Why does Deal assign SO MUCH HOMEWORK?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - Re: the organization club - I asked my daughter and your child can get help with organization during ZAP time which happens at lunch. I believe its offered for all of the teams. I would also check in with the guidance counselors for more support around organization and they should be able to give some helpful tips. Also how are your child's friends handling the assignments?

And just to set the record straight 2-3 hours of home work per night is not the norm at Deal and kids are not teaching themselves. I think the expectation is that the child is managing all of their work and is proactive about getting help. Also don't forget that your child can retake tests! Those usually make up a big percentage of the grade. When my daughter is unhappy with a grade on a test - she schedules time to retake it. She also takes advantage of any extra credit assignments to keep her grades up. In one of the weekly Deal Bulletins they included an article about the importance of allowing kids to re-do tests and assignments.

HTH

The OP at some point mentioned her kid had organizational issues, though she/he did not seem willing to call them ADHD. However I can tell you as a parent of a kid with ADHD, homework that takes everyone else 10 minutes can take such a kid an hour. Homework can take on the perspective of a crisis without some significant management. Middle school is also a common point were kids with ADHD that had coped because of fairly organized parents and teachers fall apart especially if the parent does not believe in the diagnosis. I am not judging the OP, but I think she needs to really look at what is happening here and see if there are additional interventions that are needed due to the particular issues her child has.

Not to worry, pp--OP here--we are completely on board with our dx and get support for it at school. It's just, even with the support, the amount of work that is coming home is staggering every single day. This 40% of the grade benchmark was presented to us as standard fare in 2 core courses. Very, very tough to take, really. I don't think for a minute that his teachers are lazy--just, young and maybe out of touch with how much of a demand the homework load places on families. The teachers are probably under enormous pressure to appear to be challenging every child until their eyes bleed. Oh, the Sunday-night-Edline-inbox-grade-of-death.

[Anonymous]

I totally sympathize with the original poster, and do encourage her to advocate against copious homework. The trend towards more and more homework as a proxy for "look how rigorous our school is" feels crazy to me.

At our JLKMNO school it has become clear that the copious homework (which is often copious worksheets that repeat exactly what they did in class) substitutes for more individualized attention to both kids who are struggling and kids who could use more advanced work. While your child may have particular reasons it is overwhelming, the fact that there is no way to moderate for him is a problem.

My kid does his homework fairly uneventfully but when it is overwhelming I resent the intrusion on what I actually think is important for them to do at home (family time, reading for pleasure, household chores, free time for art/sports no longer emphasized at school, relaxation!)

6 hours of school a day should be enough if done right.

[Anonymous]

The one education course I took (before realizing that I would never in any way be qualified to become a teacher) emphasized that the purpose of homework in elementary grades was to provide practice for skills and knowledge acquired in the classroom. Into middle school and certainly in high school, homework begins to serve another purpose: Providing students with "opportunities" for self-directed learning, to equip them for more of the same for the rest of their lives.

Never did the course address the issue of how much homework is the right amount. Also, the prof was a lousy teacher.

[Anonymous]

Do any parents feel that the school has changed for better or worse since Ms. Kim departed? Or is it just more of a factory because of the demands on space and keeping up the rep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any parents feel that the school has changed for better or worse since Ms. Kim departed? Or is it just more of a factory because of the demands on space and keeping up the rep.

I have seen no significant changes. More continuity than anything else.

[Anonymous]

OK, so I have a 2nd grader with ADHD. Which private or charter options won't give us 3 hours of homework a night?

[Anonymous]

22:46 No school actually gives 3 hours of homework a night prior to maybe late middle school. The problem is that ADHD kids can often drag homework out to crazy levels. I know my adhd kid would rather spend an hour diverting homework than the 10 minutes doing it. Her therapist said this actually quite common. So if you have a kid with ADHD you have to manage it with the teacher, tutors and behavioral plans. That said you have acknowledge it first to get the interventions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suspect the honor roll kids are super self starter kids--and their parents are heavily involved in their homework, despite their protestations here and elsewhere. It is very fashionable to say, "oh I don't care how or what my kid's homework is" at the JKLM schools, I've noticed. Since pre-k, everyone acts very detached but the reality is they are constantly pushing the kids. It's insane. The demands on family time are just increasing--6 hours school day+1 hour study hall +2 hours of homework= barely enough time to sleep, dress, eat and poop. Forget hanging out in a non stressful way with your parents or friends.

