Homework Not Working?
I’ll try to refrain myself from dancing around the house chanting “told you so, told you so”.
According to a new study homework is a “homewrecker” for young children. The study, just released in Canada, says that homework for young children, those form kindergarten through 6th grade, causes stress and burnout with little to no educational value.
When school already last 8 hours each day, and then children are coming home with added homework on top of studying for tests, doing projects, and their work load at home (chores, family projects) it’s easy to see how kids can get burned out. It’s just too much. They’re kids afterall, just kids. Though this report is out of Canada ther are many in the US who are on the same lines.
There is a growing body of research in the U.S. that has found homework isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and a growing number of parents who say because of homework and other demands, children have no downtime; one writer has even gone so far as to say today’s children have a “nature deficit disorder.” Some American elementary schools have cut back or entirely banned homework.
The two main benefits of homework often talked about are the supposed “good work habits” and allowing parents to be more involved with their children’s education. I have issues with both of those. Firstly, for this study we are focusing on young children. I have to wonder what does a first or second grader need to learn about good work habits, and why that can’t be taught in better ways. In the classroom, for example, completing their work before the bell rings should be teaching them about time management. I also see that because young children are practically sponges it would be easier, and more effective, to teach good work habits by example rather than by drowning out their time with endless worksheets.
The second, that it allows parents to be more involved, is hard for me to grasp. Maybe it is because I am with my children all day so there is no moment when I’m not aware of what they are learning. But what ever happened to dinner time conversations? When parents asked “So what did you do in school today” and then talk about it as a family? Wouldn’t that allow parents to see what their children ar learning, and give them a greater ability to be involved rather than filling out blanks on a page?
The article mentioned “nature deficit disorder”, which comes from a favorite book of mine: Last Child In The Woods. Being able to spend their time outside playing, like children used to do, instead of huddled at the desk doing homework and then taxiedoff to one organized sport after another has far more value to a child’s growth and education than a stack of printed off worksheets every evening ever could.
education, homework, children, play
February 11th, 2008 at 8:32 am
When my son was still in school, parental involvement boiled down to two things:
1. Affixing a signature to completed homework assignments and other assorted paperwork that came home with him. Should the parents fail to sign any three of the numerous papers arriving every day, the child was punished by having “homework detention.” You should have heard my husband on the phone with the assistant principal the first time that happened to our son. I didn’t know he had that in him.
2. Helping the child complete project that were vastly too complex for his developmental level. This happened all the time. One that I remember fondly was an assignment to describe French attire in 17th century Quebec. No bibliography was suggested for this project. So we turned to — where else? — the internet. Do you have any idea what comes up when you google “17th century French historical costumes”?! There is no way a child of 8 or 9 could have completed this himself without a parent.
February 11th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Bravo! I just wish more schools would figure this out and quit overworking our kids with inane busywork. Hmmm… perhaps if they spent less time in class preparing for those ridiculous standardized tests, they could get some learning done and wouldn’t need to rely on homework.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:01 am
When my two were in school they brought home hours of homework each night. My oldest, who was a 4th grader at the time, had about 3 hours of homework each night. What the heck are they teaching during the 8 hours they’re in school? Amazing that as homeschoolers we can get through entire subjects (in my case with kids taking jr. high and highschool level subjects even) in about 4 hours. I wish I could give back those hours of down time my kids missed our on while sitting at the table doing hours of homework before homeschooling. *SIGH*
February 11th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Maybe there should be a study that correlates the relation of homework to childhood obesity, since the poor kids don’t have recess, and there is not enough time to work up a sweat once they get home from school.
BTW, Summer, I tagged you- http://sunniemom.wordpress.com/2008/02/11/book-tag-im-it/
February 11th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Hallelujah! School is stealing children’s best hours away from their parents. My neighbor’s kids (3rd and 5th grades) get home from school at 3:30 and are allowed to play outside for 15 minutes before they have to go in the house to do homework, practice piano, do chores, have dinner, and get ready for bed. Of course some days they have orchestra, piano lessons, or swim lessons. They go to bed at 8pm so that they will get enough sleep to handle their grueling schedule. If that was my life, I’d shoot myself. (okay…that’s a slight exaggeration!)
Thanks for stopping by my blog, Summer. I’ve been working quite a bit and haven’t been doing much blogging of substance lately! It was good to see that you stopped by!
February 12th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Isn’t it ironic how schools complain that kids are showing up for class exhausted and unable to focus, yet they burden them with so much homework that they can’t possibly get to bed at a decent hour and fit in playtime, chores, dinner and, well, just time to be a kid?
February 14th, 2008 at 5:29 am
[...] know what my kids are learning. No need for homework, teacher meetings, or digging through crumbled papers in backpacks to know what’s going [...]
February 17th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
[...] presents Homework Not Working? posted at Mom Is Teaching, saying, “A Canadian study shows that homework could be a bad thing [...]
February 19th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
[...] 15. Is homework working? (Summer at Mom Is Teaching). [...]
February 20th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Homework has certainly gotten out of hand–it’s more work for me than it is for my son! I think I dread it more than he does…and he is only in 1st grade! Now, I don’t mind the spelling and sight words; after all, he does need to learn to read and spell. But the worksheets I DO mind–couldn’t the teacher at LEAST make the homework creative instead of photocopying whatever is in the teacher’s manual?!? It is ridiculous!
July 20th, 2008 at 9:25 am
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