Atlantic piece: "My Daughter's Homework is Killing Me"
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Anonymous
+1. If added up all of the time I spent on DCUM last year, it would be frightening. |
Anonymous
Honestly, no. I'm an academic (and the poster who wrote about kids losing the opportunity to set their own academic agendas) and I recognize that there are so many places where a smart and highly motivated kid can get a great undergraduate education, that my smart and highly motivated kid has nothing to worry about. Money's saved for college so that doesn't limit choices either. And, depending on what DC wants to study, Harvard or Williams may not be the right place anyway. Where does your kid go to school? Or, to be more precise (and less intrusive!), did you find a good school with reasonable homework loads or is he like the kid described in an earlier post who sets his own limits re what he's willing to do and then stops when they're reached? I think my mistake (made too early to solve without significant fallout in HS) was to look for the most challenging and interesting school I could find. Part of what gave my husband and I time/motivation to explore was lack of challenge at school. Private school also seems to push well-roundedness more than public, so I've also got a kid who works to lower her mile time, improve her drawing skills, write music, etc. She's the product of a different culture. Something's gained, but something's lost too. I think it'll all work out in college when the workload is probably more manageable. But I see no reason why HS should be structured in such a way that kids lose sleep over it. |
Anonymous
This is such an important question. This culture of more and more homework is one more way that kids from less affluent families are disadvantaged. And it's not just part-time jobs (many of which are essential income for the kid/family) but responsibilities in the home. When parents must work multiple jobs to support the family, older siblings often bear the burden of caring for younger siblings. This forces teens and families to make heartbreaking choices between meeting basic needs in the present and preparing for a better quality of life in the future. |
Anonymous
Yes, I recognize that for many people this is a problem that was years in the making, and it would be extremely difficult to change course at this stage in the game. And even if you wanted to do it, your teen might not. It's true: I never bought into the idea that children must be challenged, challenged, CHALLENGED at all times and in every way, so my kids are well-versed in the notion that "well-rounded" includes time for sleep and sitting around chatting and reading for pleasure and walking the dog and making cookies and even flipping burgers for pay (sadly, we haven't gotten our teen to buy into this one yet, LOL), and they saw me overtly put the brakes on what I thought was any excessive homework when they were younger. So they've been somewhat indoctrinated into my way of thinking. And yes, they are in good schools with reasonable homework loads, but they are not in Big 3 or TJ or any of the academic pressure cookers. And they know that I would not encourage or even allow them to take all AP courses, for example. So--note to parents of younger kids!--it's an approach that has to start when they are much younger. The second sentence that I bolded above is the one that I just don't understand. My guess is that you and your DH are successful people. And you got where you are by traveling a path that was somewhat lacking in challenge at school (as described by you). So the disconnect for me when I read DCUM and talk to people IRL is right here. YOU had time to play and bum around and do nothing and still you are a gainfully employed tax-paying, likely upper income member of society. For what reason was it so important that your child(ren) pursue a path of great challenge? It is as if a whole generation of successful people took a look at their lives and said, "I got here on my own. But there is no way I can trust that my children will too. **I've** got to get them there." There is something really backassward about that line of thinking. JMO. |
Anonymous
A little bad of you, yes. Esme is short for Esmeralda. It's a lovely, old name, in addition to being the name of an arts heroine, such as Camille, Odette, Isolde, Dulcinea, Juliet, Guinevere, etc. Perhaps you should attend more to the arts and less to American Idol. |
Anonymous
Your math here is faulty. If 3% of their spots are reserved for general applicants, then the other 97% of their spots are for your so-called "Golden Tickets." You are conflating the applicant pool with the accepted pool. |
Anonymous
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Easy answer re the second sentence. When I was a kid, I wished school was more challenging and that there were more kids like me around to talk to. So I looked for that for my kid. Sometimes when you give kids the things you didn't have, they lose some of the things you *did* have (and took for granted or didn't realize were the flip side of something you lacked).
That said, it doesn't seem inevitable to me that challenging school + intellectually playful classmates = insane amounts of homework. Which is why it's worth pushing these schools to rethink what they're doing. FWIW, I never looked at school as something you had to do sufficiently well at to yield economic success (and as unimportant beyond that). I thought of it as a playground where you discover a wealth of interesting things. And learn enough (including how to learn more and where the good books are hidden) to keep you engaged for the rest of your life. So for me, challenges are fun and something you seek out rather than avoid. Then again, I got to choose my own challenges. RE too late to change by HS. Not a matter of indoctrination or leading by example or values or goals. Just a case of the kid loving her school and her friends and not wanting to leave over homework. We're on the same page re what a good life looks like. Only real difference of opinion is re sleep -- I'm for it, she's against. Typical teen (and/or takes after her father). |
Anonymous
| I also was under challenged at my mediocre public HS, and in some ways I think it's what made me excel in college (harvard-- doubt I'd even get in these days, but back in the late 80s harvard took a risk on me, a kid with good test scores but uneven grades and extracurrics). When I got to college it was like being in heaven: so much to soak up, so much to learn. I lapped it up, and graduated in the top of my class. I honestly doubt I'd have done so had I not arrived eager for a challenge. Most of my peers from fancy prep schools did not do as well academically-- frankly I think because they were burned out by the time they arrived. |
Anonymous
DC's senior year at Langley: 1) Russian IV; 2) US Govt. (required), 3) English 12(required), 4) Computer Science (math), 5) physics, 6) Art (ap), (7) personal finance |
And we're paying for this....somethings wrong with this picture...