I noticed the same thing.

[Anonymous]

ADHD or not, what homework management tools is everyone using? I only have a 4th grader but I see that not so much the amount as the sheer number of tasks to be accomplished and logs to be kept is a challenge, some daily, some from one to the next, some on a long term deadline. Our teachers are great by all accounts but not very good at providing organizational tools, and my child does reasonably well organizing chaotic loose copies of things. But looking ahead here I would love some input from others on organizational tools I could help my child develop, use, and own, as simple as what backpack works, what type of folders, what type of organizers (not too much but just right), etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect the honor roll kids are super self starter kids--and their parents are heavily involved in their homework, despite their protestations here and elsewhere. It is very fashionable to say, "oh I don't care how or what my kid's homework is" at the JKLM schools, I've noticed. Since pre-k, everyone acts very detached but the reality is they are constantly pushing the kids. It's insane. The demands on family time are just increasing--6 hours school day+1 hour study hall +2 hours of homework= barely enough time to sleep, dress, eat and poop. Forget hanging out in a non stressful way with your parents or friends.

I noticed the same thing.

I really don't know what world you folks live in, but it's not the same as ours. Our OOB Deal 6th grader has time for lengthy sports practice 3 days a week, 45 min. of piano practicing every day, a couple of after-school classes, and homework, we have family dinner together every night, and DC is always in bed before 9. And she commutes 45 min. each way to school. And she's on the honor roll, and we don't do ANYTHING to help with her homework. I occasionally check Edline to see if she has missed anything, and she occasionally asks for help on a math problem she doesn't understand, but that's the extent of it. When I told her about the complaints on this thread about having no free time, she thought that was crazy and pointed out that she has plenty of free time. Yes, she's pretty good at keeping up with things, but she actually had much more trouble at JKLM because the teacher was so much less organized and because, as one PP noted, they didn't really teach the kids management and organizations skills the way that they seem to do at Deal. I think the complaining parents on this board need to look at little harder at how their children are actually spending their time (too much screen time?) before blaming teachers. We would really resent it if the teachers stopped giving interesting special assignments because your child has major organizational or ADHD problems. Because most of these negative posts seems like so much finger-pointing, without much if any basis in reality.

[Anonymous]

OP: I feel your pain. I have an SN kid in 6th at Deal. He has an IEP. I agree with PP that he does have a lot of free time, but the difference is that he does need more time to do HW than other kids. So, he doesn't have "free time" that other kids have.

I don't want to scare off other parents who are afraid there is too much HW - I am not sure it is too much HW for the average kid. When honor rolls came out, 2/3 of 6th grade made Principals' Honor Roll ( all As) or Honor Roll (As and Bs). ( I do wonder about the other 1/3.) The staff at Deal offer every opportunity to make-up work, re-take tests, get extra tutoring. It's there if you need it. The teachers are there if you need them. But here is the IB difference: towards the end of every quarter, you are asked to do a summative exercise in which you showcase all the things you learned through a special project. Some have been done in class - like science - but others have to be done at home - like geography.

Is it too much HW for a special needs kid? Regular HW and special projects. Yeah and he has executive functioning issues. Multiple end of quarter projects are really difficult for him because it means trying to do things in little steps which is harder than you think when your organizational skills are not good. So I get the 'this is eating us alive' feeling too.

OP: Here is what I did: I went to the teachers (and with the exception of the math teacher who wants HW in when it it due since it is synchronized to the lessons), we are in agreement that as long as work is finished by the end of the advisory, we can pace it. We cut back on the number of math HW problems also. My DC has a language based disability, so anything with writing takes a much longer time, so we just miss those interim deadlines if we have to.

I have asked the teachers to work with him on how to take notes and summarize. This is the most important skill he needs to acquire, especially since he has a language based disability, so reading and writing is very, very hard.

