Atlantic piece: "My Daughter's Homework is Killing Me"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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!

Same teacher, adding one more point -- this is not something that has changed, but an observation about homework:

7. On average -- of course there are exceptions -- the girls spend more time on the homework than the boys. The boys are much more likely to "triage" their homework. No English test the next day? Put off reading "The Great Gatsby" in favor of other classes and read it or skim it in class. Throw a little BS around in class discussion and see how it works. Dumb assignment that won't really come into play on the test? Maybe don't do it at all. The girls are MUCH more likely to try to do every scrap of homework when it is assigned, and take longer on it (the old highlighting and annotating every margin thing). If you have a "do every bit every night" student, maybe talk to them (gently, so as not to damage that laudable work ethic) about prioritizing and that sometimes the full night of sleep is morally and practically superior to reading the full chapter (with annotated margins).

[Anonymous]

I really like this guy. I also like the way he writes - got his book.

Cyberbullying part cracked me up. I can see that happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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!

Thank you so, so much for this thoughtful analysis. Required reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

Thank you so, so much for this thoughtful analysis. Required reading.

+1 for a thoughtful and thought-provoking post.

[Anonymous]

Is this mostly a DC/NYC thing? I wonder. In Chicago where I used to live the work ethic was...work your tail off from 9-5 but then go home and enjoy yourself. Hang out with family and friends. Are the kids in middle America doing 5-6 hours of homework a night plus all the other junk piled on? I have to assume they are but I just don't really know

No, I grew up in the Chicago area, and this is absolutely a socioeconomic thing. I went to school in the affluent North Shore suburbs, and the culture people are describing is exactly what is described at someplace like Langley. Then when you get in the city proper, the competition to get people into gifted schools in starting in kindergarden is fierce. The selective admissions high schools I think are every bit competitive with places like Stuyvesant and Bronx Sci, and people test prep like mad to get into them because they basically have to have perfect grades and test scores to get into them unless your parents have a low socioeconomic status, in which case you are probably an outlier if you make it that far anyway. The private school scene is every bit as nuts as the DC private scene. It is a big city thing, where there are concentrations of wealth and high achieving people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Same teacher, adding one more point -- this is not something that has changed, but an observation about homework:

7. On average -- of course there are exceptions -- the girls spend more time on the homework than the boys. The boys are much more likely to "triage" their homework. No English test the next day? Put off reading "The Great Gatsby" in favor of other classes and read it or skim it in class. Throw a little BS around in class discussion and see how it works. Dumb assignment that won't really come into play on the test? Maybe don't do it at all. The girls are MUCH more likely to try to do every scrap of homework when it is assigned, and take longer on it (the old highlighting and annotating every margin thing). If you have a "do every bit every night" student, maybe talk to them (gently, so as not to damage that laudable work ethic) about prioritizing and that sometimes the full night of sleep is morally and practically superior to reading the full chapter (with annotated margins).

First, thanks for the long/thoughtful posts!

Secondly, what you're saying about girls vs. boys is what I heard a couple of years ago from one of DD's middle school teachers. Apparently the parents of girls who were doing well academically were asking for less homework (during conferences), while the parents of boys who were blowing things off wanted more. (I guess their logic was "if he's only going to do x% of what's required, they need to require much more than what he actually needs to do.")

How, as a teacher, do you address that? Do you assign a reasonable amount of homework or so much that the kids doing a fraction of it (or doing it in a half-assed manner) will be ready to participate in class? Does homework get graded or do you check if it's been done or is it all honor system (or random inspection or pop quizzes)? Have you ever said "here's what I want you get out of this homework -- do as much or as little as it takes for you to be in that position? or "I want you to spend x many minutes practicing this and I don't really care how many (or which of) these problems you do or how much you write in that time."

To me, both ends of the spectrum are disturbing (i.e. girls being dutiful and losing sleep and boys trying to do as little as they can get away with) and I wonder how much of it relates to very different understandings (or lack of a clear and common understanding and explicit discussion re what homework is for).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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!

sad part about ice hockey for boys, is that after spending a zillion hours and $$, very very few get recruited. that time is better spent on hitting the books...

[Anonymous]

Also hate the fact that homework is tied to the grade. DD and her friends love it and claim it gives them the ability to bring their grades up, but then you must spend the 5 hours a night doing it. So they end up with A's at the end of the year, a lot dependent on homework submission, but how many of them really know the course material. I grew under the English system years ago and hw was used as a tool for reviewing and learning material. Our grades were dependent upon test, both end-of-year cumulative and mid-term. .

[Anonymous]

When I read about the boy/girl differences in approaching homework, I can't help but reflect about differences I see in men and women in the workplace--where many men are quite confident in their ability to bluff their way through something if they need to and women tend to over-prepare for everything. This stands out for me because I'm a woman who is very good at the type of "triaging" the teacher above talks about boys doing. But I too find this to be much more common among males.

[Anonymous]

Also hate the fact that homework is tied to the grade. DD and her friends love it and claim it gives them the ability to bring their grades up, but then you must spend the 5 hours a night doing it. So they end up with A's at the end of the year, a lot dependent on homework submission, but how many of them really know the course material. I grew under the English system years ago and hw was used as a tool for reviewing and learning material. Our grades were dependent upon test, both end-of-year cumulative and mid-term. .

