Gaithersburg ES Abolishes Homework

[Anonymous]

Poor teaching in public elementary school combined with elimination of intellectual or academic homework for children will definetely ensure your child has time to excell at video games and lacrosse. Alas, MCPS should take note and roll out a new plan to close the achievement gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Poor teaching in public elementary school combined with elimination of intellectual or academic homework for children will definetely ensure your child has time to excell at video games and lacrosse. Alas, MCPS should take note and roll out a new plan to close the achievement gap.

And your qualifications to come to this conclusion are?

More work+more work+ more work does not always equal more success. The quality and type of the work are ery important pieces of the equation. Tired, burnt out kids don't do quality work. Have you never been in a situation whereyou realize that you are no longer being productive? It is not normal for children to focus on intellectual and fine motor work for 8 hours a day. Children need to run, climb, play, wander, daydream, imagine, build, tear down, and generally have time during they day when they are not being told what to do and how to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor teaching in public elementary school combined with elimination of intellectual or academic homework for children will definetely ensure your child has time to excell at video games and lacrosse. Alas, MCPS should take note and roll out a new plan to close the achievement gap.

And your qualifications to come to this conclusion are?

More work+more work+ more work does not always equal more success. The quality and type of the work are ery important pieces of the equation. Tired, burnt out kids don't do quality work. Have you never been in a situation whereyou realize that you are no longer being productive? It is not normal for children to focus on intellectual and fine motor work for 8 hours a day. Children need to run, climb, play, wander, daydream, imagine, build, tear down, and generally have time during they day when they are not being told what to do and how to do it.

My daughter is in 3rd grade. She has snack/outdoor break and recess each day. She comes home to about an hour of homework each night. It will increase, as I've heard stories from other parents in the upper grades. She's fine. She is not over scheduled. Once she's through with HW, she runs outside, hops on the playset, or rides her bike.

Summers are hers. She's in camp maybe one or two weeks - for fun and not for childcare.

Here's the problem. When kids are locked up all summer b/c parents have to work (I am lucky to teach and have summers off - truly lucky.) and when they're being driven from one activity to another DURING the school year, homework becomes a chore, as there's no balance. Sadly, I can't change that. But I can defend HW when a kid has downtime during the week and during the summer.

So what's the answer? abolish it b/c our society can't figure out priorities or continue to assign it and watch the gap grow wider and wider? My children will have the advantage, sadly, over the many I teach. And that doesn't make me feel good about what I do.

[Anonymous]

Aren't we missing something here? Didn't the school ask students to read 30 minutes each day instead of doing worksheets? My guess is that for some students it takes them about 2 minutes to complete some homework assigned for that age group so if a child were to do the 30 minutes of reading isn't that more work than they would have done otherwise? And possibly more parental involvement as worksheets are often easy and real reading might require a parent/sibling etc. to help out?

I went to FCPS as did my siblings and I don't remember that we had any homework at that age but that our father made us set aside an hour+ every afternoon to read and I feel like we learned so much more doing that. Two of us were ESOL (the third grew up speaking English at home) and we all went to Ivy League schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am so appalled by your responses. What lazy parenting!

My daughter is in third grade at a private school. Each week, we get a daily breakdown of homework. Guess who will have the advantage as an adult?

It sickens me. Here is an elementary school with 78% FARMs and 42% ESOL run by a leader who lowers expectations for those already at a disadvantage.

And THIS is a good idea? My daughter's not suffering over homework. She's practicing concepts learned in school. How can you learn math if you don't practice? Do you think writing well just magically happens?

so disturbing on so many levels

Whoever comes from the wealthiest family. Homework or no homework is not even a close second.

[Anonymous]

I'm very disappointed in the direction that MCPS is taking toward weakening education. MCPS probably believes that this will lesson the achievement gap but it will have the opposite effect. Parents who value education will continue to supplement their kids education. The no homework policy will only further harm kids whose parents take a minimal role in their education. Homework provides a minimum level of expectation for the parents that they will be somewhat engaged with their child's education.

What is even more outrageous is that good homework assignments are not that hard to design. Our first grade teacher gave the kids a weekly assignment for the entire year to write in their home journal on anything that they wanted and a weekly book report. They read their home journal's on Fridays. My child is great at Math but not at writing. Since the home journal was any topic she chose, she could choose something that interested her or describe something fun she did. This made writing more interesting to her. Reading it in the front of the class was also good incentive to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm very disappointed in the direction that MCPS is taking toward weakening education. MCPS probably believes that this will lesson the achievement gap but it will have the opposite effect. Parents who value education will continue to supplement their kids education. The no homework policy will only further harm kids whose parents take a minimal role in their education. Homework provides a minimum level of expectation for the parents that they will be somewhat engaged with their child's education.

What is even more outrageous is that good homework assignments are not that hard to design. Our first grade teacher gave the kids a weekly assignment for the entire year to write in their home journal on anything that they wanted and a weekly book report. They read their home journal's on Fridays. My child is great at Math but not at writing. Since the home journal was any topic she chose, she could choose something that interested her or describe something fun she did. This made writing more interesting to her. Reading it in the front of the class was also good incentive to do it.

I don't think anybody is actually reading the article. The "No Homework" policy is actually a policy that has 30 minutes of reading as homework, in lieu of "good" homework assignment you just described.

[Anonymous]

I don't think anybody is actually reading the article. The "No Homework" policy is actually a policy that has 30 minutes of reading as homework, in lieu of "good" homework assignment you just described.

30 minutes of reading is not adequate for homework. Kid's reading levels are measured not just on their ability to read and decode but on how well they write and can describe attributes of the story. The homework should include writing and reflecting on what they just read.