
More parents, students saying 'no' to homework - brianclements
http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20151026_More_parents__students_saying__no__to_homework.html#c5m34J1fBGIPuuwg.99
======
unquietcode
Let's not forget that the inhabitants of this website are almost certainly the
kind of people who saw through the noise and got their education on their own
terms. As we raise our kids we help them tip-toe around all this garbage, but
most parents have no tools at their disposal to review and revise and push
back against bad practices in their child's education. The issue of education
in this country needs to be addressed, but the system has to serve all types,
including children who's parents are unable to provide alternative structures
and insights and 'hacks' to get by.

That didn't add much (I wasn't trying), but these threads always seem to turn
into an echo chamber of "I got by without doing any homework!" because, let's
face it, here we are. What is the 98% solution, I wonder, versus the 2%
version? Of all that I've seen, it starts with better, smarter, well-paid, un-
stressed, empathetic teachers. Students too afraid to think? Too pinned down
to discover how best to learn for themselves? I just want to give all these
poor kids a hug and tell them how smart they really are--it makes me so sad.

~~~
guimarin
I disagree with your comment about better teachers. Teachers are simply a
conduit for learning. They don't scale, which is why there is still a power-
law distribution in educational outcomes despite tons or research and data and
training and testing that should combat that. Basically rich people get richer
because all rich people who are generationally consistently rich have one
thing in common. They are autodidacts. If you can learn on your own, and have
the capacity to recognize when the assumptions underpinning the status-quo are
no longer correct, you can consistently remain wealthy relative to everyone
else. True rich families understand this and teach it implicitly/explicitly to
their children. Who end up being the fertile ground on which 'good teachers'
have a multiplicative effect. This does not work for the poor as they lack the
necessary base skills and knowledge to benefit from good teaching. Poor people
still break through because circumstance often teaches people, like everyone
who came from nothing on this message board, how to learn on their own without
help or assistance from others. Advocating more assistance from others is not
the solution. And for the same reason that sending $1T in aid to Africa has
had mixed results.

Knowledge cannot be taught it must be learned.

~~~
guimarin
And just to be clear. The answer for children is to make learning to love
learning play. And the way to do that in a way that scales is through a video
game. That is the future of education. Games for children that teach them how
to learn, that they then use to set their own educational path. With teachers,
schools, mentors, and advisors helping along the way.

~~~
douche
I blame video games for making me into a history buff. And maybe Legos,
combined with the History Channel before it was the RedneckAliensJesus
Channel.

Civilization, Lords of the Realm, Caesar II, Robert E. Lee: Civil War General,
Close Combat, Total War, Pirates!, Anno 1602, Europa Universalis/Crusader
Kings/Victoria/Hearts of Iron, Age of Empires

Or to go way back, Math/Word Rescue, Treasure Mountain, Midnight Rescue,
Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail, the crazy game that was part of Encarta, Dr
Brain, Maxis Sim games all taught me math, geography, history, logic, physics,
etc.

~~~
ashark
Same story, nearly the same list. I'd throw in Shadow President, which taught
me the names and locations of all the (cold war era) countries by third grade
or so, and gave me a good sense of global and regional balances of power.

If you haven't played "Civil War Generals 2: Grant, Lee, Sherman" you should.
It's Robert E. Lee: Civil War General but with the brokenness fixed—there's a
victory point system that's in part based on locations held, which keeps you
from just turtling on the nearest high ground and waiting for the enemy to
come into cannon range—and a much larger campaign. It's kind of tricky to run
these days, and is a bit unstable even under ideal conditions. Best solution
may involve a Win98se VM. :-/

The Encarta game was awesome. I'd forgotten about it. Thanks for the memory.

~~~
voltagex_
Might be worth people voting here -
[http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/civil_war_generals_2](http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/civil_war_generals_2)
\- although it's way, way down the list at the moment.

~~~
douche
I love GOG, but that list is frustrating, when so many of the top items on
that list are games that they will _never_ get rights to.

Blizzard is never going to give away their back catalog (they'd sell it
themselves). Neither is Valve. Nor, most likely, is EA, with their awful
Origin service.

