Anyone decide to skip homework?
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Anonymous
| ^^^ You’re missing the point. Doing homework is not the issue. Doing stupid homework with no educational benefit, that can actually cause harm, is the problem. You don’t like what the research has to say on this issue? |
Anonymous
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My SN kid hates school, but likes to read. I fight with him every night to do the other homework, but there was no way in hell I was going to suck the joy out of the one activity he likes - to avoid writing, he was avoiding reading. And I graduated elementary school successfully almost 40 years ago, so I’m not doing extra homework myself now.
I know we love Lake Wobegon where everyone’s kid is above average and loves school and asks for extra credit homework, but there are a few of us out here with kids for whom every seemingly two minute activity, takes a half hour of shouting. So for make-work, I’m not going to do it. |
Anonymous
| Instead of complaining about, how about you offer some suggestions on other ways to keep track of reading. You could do a monthly calendar where you or your child initials the date that you read that day. That's pretty simple and painless. At my kids' school most homework is done at school. If a worksheet/homework is brought home, my kids do what they can and finish it at school or the next night. |
Anonymous
Learning that homework isn't optional is a good thing. Most parents are wise enough to not inadvertently give their kids this idea. The key is to instill a work smart attitude in a child (in this example if homework logs aren't required in K and it clearly appears to be negative toward the child and turning it into a positive thing just isn't working, then the optimal thing is to ignore/get rid of it). Maybe give them more interesting homework to do (or in K encourage them to keep reading things they find interesting) which goes way beyond the act of filling out a detailed log about it. In short at a small age parenting is a delicate balancing act; they need to explore and have freedom to develop a love of learning, but they also badly need to learn how to develop routines, control themselves, without experiencing too much stress. I do think though that dealing with busywork at later stages becomes harder, since it normally becomes no longer optional and at that time kids should definitely learn to cope with it to help set them up for success in middle school and beyond... however again, parents should follow their gut when it says that something is wrong. Particularly when they see kids stressed out about it, parents should absolutely find ways to help them overcome it (many options, like helping them break it down into little pieces which has a huge benefit in terms of making it a routine behavior and prevents procrastination, encourages planning... Or help show them an interesting extension to the worksheets, etc). For math, I enrich by teaching my kid after school; this will keep them sharp and interested. Which will hopefully translate into them having an easy time with any type of dry math worksheets homework if they're able to get it done quickly and out of the way, minimizing any stress. |
Anonymous
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This kind of thinking is what I hate about N. Va: Kids need to do HW in K to be prepared for 1st grade to be prepared for 2nd grade to be prepared .... for HS and College.
HW has no proven benefit at young ages. None. If you are in the unfortunate position as a parent of going to a school where they give lots of ES HW, and your kid is one of those who hates HW, you have two bad choices: 1) go along with it and put a happy face on it so the kid learns to respect authority but grows to hate learning, 2) refuse to play the game and be THAT PARENT and deal with the consequences, plus have to navigate with your kid why they should obey in general but also that yes reading logs are stupid. We were fortunate that a lot of parents at our school actually got together and lobbied and started an evidence-based school wide conversation about this, so now our ES is low HW and it's so much better. I think that's the best approach. But overall, all you people worried that our kids will grow up to be hoodlums because we don't insist they do busy work at the age of 6 that actively harms their love of learning ... well, as I said, that's the downside to living here. People need to relax. |
Anonymous
| I dont see the benefit of homework in K-2. I also agree that teaching your kids that homework is optional sets them up for failure as they get older. Also, That my kids came from a no homework elementary (except 20-30 mins of reading) and when they got to middle school they were crushed because they were not ready to organize themselves and prepare for the additional work that was required out of class to complete the curriculum. I think there needs to be a healthy middle ground on this for students in the upper grades of elementary school. |
Anonymous
| *or* that MS is the place to appropriately introduce and taper in HW. |
Anonymous
| and ask them to teach organizational skills? Ha! good luck...the kids should be better prepared coming into middle school |
Anonymous
Agreed, middle school is too late. Kids are old and mature enough in the later years of ES to get into a good habit of doing homework and learning how to be organized for classes as well as at home. Also I have this hunch that having them learn to do house chores independently from an earlier age will set them up to succeed with homework and school. Once they see it as a choice of doing chores/manual labor for an extended period of time vs school work, I think most kids will choose the school over that. |
Anonymous
| I didn't do significant HW until MS. Somehow I turned out OK. My daughter's school started HW slowly in 6th grade. It seems to be OK. It's not unheard of. |
Anonymous
Depends on your definition of OK. By a standard def, pretty much everyone on this website is OK, and one could extend that to 50% or more of the US population. Given that middle school starts in 7th here, I wouldn't want my kids entering MS years without having done anything at home (either school homework, or "homework" I'd give them). It would be a waste of potential for them to have no work outside of school until their teen years. |
Anonymous
Don't worry. The anti-homework crowd has influenced teachers in middle and high so that there's little homework in these grades either. Don't expect a lot of vigor in US schools anymore. |
Anonymous
| Maybe the problem is that people define "vigor" as Kindergartners having to color worksheets at home after a 7-hr day. |
Anonymous
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I have been wrestling with the concept of homework for ES, MS and HS for years. First kid had too much in ES and then 2nd kid had too little.
Kids need HW for music, math and foreign languages no matter the age. They require repetition. You have to practice these subjects. I asked the 4th grade math teacher to give 5 problems per night, as how else would we know if kid was falling behind. Teacher has up to 30 kids in class. By MS, they likely need to do HW to get thru the curriculum. Same for HS. At least to study for tests. Reading at home is always a good idea, no matter what grade. |
Anonymous
The "research" supports both perspectives. I am a NP but I wanted to clarify that there certainly is valid, peer-reviewed research that supports both sides of this argument. As for "stupid homework with no educational benefit," well, that most likely depends on who is assessing the work. It is hard to imagine that homework "can actually cause harm." In both cases I will defer to a teacher to make that assessment rather than some random person on the internet. |