Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forget AP Classes, those are college level and expected to have a lot of work. Why is my freshman in History honors drowning in SO MUCH homework? Every weekday evening and most of the weekend is spent ONLY on finishing up History assignments. And no, the teacher does not give any time in class to work on hw. Kid manages to finish all the other classes hw during Study Hall and comes home and does only history work every day. I have a suspicion that the history teacher is deliberately overloading the hw so that the kids will drop down to lower level. The same teacher is teaching AP World also and I suspect they are trying to scare away the kids from AP World with too much work. Thankfully, the other teachers are giving normal hw.

+1 omg bless you. My poor kid is in the same boat. We have no idea why this teacher is assigning gobs of work. It is absolutely insane. My son is also spending hours on it. The sad part is the work is only for completion. The teacher doesn’t teach - just assigns reading (they read it outloud in class old school round robin style) and then they are given these ridiculous assignments that keep them busy the rest of the period. They cannot ever possibly be finished with them.

The teacher is teaching the kids how to study.

If your kid doesn't want to study and learn, then just scribble through the work and don't waste time making it correct.

I don’t agree that simply reading a text outloud in class and assigning work after that is teaching my child “how to study.” If there was a lecture or discussion, where my child had to take take notes, and then study said notes, that might be “teaching him how to study.” But assigning copious amounts of busy work with zero discussion is not it.

Are you the OP? So the teacher and/or students is reading the text aloud in class? He isn’t assigning that for homework?

Everyone has their own approach, but for my kid, AP BC Cal and AP Physics C wound up being less work than AP Human Geography, just because he is more inclined/talented in the first two subject areas. I don't think you need to take every single AP class just because, but then again, financially, we knew he would be attending a state school.

Anonymous wrote:Because these classes to go to schools way better than Radford. Don’t like that much homework? Switch to a regular class. No one is forcing your kid to take AP.

^ are preparing kid to go

Because these classes to go to schools way better than Radford. Don’t like that much homework? Switch to a regular class. No one is forcing your kid to take AP.

AP classes aren't for everyone and are there to provide advanced students the highest level of academic rigor available to them through the school system in that particular subject.

Maybe the teacher has a hard on for torturing their students for no reason whatsoever, OR maybe the teacher is coming in hard to weed out lazy kids who don't want to work or who aren't cut out for AP, or maybe your kid isn't taking advantage of in-class time to complete assignments, or maybe the class is just too advanced for your kid.

I've got a senior who is taking 5 AP and 2 DE classes this year and has yet to break a sweat and took 5 APs last year and barely did any homework at home other than some essay writing/editing for AP Lang and got 5's across the board on the exams.

My kid #2 took 2 APs last year and was up late every night reading, writing and studying to get 4s at the end of the year.

If you want your kid to have an insight into the workload of a college course and the work ethic needed to succeed, APs are the best insight public schools have to offer to prepare your kid for that experience. If it's too much for your kid, no harm, no foul but some kids need it and actually want it.

Drop down a level.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why so much work is giving in AP US HISTORY AND AP BIOLOGY AND AP LIT?

I emailed the teacher and they said because its college level work....

I graduated from Radford University back in 2005. I might be a long time ago, but the classes were basically based on EXAMS. Very little homework was given. English 101 had like 3 essays per semester that was about it.
So what is the point of them giving them so much work for AP classes?

Yes, I had exactly the same feeling when my kid too AP classes. I realized that very few teachers know how to increase rigor without just giving out more work to students.

Most of the AP homework was busy work and didn't really do anything to enhance learning. My kids also felt that because the AP classes were open to anyone that the class time itself wasn't really useful because the teacher was having to going over the very basics for kids who were behind.

+1 This exactly. I have found this applies to honors classes and AAP classes.

These are college level courses, no? Am I missing something? Are you not supposed to do the reading and other preparation before you go to class? Do you expect that the teacher is just supposed to dictate everything to you for rote memorization later?

Anonymous wrote:Why so much work is giving in AP US HISTORY AND AP BIOLOGY AND AP LIT?

I emailed the teacher and they said because its college level work....

I graduated from Radford University back in 2005. I might be a long time ago, but the classes were basically based on EXAMS. Very little homework was given. English 101 had like 3 essays per semester that was about it.
So what is the point of them giving them so much work for AP classes?

Yes, I had exactly the same feeling when my kid too AP classes. I realized that very few teachers know how to increase rigor without just giving out more work to students.

Most of the AP homework was busy work and didn't really do anything to enhance learning. My kids also felt that because the AP classes were open to anyone that the class time itself wasn't really useful because the teacher was having to going over the very basics for kids who were behind.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forget AP Classes, those are college level and expected to have a lot of work. Why is my freshman in History honors drowning in SO MUCH homework? Every weekday evening and most of the weekend is spent ONLY on finishing up History assignments. And no, the teacher does not give any time in class to work on hw. Kid manages to finish all the other classes hw during Study Hall and comes home and does only history work every day. I have a suspicion that the history teacher is deliberately overloading the hw so that the kids will drop down to lower level. The same teacher is teaching AP World also and I suspect they are trying to scare away the kids from AP World with too much work. Thankfully, the other teachers are giving normal hw.

+1 omg bless you. My poor kid is in the same boat. We have no idea why this teacher is assigning gobs of work. It is absolutely insane. My son is also spending hours on it. The sad part is the work is only for completion. The teacher doesn’t teach - just assigns reading (they read it outloud in class old school round robin style) and then they are given these ridiculous assignments that keep them busy the rest of the period. They cannot ever possibly be finished with them.

The teacher is teaching the kids how to study.

If your kid doesn't want to study and learn, then just scribble through the work and don't waste time making it correct.

I don’t agree that simply reading a text outloud in class and assigning work after that is teaching my child “how to study.” If there was a lecture or discussion, where my child had to take take notes, and then study said notes, that might be “teaching him how to study.” But assigning copious amounts of busy work with zero discussion is not it.

I graduated from a relatively small public high school in 2001. Every AP class averaged probably one hour’s worth of homework per night, although the English courses could sometimes be even more. (And of course this includes time over the weekend to get stuff done.)

This seems totally normal. If your kid doesn’t want to do the work maybe they should reconsider taking the classes?

We've had a few kids go through this and found AP US History and AP World have a disproportionate amount of outside class work compared to all other AP classes.

Are you complaining about the amount of HW or your kid? If you it is your kid, then may be drop to a non-AP course.

Anonymous wrote:Why so much work is giving in AP US HISTORY AND AP BIOLOGY AND AP LIT?

I emailed the teacher and they said because its college level work....

I graduated from Radford University back in 2005. I might be a long time ago, but the classes were basically based on EXAMS. Very little homework was given. English 101 had like 3 essays per semester that was about it.
So what is the point of them giving them so much work for AP classes?

Gosh, OP, are you a troll? Radford University isn't exactly in the top tier of universities. Your post has at least 5 writing errors in it, so maybe more rigor in high school might have been warranted.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the classes your kid prior to these had little to no homework do this seems like a lot. My kid had hours of homework starting in 6th grade so he was used to it. Public schools don’t assign much to be done at home due to equity. It’s a college level class so expect a large workload.

I might add that this shows what happens when homework is virtually eliminated in elementary school. Even in AAP classes, it is pretty minimal. The students are not prepared for a more rigorous education. The irony is that those URM for whom "equity" is being forced do not benefit from this in the long run; many of them would be better off receiving more homework and harder coursework with an opportunity to excel and break out of whatever barriers FCPS attribute to race. Not all kids respond in the same way to opportunity, but the answer is not to take the opportunity away from all of them.