Then there are all of the newer games that you can find anywhere... Obviously,
they've got to make money and focus on what pays the bills, but it makes me
happier when I see abandonware and unavailable games get legitimate releases
on there, compared to when its something already on Steam.

------
dgrant
This is crazy, I don't know where I would be today if I hadn't done homework.
Homework was where I really and truly learned. Independent work is so
important, and it's totally different than doing something with a bunch of
students in a classroom setting. Sure, the education system probably could be
improved a lot. But you can't just remove homework from the current system and
expect there will be no negative consequence to that.

My daughter is in Grade 1 French Immersion in Canada and she is assigned a few
sight words every week in French to memorize in addition to some French sounds
(2 letter sounds). On top of that we try to do a bit of math here and there
and some English. The teacher tells us to make it as fun as possible, so we
try, sometimes I turn her sight words in to a quick board game. For math, we
try to use the Bedtime Math books or the app. For reading, we read princess
readers which she loves. Sometimes we try other readers and we push it, only
to find out she really hates them, and sometimes the French sounds
memorization is tough and painful. Can't imagine asking the teacher for less
homework though, it seems like just the right amount.

~~~
bitL
You and your daughter will end up as people that can contribute something
great to the society; most of the ones skipping the homework without innate
talent not, and they will complain about how unfairly are they treated because
they are smart.

One of my piano teachers was forced to practice through tears as a kid because
they saw the talent she had. She went on to becoming a world famous child
prodigy playing grade 8 pieces by sight-reading with unbelievable ease.

Work is required if you want to achieve something. You just need to find the
right balance, and it's neither "no work" nor "work all the time".

~~~
derefr
> She went on to becoming a world famous child prodigy playing grade 8 pieces
> by sight-reading with unbelievable ease.

...and did that get her anywhere as an adult?

It seems to me that so many people are excited when their children are ahead
of the curve, doing "adult"-level things at a young age—and just assume
they'll stay ahead forever, forging on beyond the norm, rather than reverting
to the mean.

------
JamesBarney
I am in total agreement that children have better things to do than homework.

Such as learning how to play and interact with others. Learn how to deal with
adversity. How to deal with the sadness of a break up or not being included.
Learning how to lead a team via Counter Strike or WOW. Learning computers by
writing a mod for a favorite computer game.

These things taught me far more than a worksheet on a very idealized version
of the events that led to the American Revolution.

And on a different note the idea of a lecture in class followed by homework at
home seems silly to me. Lectures are easy to scale so a child can learn from
the best of the best in the world(With explanatory graphics). Tailored
tutoring to the issues a child is having while trying to solve problems and
understand a concept is very hard to scale. It seems to me it would make more
sense to watch lectures outside of the classroom and do homework in the
classroom.

~~~
s_dev
Repetition is an important part of learning. Expecting all children to
understand what was taught in class is unrealistic. This is why homework is
assigned - so the student may take their time to review the parts they
themselves didn't fully grasp in class. The time spent doing homework varies
from child to child and this is important - kids who need longer to accomplish
the same task will have that time because they are at home.

Arguably you could cover everything again the next day but thats hardly a
graceful solution and doesn't cater to that variance of time needed for
homework across different children as contact hours are very limited as it is.

Homework also offers the opportunity for parents to engage with kids in their
formal education - this helps the parents as well as kids.

~~~
rayiner
> Arguably you could cover everything again the next day but thats hardly a
> graceful solution and doesn't cater to that variance of time needed for
> homework across different children as contact hours are very limited as it
> is.

