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[quote=Anonymous]I really enjoyed the law prof's post - I guess because it reinforces my thinking.

I am increasingly dismayed by the pressure being forced upon high school kids to complete impossible workloads. If your kid is taking 5 APs (Math, Science, History, English, and Foreign Language), it's reasonable to expect he would have an hour of homework in each class per night. So that's 5 hours of homework every night, at a minimum.

Say he plays a sport and doesn't finish practice until around 6. Say he wants to take a shower and eat a meal after driving home. Now it's 7 - and time to start 5 hours of homework. What kind of life is that for anyone, let alone a teenage kid? Do you really think this is going to engender a love of learning, or intrinsic motivation to pursue genuine interests? To me, it's putting kids on a soul-deadening treadmill that teaches them to resent adults, to grind out rote work, and to focus on the all-important grades - basically to produce the kind of kids written about in "Excellent Sheep."

The irony is that - having worked in higher ed for more than a decade - I see many professors sending their kids to these schools that produce the same kind of spiritless kids they then lament seeing as students. I am fortunate that through my spouse's tuition remission benefit, and by living outside the immediate DC area, my kid ended up in a school that isn't a pressure cooker. We were a little worried about the lack of homework and Honors sections in 9th Grade, now we are so thankful that as a junior he truly does have balance in his life - challenged and engaged by most (though, admittedly, not every one) of his courses, with time to play sports and even pursue some outside interests.

I hear friends who simultaneously lament and brag about their kids' workloads (like bringing flashlights in the car so they can do homework during the 15-minute ride to a sibling's practice, because they can't afford not to work during that time) and it makes me feel very sorry for the kids.[/quote]

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