Push back - only use Edline to determine what's missing. Don't beat a dead horse - my child likes to do the easy HW first and I won't let him. He can handle the easy stuff when he is more tired, so I make him do hard stuff first. And I am letting him "fail". The SpEd team asked us to step back and help him less this advisory so they can see his weaknesss and give more targeted support. So he will be finishng this quarter with a very poorly done English project. He had problems organizing it, and writing it. He is a competitive kid and is unhappy that he will not get all As this advisory. But we have been trying to teach him to self-advocate since he is allowed modified HW and he didn't ask. He also did not ask for enough help this quarter for this project. It's his work and we have to let him learn to ask for help. But it's true that he sees his peers and he feels he has to keep up. Other kids parents have said that their kids feel the pressure and that the constant access to Edline just adds to that. They did tell the kids to not freak out about it, but it is only human to look at your grades when you get an e-mail every week. GL!

[Anonymous]

I have an OOB 6th grader at Deal and have noticed the amount, and weight of homework creeping upwards. It was supposed to be 5% of the grade. Since my kid was/is getting As, we said s/he could just skip the homework. Seriously, the long commute and a mind-numbing day in the factory is enough for an 11-12 yr old CHILD.

But. Teachers must be responding to increased pressure to ramp up test prep or something. Test prep worksheets are coming home, with little relation to the course content. Homework amounts are increasing. (They're called Independent Projects, but they are what they are: Homework.) The quality of the homework isn't even great - just more of the same old plod-through-it-leave-your-mind-out-of-it stuff. And now the homework requires the use of a computer all the time too? Just how many computers does the school think we have in this house?

For this and other reasons, I would not recommend that Deal be used as a model for middle schools elsewhere in the District. Maybe a mindless suburb somewhere. (ouch, but that was a cheap shot at the 'burbs!)

[Anonymous]

We're having a very different experience!

My Deal 6th grader gets no test prep worksheets. She also enjoys those independent projects, which give her an opportunity to make the work her own. It's true that she needs a computer several nights a week, but that's usually because she's typing essays or researching online, which really is fair game for middle school.

Her pre-Algebra teacher often assigns relaxation activities as homework ("Tonight, your homework is to sit back and put your feet up"), and she doesn't have homework in every subject every night. I also appreciated that the principal asked teachers to avoid winter break assignments, which beats the pants off the massive test prep packets she received at her JKLMO.

If I could think of a good cheap shot at the 'burbs in my drowsy state tonight, I'd tack one on, too... but I think that may be the only place we agree.

[Anonymous]

Parent of a Deal 7th grader here: OP, I could have written your post last year. I was hysterical most of the time. The amount of homework was ridiculous, and a lot of the time totally useless. It was soul-murder. I think a lot depends on which team you end up on -- some teams assigned reasonable amount of HW and some just had no sense of what most 11-12-year olds are able to handle. we ended up asking some of the teachers to accept whatever DC was able to finish in, say, 30-45 min per subject. Anyway, after much testing turned out DC has executive function and some other issues and now has a 504 plan that stipulates, no more than 2 hours of work a night. If it doesn't get done, it doesn't get done. The result is that DC actually gets most of it done, and still has some time for other things. In general, 7th grade is MUCH better -- in part it is probably because DC has adjusted, but also 1. homework amount and nature seems MUCH more reasonable (what it should be, really), and teachers are understanding of the kid's issues, are willing to work with him etc. In general I found the school very supportive, although we do need to occasionally remind them of some of the plan's stipulations.
So, all that is to say --talk to the teachers, get them to adjust the amount of homework, and in any case it'll

[Anonymous]

Not to worry, pp--OP here--we are completely on board with our dx and get support for it at school. It's just, even with the support, the amount of work that is coming home is staggering every single day. This 40% of the grade benchmark was presented to us as standard fare in 2 core courses. Very, very tough to take, really. I don't think for a minute that his teachers are lazy--just, young and maybe out of touch with how much of a demand the homework load places on families. The teachers are probably under enormous pressure to appear to be challenging every child until their eyes bleed. Oh, the Sunday-night-Edline-inbox-grade-of-death.

Wait, OP - so your kid has been diagnosed with ADHD? Talk about burying the lead. It's a little off-base to rant about the homework the school assigns on a general basis when you have special circumstances, isn't it?