Repetition is important. But kids are already at school for 7-8 hours a day.
If that is not enough time to engage in adequate repetition, the solution is
not to shift work to home hours. It is:

1) Do less, by cutting less important subjects;

2) Do more with the time given, by cutting students who disrupt class.

~~~
cossatot
What do you view as non-essential? STEM? Arts? Social studies? Recess/PE?

And how much time do you actually think is wasted on dealing with disruptive
students? 10% of the day? 35%?

To me, this sounds like a recipe for creating an upper class of uncreative,
poorly-rounded conformists and a lower class of people who are undereducated
and permanently pissed off at the society that fails to serve their needs.

I think it's pretty unlikely that this would be a substantial improvement in
modern American society or many others.

Kids misbehave at school for a huge number of reasons (many of them
socioeconomic but definitely not all), and it's not really the public school
system's responsibility to fix that, but it _is_ the school system's
responsibility to give them an education so that they can properly integrate
into society as an adult. Shoving the problematic students to the side
exacerbates this.

Bonus points if the education system can encourage more independence of
thought and action, creative and analytical problem skills, and the tenacity
and wisdom that come from actually having gotten some hard things done.

A better system would be one that is more capable of demonstrating the value
of education to the students (incentivizing them to learn, and making learning
at any level more rewarding), as well as one that can accommodate a larger
degree of student interests and learning styles. I don't really know how to do
this without having more internships and so forth, which aren't necessarily
feasible for younger children but may be for teens. Maybe somewhere in the
world or at some point in history this has been practiced more?

~~~
rayiner
I don't think K-8 needs to teach more than writing, reading, and math. Not
even science--kids don't really get it and the dumbed-down version you learn
at that level probably makes it harder rather than easier to learn "real
science" later on.

Misbehaving kids should get an education--they should just get it in a class
with other misbehaving kids.

~~~
foiboitoi
>Misbehaving kids should get an education--they should just get it in a class
with other misbehaving kids.

What specific criteria is there so that we segregate fairly, not based some
delusion that normal behaviour between genders are identical?

Teachers (which are overwhelmingly female) overly punish normal behaviour from
boys compared to girls. I wouldn't trust their judgment for my children of
what misbehaviour is given their obvious discrimination that I've witnessed
and experienced.

------
ahallock
Homework is an abomination. It steals time a child could be spending with
their parents, siblings, friends, etc. You spend all day in a classroom,
sedentary, which isn't healthy to begin with, and then when you go home,
you're expected to sit more. Children need to play and explore the world.
Schools are failing if they have this overflow of work that must be sent home.

~~~
pdpi
I get (and agree with) your sentiment, but to call homework an abomination is
misguided. I don't want the totality of kids' academic learning to be in the
class room, I want them to have to do thing by themselves, unsupervised --
which is what homework is meant to achieve. As you say, though, that shouldn't
come at the cost of their play time. Personally I feel more inclined to say
that we should aim towards fewer classes and more homework.

~~~
bradbatt
If they are in school all day and then pressured with all sorts of homework at
night, when do they actually get to learn something they want to learn?
Something they are really interested in, but isn’t assigned by a teacher?

I think there is value in giving kids time to learn things that at outside the
subjects that a school teaches. Eliminating homework gives kids more of a
chance to do that, not to mention the other things that people have mentioned
like spending time with family, playing, etc.

~~~
pdpi
Like I said: I agree with the general sentiment of giving kids more time to be
kids, to play and to learn non-academic stuff.

What I'm advocating, though, is that this should be, at least partially, at
the expense of structured lectures, rather than homework.

------
mmcclellan
One evening my wife, daughter and I were sitting in the living room. My wife
and I were reading and my daughter was doing her Math homework, when all of
sudden she asks "Did Heath Ledger commit suicide?"

I said "that's a weird question, what brought that up?" and she said they were
talking about it at school today with the Dare Police Officer. I said "Oh you
had a Police Officer in your class today?" and she said "Yeah, on Mondays,
Wednesdays and Thursdays."

No one I've ever told that story to has ever commented on it.

~~~
wishinghand
Why was there a DARE officer at that school three days a week?

~~~
r00fus
School-to-Prison pipeline, maybe?

------
fiatmoney
"the notion that America can close the learning gap with China or India..."

Indian and Chinese students in America do as well or better than Indian and
Chinese students in their home countries on any measure you'd like to name.

For that matter the same is true of Mexican students in the US vs. in Mexico,
European students in the US vs. in Europe, etc.

~~~
lycidas
Chinese and Indian students in America also have the benefit of being from
some of the highest socioeconomic groups in America [0]. It is more a factor
of the group's average wealth rather than the fact that they are foreign.

[0] :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income)

~~~
benihana
> _It is more a factor of the group 's average wealth rather than the fact
> that they are foreign._

How do you know that for sure? Maybe their higher average wealth is a function
of their success as immigrants, not the other way around.