Anonymous
How funny --I'm the previous under-challenged in HS poster and I had the same Harvard-as-heaven experience. But that led me to think challenging schools were heavenly. Then again, I assumed that the kids from fancy prep (usually boarding) schools didn't do as well academically because they were stoners (or didn't care because they were taking over the family business regardless). But I was there a decade earlier than you were. Definitely an environment in which it became clear that the rich weren't rich because they are smarter or did better at school than everyone else, LOL! |
Anonymous
No you are wrong. The poster says that 6% of the applicants are accepted. Therefore 94 % of applicants are rejected. Of the 6% accepted, 3 % are the Golden ticketed ones. leaving 3 % of acceptances for general applicants. You have poor reading comprehension skills. You should have done more homework in high school. |
Anonymous
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But most of us are not dreaming of Ivy's... Not because, perhaps, are kids are not brilliant, or can't get in, we just think it is pointless.
I think lots of brilliant kids go to Ivy, I do not begrudge them that. But, there are brilliant kids all over,. I find Ivy parents believe they are successful because of their Ivy. They lose faith in theirself. They work insane hours and never see their kidsm.. And they are proud of it. But my non Ivy friedns are just as successful, and they say to their kids, find something you love, work hard, abd it will all work out.. And guess what it does. Mosy my Ivy friends work as lawyers. Most my other friends own various businesses, work at NIH doing amazing workN etc. The "dream" of Ivy sounds like a nightmare. P.S. The drug of choice in the 80'4 at Harvard was cocaine, and no secret was a big drug on Wall Street the following years. On phone - no time to edit [ quote=Anonymous]
Exactly. It is a choice. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford accept fewer than 6 % of their applicants. Of those, 3 % have some sort of " Golden Ticket" ( they are athletes, talented musicians, wealthy legacies, etc). That leaves about 3% of spots for the general applicants. Therefore, only the truly brilliant kids will get those spots. Lots of straight A, great kids will be denied. Therefore, this dream of the Ivies is unrealistic for most people. They should calm down and set their sites on more realistic schools for their kids. 50 years ago, practically the only people who went to these schools were white males from one of the top prep schools. Now, people form all over the world are applying. Unless you have a golden ticket or your kid is truly exceptional ( and they likely are not), give up the dream and let your kids enjoy high school a little. |
Anonymous
lol, almost spilled my coffee.... |
Anonymous
I am a lawyer not a mathematician but I think YOU should be doing your homework. What the PP meant to say was that 50% of those accepted (or 3% of the applicant pool) have a golden ticket, and 50% (or 3% of the pool) are "regular." What you are implying is that only 3% of the accepted pool are "regular" and 97% have a golden ticket. |
Anonymous
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Longtime independent school teacher here (started in the late 1980s -- yikes! and after a hiatus have been teaching all of the "2000s"). High school level, in the humanities.