I see the merits for both models. Some people are poor test takers, and test taking has pretty little to do with one's ability to learn and apply knowledge. I think in a lot of ways, knowing how to write a really great research paper, or solve a very complex problem that takes a few hours to do reflects more about critical thinking skills than an exam. But on the other hand, busy work is a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Same teacher, adding one more point -- this is not something that has changed, but an observation about homework:

7. On average -- of course there are exceptions -- the girls spend more time on the homework than the boys. The boys are much more likely to "triage" their homework. No English test the next day? Put off reading "The Great Gatsby" in favor of other classes and read it or skim it in class. Throw a little BS around in class discussion and see how it works. Dumb assignment that won't really come into play on the test? Maybe don't do it at all. The girls are MUCH more likely to try to do every scrap of homework when it is assigned, and take longer on it (the old highlighting and annotating every margin thing). If you have a "do every bit every night" student, maybe talk to them (gently, so as not to damage that laudable work ethic) about prioritizing and that sometimes the full night of sleep is morally and practically superior to reading the full chapter (with annotated margins).

First, thanks for the long/thoughtful posts!

Secondly, what you're saying about girls vs. boys is what I heard a couple of years ago from one of DD's middle school teachers. Apparently the parents of girls who were doing well academically were asking for less homework (during conferences), while the parents of boys who were blowing things off wanted more. (I guess their logic was "if he's only going to do x% of what's required, they need to require much more than what he actually needs to do.")

How, as a teacher, do you address that? Do you assign a reasonable amount of homework or so much that the kids doing a fraction of it (or doing it in a half-assed manner) will be ready to participate in class? Does homework get graded or do you check if it's been done or is it all honor system (or random inspection or pop quizzes)? Have you ever said "here's what I want you get out of this homework -- do as much or as little as it takes for you to be in that position? or "I want you to spend x many minutes practicing this and I don't really care how many (or which of) these problems you do or how much you write in that time."

To me, both ends of the spectrum are disturbing (i.e. girls being dutiful and losing sleep and boys trying to do as little as they can get away with) and I wonder how much of it relates to very different understandings (or lack of a clear and common understanding and explicit discussion re what homework is for).

Those are good questions. Every teacher is different, and it depends a lot on the subject area also.

My subject is one where the homework is primarily reading, with some take-home writing assignments (papers of varying length). I make it clear at the outset of the course that I expect the students to be generally current with the reading, for two main reasons: (1) much of the class is modified-Harkness style discussion, and for it to be worthwhile, we need a critical mass to have done the reading to give us a jumping off point; and (2) it is not easy to "cram" 2-3 weeks worth of reading before a test, so keeping current is important to maximize performance on assessments; and (3) (a related point to #1) they will find the class much more interesting if they are current on the reading. I also explain to them that my course is similar to a college approach in the sense that I am not going to go over the reading in detail in class -- we will cover some areas in great detail, but class lectures/discussions/exercises/group work will not be a summary of what at they were assigned as reading.

I give periodic pop reading quizzes -- more when I sense the tide has turned against keeping current in the reading -- which are designed to be easy for someone who has done the reading. I offer a "mulligan" on the quizzes -- I drop the lowest quiz grade each marking period -- and I talk them down if they seem to be getting too stressed about the quizzes. Overall, failing any one, two, or even three quizzes will not have any material effect on the grade. If you fail them all, it could bump you down a couple of points on your average, maybe. If you do well on all of them, it can bump you a point or two, so it can reward the hard worker who is not necessarily a great writer, for example. It is also a useful diagnostic tool to be able to offer some constructive criticism if the student is not doing that well in the course. With all that said, your talented student who is savvy enough to pick up a lot from class, and who studies very efficiently, and who is a fast reader and great writer, can probably get away with cramming the reading at the end and still do very well on tests. I don't get heartburn over it, although if they are intellectually coasting in class I'll try to inspire them to get more involved.

[Anonymous]

Makes sense. I'm in a similar field and I think that's how I'd handle a HS class as well. My kid's workload in English generally seems reasonable to me. It's probably History I question most -- sometimes seems to be a lot of make-work and/or enforcement without much value added intellectually. But that might be the fault of the textbooks/curriculum more than of individual teachers.

[Anonymous]

sad part about ice hockey for boys, is that after spending a zillion hours and $$, very very few get recruited. that time is better spent on hitting the books...

See this is the problem. A kid finds something he loves, that he/she is passionate about, spends hours and hours and hours on this thing they love. just because they love it. Then we say.. what is the point if they are not going to be professional.

The point is that they do something they love and they work hard at it, just because they love it.

Give me that kid, over the ... I hit the books so I could get an A so my mom would upgrade my iPhone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

sad part about ice hockey for boys, is that after spending a zillion hours and $$, very very few get recruited. that time is better spent on hitting the books...

See this is the problem. A kid finds something he loves, that he/she is passionate about, spends hours and hours and hours on this thing they love. just because they love it. Then we say.. what is the point if they are not going to be professional.

The point is that they do something they love and they work hard at it, just because they love it.

Give me that kid, over the ... I hit the books so I could get an A so my mom would upgrade my iPhone.

lol.. forgot to mention, the kid loves the sport, but a lot of the parents r living through their kids and r pressuring them...I see it all the time..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:YESYESYESYES. TOO MUCH HOMEWORK. Private and public in DC/MD/VA area. My child (now in college) did not have a life because of the illogical amounts of homework dumped on these poor kids. If I had to do it over, I would have moved away and tried to create a "normal" lifestyle for child which would have involved walking down the street to hang out with a girl friend, scouting, athletics, piano lessons, anything but the mounds of homework we all suffered through not to mention the lack of sleep during these critical formative years.

Honey, that lack of sleep is often due to a significant amount of masturbation.