------
NDizzle
I am not to the point of saying 'no' to homework. But I am starting to
question a few things.

First off, my situation is not the norm anymore. Not only am I the single
earner in my 5 person household, but I work from home full time. I am
extremely active in my kids lives.

My kids are very fortunate in that they always have one and often times both
parents to help out with school work.

My oldest is 9 - 4th grade. I have a 5 year old in Junior-Kindergarten. Both
have homework. (My 2 year old doesn't count here, except when he's literally
eating their homework.)

I coach little league, and I talk to a lot of the parents. Some of the parents
have kids in the same class as my 9 year old. These are households where both
parents work and have more than one child in school.

There is a drastic difference in support that the children receive. Now, I'm
not smart. I have a high school education from Arkansas, which is always
fighting with Mississippi for the worst rank in education standards. However,
I consider my problem solving skills outstanding. I am not doing my kids
homework, but I do look at my kids homework. Every night. I help them
sometimes. I get on the white board and we go over things. I have them teach
the methods back to me.

It's a difference that just last night, a mother of one of the kids came up to
me and was talking about the math homework they had today. Her daughter had
spent an hour on it before the game and still doesn't get it. I hadn't even
looked at the homework yet, so I asked my daughter what was going on with the
math homework tonight. Her response? Oh yeah, that's super easy. You can look
at it when we get home.

So you have something that takes at least 1 hour (I'll find out more about it
later if anyone cares!) for one student compared to something that is a
nonissue for another student. In 4th grade. That isn't really sustainable. And
I'll go out on a limb here and say that her friend who is having a bit more
trouble isn't dumb by any means. I've coached her for two years in softball.
And we're not special in the other direction, either.

Oh yeah - my 5 year old in Jr K - she has monthly homework assignments. Things
like gather fall leaves and glue them to a piece of paper. Trace your hand and
stick leaves on it to make a bird. Fun things like that. Not real homework.
But she does have things to do at home to gear her up for the future.

Anyways. There are my personal experiences with this stuff in California's
central valley.

~~~
wisty
It's not easy for low SES students to learn much from homework.

Schools are designed by upper-middle-class people who care a lot about school.
The problem students are from a very different background.

It's nice to say that teachers should be doing parenting for kids (building
their self esteem, helping them develop as people, etc), but that's just
glorified daycare. The poor students need to be taught to read, write, and do
math, because that's what their parents can't help them with.

Education is meant to give every child a chance. I really think poor people
have decent general cognitive skills (problem solving, relationships, etc),
but really need a leg-up when it comes to formal academic work.

I don't think schools are really helping kids, when they shunt the
fundamentals off to parents, as homework. 6 hours a day should be plenty to
develop basic numeracy and literacy. But that's often not a priority to
educators. It's more fun for teachers to tell themselves they're being parents
- teaching kids how to develop as people.

------
lordCarbonFiber
I see several issues with the ideas presented here. Firstly, the idea that a
parent should have control over homework in any capacity seems like a
misguided idea. Secondly, the article dances around ideas but never touches on
the importance of the content of the homework. Not all worksheets are created
equal and it follows that neither are all hours spent at home working. There
are big differences from a pedagogical standpoint between homework designed to
expand knowledge, evaluate proficiency, and provide mechanical practice (just
to name a few).

In my opinion the whole issue stems from lack of standardization in education
in this country. The huge variance, even at a regional scale, in the tools
available to teach coupled with the lack of standardized methods for
addressing the needs of a wide variety of students presents a system that is
often going to regress to the lowest common denominator (often mechanical
drudgery given the ease in creation and evaluation) .