First, I think the debate over the amount, purpose, and efficacy of homework is a healthy one. As a teacher, I have to guard against doing something because "I've always done it that way," and I constantly re-assess whether my assignments are effective, worthwhile, and the right length. With that said, a few observations, especially measuring the world of the late 1980s versus the independent school world of today, with an emphasis on what has changed: 1. AP Emphasis: I see much more of an emphasis from students and their families on wanting to take as many AP classes as they can. From my vantage point, the assigned workload in those AP classes seems roughly similar to what it has always been (although the AP as an organization has an unfortunate tendency to continually add and never subtract in terms of suggested curriculum). But more students are taking more of them, and I've seen many more families push very, very hard to have a relatively average student in a particular subject area placed in an AP class. From what I can tell, a lot of this is driven by the concern for college admissions. We've all heard colleges say "take the most demanding schedule your school offers," and many college counselors also say that, I think. What I'd like to hear is "challenge yourself in a way that makes sense for your life and your interests and your academic gifts." Seeing a relatively average science student flog themselves with tutoring, extra help, extra time spent on homework, and then extra tears and anxiety to get a B minus in AP Physics or AP Bio is unfortunately a fairly familiar sight. From the teacher's point of view in an AP class, they feel a great deal of pressure to "cover" the AP curriculum -- pressure that works against saying "last night's assignment was extra tough -- no homework tonight" or "I know a lot of you have the fall concert this week -- no homework on Thursday." Teachers everywhere (more in public, I suspect) feel pressure to make sure their students get 4s and 5s, and they don't stint on the assignments. 2. Time commitment for in-school sports: I am a fan of sports. I played them, coach them, and love to watch my students compete for the school -- nothing like it for school spirit and confidence in young men and young women. Over the years, however, the amount of time they must invest as part of the school teams at the varsity level has crept up. Players will say "well I didn't study as much as I probably should have because we had film night last night." On a daily basis, from the old "two hours start to finish" norm, practices have crept up towards the three-hour level, once you include warm-up and warm-down and weight lifting X times a week. 3. Time commitment for sports outside of school: Maybe no single factor has changed this much in my time as a teacher. The independent school world is athletically active, and parents and students alike recognize the advantage of being a recruited athlete in seeking admissions to selective, academically strong colleges. Within the past five years, I can think of students in the following sports where the time commitment was so great that it clearly cut into the student's ability to keep up with school work: soccer; ice hockey; tennis; fencing; swimming; lacrosse; basketball. Generally it is either weekday practices that extend the "athletic day" (a big one for soccer, ice hockey too) and/or weekend tournaments (pretty much all of them). I understand the incentive and accept that the club participation/tournaments/private coaching is necessary to get to the elite level (defining an "elite" athlete for these purposes as an athlete who will play on a college varsity team), and am simply just saying that time spent on this has exploded compared to when I first came into teaching. 4. General Extracurricular Emphasis: I see more kids who seem to think they "have" to do extracurriculars rather than doing the ones they like or just chilling out if they don't feel drawn to extracurriculars. I think, again, that this is driven by the college admissions anxiety, and acknowledge that many students and families are given a message from colleges and college counselors that one must show the "passion" for something outside of class -- and you can't demonstrate passion (for art, community service, etc.) without a major investment of time. 5. Number of classes: In contrast to when I started teaching, I have many more students trying to take 6 "academic" classes all the time (the limit at our school) and not infrequently arguing for seven (which we don't allow). More kids taking two languages, or two sciences, for example. I think they feel like they have to do it to meet "the most demanding schedule" standard (there's the college thing again), but, even without the homework load in an individual class having changed that much, that many classes stretches them very, very thinly. 6. More distractions: This is a big one. Kids have always looked for "alternatives" to their work, whatever the era, but now the distractions are so ubiquitous and so, so attractive. In any free moment during the school day, if allowed, our students have whipped out their phones and are transfixed by them. I don't observe what they do at home, but if they love Instagram and Twitter so much between the hours of 8 am and 3 pm I can't image they go "cold turkey" when they go home! Even compared to a decade ago, a common sight when I walk through the halls and see students with free periods is a group gathered around a student with a Mac, watching YouTube videos or Hulu or Netflix or even (this seems so boring to me!) watching another kid play a video game! (That's the boys, the girls are more likely to be group-watching something on Hulu.) The kids who I see very focused and doing there work tend to be the most successful students in the school. I don't judge them -- I too like Hulu and Netflix and can burn some time on Facebook -- but it is noticeable to me that less work/studying is done during the school day than when I started in "the biz." So, my recommendations? (This is high school, and probably of limited utility for the younger grades.) --Keep talking and thinking about this and raising this, because schools and teachers need to make sure that, for example, they are not letting the AP curriculum dictate unrealistic and unfair levels of homework in a given subject. --Before you buy into the idea that your child must be in an AP in a given subject, think about whether your child will thrive in the class or whether it's going to be a struggle. Have a candid conversation about this with your child's advisor, or the Department Chair, or the teacher of the AP class. Usually they can tell pretty well from your child's past performance whether it's a good fit. --Be careful about your child loading themselves up with extra electives. Isn't a happy, healthy child who is firing on all cylinders in their five core academic subjects enough? There are tons of great colleges out there and some of them will want your child. If your child is a real-deal science savant, say, and wants to double up, think about dropping another non-required area once the graduation requirements have been fulfilled. --Help your child make realistic choices in extracurriculars. Just because the school schedule means you could play a varsity sport and still be in the musical at the same time does not mean it is a great idea to do that. --Help your child make realistic choices in outside of school activities. If you don't think your child is going to play college soccer, why not get off the "club soccer train" at some point and just limit it to school soccer? Good luck, all! Your child's teachers also want the best for your kids. Keep the dialogue going, keep an open mind, and keep in mind that teenagers should get more, not less, sleep than the rest of us! |