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

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[quote=Anonymous]When/where I went to school (late 70s, CA, public school in an affluent university town), the kids who got As in AP course and the kids who did competitive sports where generally different people.  Now more kids are trying to do both, which is a serious increase in workload per kid, even if we assume that the demands of each endeavor have remained constant.  (For the record, I think they've increased).  And we've thrown community service requirements on top of that.

One thing that strikes me most about the homework load is that it leaves very little time for independent intellectual exploration.  Just "doing the needful" consumes enough time and mental energy that the marathon pleasure reading binges and the little research projects that both my husband (growing up on the opposite coast) and I would set for ourselves aren't really possible.  My kid doesn't get to set her own intellectual agenda in the way that we did and I think that's a big loss.

I wish teachers/school administrators would take that into account -- but somehow the assumption is that homework is just competing with sports or social media or other homework (and why should my subject get less attention?).  Not true.

The other thing that has been sacrificed in our house is the kid's contribution to family labor.  Also not a good thing, IMO, but probably one my DC wouldn't complain about.  [/quote]

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