~~~
zaphar

         Firstly, the idea that a parent should have control over 
         homework in any capacity seems like a misguided idea
    

Full disclosure I'm a parent so biased. However with that said I know more
about my child's workload than the teacher. The teacher knows how much
homework they assign for "their" class. They don't know what the other classes
assign. What extra curricular activities require or what chores the child has
at home. Asking a Teacher to figure out the appropriate level of homework for
a child is asking someone with inadequate information to make a decision on
priorities. The person _best_ suited to make an informed decision here is the
parent.

EDIT: unbiased to biased.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
I'll preface this response with the acknowledgement that the world is not
ideal, and there are some fundamental problems underlying how classes are
structured (largely due to the fact that evaluations are based on the
achievement of the lowest performers) which poses institutional obstacles to
efficient work assignments.

That being said, given the (in practice flawed) assumption that the work being
assigned is something your child needs, it's a disservice to say some other
home life takes higher priority than education. This is especially true given
the additive nature of many topics. Imagine, in a contrived example, you veto
the addition worksheet despite your child needing practice. How is he/she
supposed to keep up in the next week's topic of multiplication?

In practice this falls apart if you have a high performing child, but,
campaigning for funding for gifted programs or ,if you're particularly lucky,
working with the teachers to get customized work is a far better investment
than lobbying for the ability to just ignore the work.

~~~
zaphar
You are assuming the education of a single class takes precedence over other
classes, the education of extra curricular activities, and the education of
chores at home. That is a large assumption that I'm pretty sure is invalid.

The crux of this problem is that time spent in school is poorly spent for a
host of reasons. If you child spends close to 7 hours at school and none of
that time was available for the work that is expected to be done at home then
that imposes an undue burden on the child and the family.

Rather than insisting that the needs of a schools poor use of time should
supersede the families needs perhaps the solution is to fix the poor use of
time instead.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
The metaphor that resonates with me as a musician, would you expect someone to
get better at piano only by attending lessons but no practice at home?

Im not sure where you get the idea of poor time use from. Out of that 8 hours
you need to fit lunch, recess, cumulative transition times, and at least 4
major academic topics (Math, Science, History, Language) plus hopefully a
rotating time dedicated to the arts. And you want that to fit into 8 hours on
top of the practice required to achieve mastery?

Finally, this is me making a value judgement. Just picking one class, math,
I'll go out on a limb and say mastery of basic arithmetic is going to resonate
much farther in a child's life than participating an extra hour in extra
curricular or chores.

~~~
jerf
"The metaphor that resonates with me as a musician, would you expect someone
to get better at piano only by attending lessons but no practice at home?"

If they were at lessons for 7 hours a day, five days a week... _yes!_ Yes I in
fact do.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
Except children don't sit down at school and begin a "school lesson". Basic
education is going to cover Math, Science, Language, History and hopefully
Art. So in a given subject there might be 5 hours of lesson time week. When
framed that way, asking for another hour or 2 of practice time for mastery
doesn't sound so unreasonable.

~~~
talmand
Assuming that the homework is "practice" and not "instruction". A good bit of
my older kid's homework is continuation of the instruction at home without the
benefit of the teacher. Not that I fully blame the teacher for this, I blame
the district for it as much, if not more.

But to continue the metaphor, I would expect a child receiving five one-hour
lessons a week on piano to be proficient enough to show they have received
lessons within a decent amount of time. Without extra practice. But what's the
criteria to consider it a success? What amount of time? Do we consider whether
the child has a natural talent for it in the equation? Personally, I don't
think it's a good metaphor.

------
lordnacho
The problem with homework is it's used as a form of accountability. My French
teacher used to joke when collecting papers : "Ou est votre dette a la
societe?" (Apologies for missing accents.)

Of course what it should be is like at university. The professor can't spend
all his time with you, so you get a rough list of what you should know about.
It's then up to you to judge whether you need to read a bit more or a bit
less.

The point is judgement. You can figure out when you understand something. You
don't need a whole page of quadratic equations, in fact you don't understand
it if you get to the end and think you need more. OTOH, if you only do the
first two and you think you get it, you might be enlightened when you look at
some further questions.

As a parent, it means instead of asking the teacher for more homework, which
will annoy them, you can simply ask your kid some enlightening questions. It's
probably a lot more interesting for them that way.

