school with a little note explaining that they did not understand and could the teacher please go over the work with them. I am not a teacher, I supervise but I do not teach.

I also try not to let homework interfere too much with us having a life. I have an 8 year old, soon to be 11 year old and a fifteen year old, so I have been through all levels. My kids leave for school at 8am and get home on none gym days at 5pm, on gym days between 7:30pm and 8:30pm. Weekends are busy with play dates, gym and family visits. We do not have enough hours a day to get all homework done.

Some kids also get through homework quickly, others just struggle to be motivated.

JBS, all I will say is enjoy these very early years, school really does change everything and life and grades just fly by. My 15 year old just grew taller than me.

[JBS]

Another big issue is teacher communication. Maybe Monday could be math homework, Tuesday could be reading, and so on.

There should never be large projects, like reports, due from different teachers at the same time (or same week). State reports and science fair projects, you'd think the school would have enough organization to get those on different weeks.

[bogwoppit]

One of our local French schools assigns the weeks homework on Friday, to be completed by the following Friday. I think it is an excellent system and allows for students and parents to plan ahead.

As for communication, we have had some wonderful teachers and some not so good ones and even one who was so bad we pulled our kid from her class. It is like dealing with coaches, you need good communication lines, but they are busy people, we are busy people and we do not want our child adversley affected by our input or issues.

If I knew then what I know now I would have done many things differently concerning school, but reality is I did the best I could with the knowledge I have.

I have always worked hard to encourage good communication, respeted the teachers role in my kids life and have been as involved in the school as my life would allow.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

When I was in 8th grade, I wrote an opinion piece for the student newspaper about this. It did not make me popular with the teachers (though the principal, being a staunch believer in freedom of speech, stepped in to defend me).

I agree with JBS: teachers should work under the assumption that kids have things to do when they get home; sports, reading, quality time with family, etc. To give kids a lot of homework is a massive invasion on this time which, in some cases, can be just as important to kids as school.

Kids need some time to simply get out and play and do what they want to do. They need free time.

[gracefulone]

I get a ton of homework, althogh it is partially because of my course load. my school does a version of block scheduling, so I have a class only two out of every three days(which gives you time to catch up on classwork) Also, I have 70 min periods, which typically allow for 15-20 minutes to get started on the assignment. Ap world however, is an hour every day, even the days we don't have the class, plus studying for two-chapter tests every other week. We also have "advisory", which is the only class that meets every day-for half an hour, and once a week we have a study hall in advisory. once every three school days, we have a full 70 minute study hall built in to every student's schedule, but it is still alot to handle. In my English class, we had under two weeks to read The Grapes of Wrath on our own time. It's definitely a problem, especially for myself and some of my friends who do sports-it's not uncommon for someone at my school to stay up past midnight finishing homework.

[gymdog]

I think that homework for elementary school kids should reinforce what was learned in the classroom. IMO I do not think the elementary school homework here, for the most part, is inappropriate. I have heard of some specific situations where it was a problem, but not on the whole. Long term projects should be once in awhile, at the higher elem. school grades.

Middle school homework should include some more longer term assignments. I also like to see guided longer assignments, such as reading a whole book with smaller subprojects built in. The key is more guidance. When I was in middle school four years ago, it was appropriate IMO. My little sister didn't have any problems last year either so I assume it's largely the same here.

High usually splits into two tracks. I have no sympathy for people who insist they should be in an advanced class but then whine about the work. There's nothing wrong with taking the regular level and everyone is aware the other level comes with more work because there is more material to fit in. I took 7 IB classes both of the last two years, and I got all the homework done on time even with gymnastics. Yes, it was several hours a day. Yes, it sucked. No, I'm not a very timely person and it would have been a lot better had I not procrastinated a lot of the time. But I freely admit that and I still got it done.

What most people don't understand (in high school) is that they do have the time, because they always find it in the end. It's just that until that point, you're choosing to spend it in another way. We had no study hall, and I constantly had assignments, but I still wasted plenty of time and did what I wanted most of the time anyway. I did things during lunch, in the morning, in the car, when something wasn't happening in another class, at night, whatever. Doing or not doing homework is a choice; there are obviously consequences but most people can choose not to do SOME of it and still pass in high school. I wanted an A, so I made the choice to do all of it. If you just don't want to do any of it, then there would be no point to even being in the class, because you couldn't follow along. Personally, my deal is, I had to be there anyway. It didn't get any MORE interesting by just having no clue what was going on. So you might as well work with it and just do the homework.

[purpleterah]

This is a touchy subject with me. As a single parent with two kids I personally dont enjoy being up until midnight helping my ADHD kid with homework when I work at 7 am in the morning. MY kids spend alot of time doing homework. If the assignments were straight forward and simple great but I live in NYS. These kids have to pass 5 regents exams to get out of high school. The assignments are long and convulated and i ofyen dont see the coorulation between the subject and assignment. I went to cthoilc schools most ofmy life. I recall we had spelling homework one thign each night same with math. I think the schools should go back to thatll

[Monkeygirlsmom]

I am lucky so far my kids school (well olest youngest will be in kindyin the fall)
my oldest would get her work on Friday and it was due the next thursday!!
I love that!! she would get it all done with in an hour on the weekends and it would be done and in Most Mondays