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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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!

[/quote]

Thank you so, so much for this thoughtful analysis. Required reading. :-)[/quote]

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