~~~
dctoedt
> ... _you can simply ask your kid some enlightening questions. It 's probably
> a lot more interesting for them that way._

Part-time (law) professor here. Thinking of enlightening questions is often
quite difficult.

~~~
grossvogel
> Thinking of enlightening questions is often quite difficult.

And this is a big piece of the problem with homework. Enlightening questions
could be asked as homework, but various forces create an emphasis on quantity
over quality.

As someone who's taught arithmetic to lots of adults, I use 'enlightening' in
a broad sense. I hope most of us agree that grasping arithmetic requires
practice (in or out of class), but that's not the same as repetition. Even
simple arithmetic problems can be varied in deliberate ways that draw
students' attention to those variations and at the same time reinforce the
underlying pattern.

------
isolated
I graduated from high school recently. Homework was the true bane of my
existence. It gnawed at my every waking thought and put a tinge of anxiety to
my every moment. Am I doing it? Did I forget some? What do I need to be doing
that Im not? The entire school experience is a depressing prison of course but
homework is how it goes from an seven hour affair to a twenty four hour
project. More than anything else it makes sure youre always at school, always
worried about the evaluation of unrespectable teachers and disgusting sadists.

You start to wonder if theres a way out, like any prisoner examining the
prison with obsessive dedication. You follow the vine to its end and back
pacing your room going through the mental anguish of knowing youre trapped and
theres nothing you can do about it. ([http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.fr/2008/10/programmers-view-of-u...](http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.fr/2008/10/programmers-view-of-universe-part-1.html)) I used to
have this fantasy where Id go down to the school building in the middle of the
night when nobody is there with a barrel of kerosene. Id douse the schoolhouse
walls with the fetid substance and light it ablaze, laughing as the walls go
up in smoke before throwing myself on the tickling flames crying and screaming
and laughing in agony as I burn.

Im so glad to be free.

~~~
civilian
I'm with you. I'm 28 now, working as a software engineer, and I'm loving my
life. I roll into work at 10:30 and yesterday I got a raise without having to
ask or negotiate for it. I have the time and money to pursue hobbies, but I
also genuinely enjoy my coworkers.

But high school was _rough_ for me. My grades weren't especially good, but I
did a lot of AP classes. I constantly had the anxiety of homework looming over
me. Looking back, I realized that I got into the state where I'd be behind on
a lot of things, and once I had 5 different things on my plate it'd be really
hard to prioritize them and I'd just stress myself out trying to balance them.

I'd like to have children someday, but I know that there's a chance they're
going to inherit my style of thinking. (My dad is the same as me-- he also
graduated college just barely, also procrastinated too much in high school.)
I'd really like to find some alternate form of school that still challenges my
kids, but does so in a way that doesn't explode their stress levels.

------
a2tech
The best thing my school did was moving to the 'block' system. Instead of
having 6 or 8 classes to go to every day, I had 4 classes a semester. It also
meant that my algebra class, or biology, was twice as long as your 'standard'
class at another school.

The block system meant that the instructor had twice as long with the students
and could really dig into a subject. It also meant we didn't usually have
homework because it wasn't necessary-the instructor taught, we learned, we
drilled on it in class.

~~~
clarkmoody
We had block schedule with 4 classes per day, but alternated days for 8
classes total. Long, 100 minute class periods allowed for
lecture+homework/help time during the day.

Fridays were an alternate set of interesting classes, from SAT prep, to
bowling, to computer programming. I couldn't recommend this system more. If
you must have public school, this is a great way to structure it.

------
neap24
Why the all or nothing approach? At my high school, I think we have a great
policy for math homework (I am the teacher). It is assigned every day but
never checked or graded. At the beginning of each class we go over any
problems the students had trouble with, then move on. Students eventually
reach an equilibrium where they figure out how much time they personally need
to spend each night on math homework. For students who are failing tests and
doing no homework, we generally suggest they do a little more.

~~~
eitally
This is totally the way to go. In my experience (I was in high school '92-'95
so this is dated), this method worked great in the advanced classes, but a lot
of the remedial and "normal" track classes still focused heavily on rote
memorization and quantity of work, for whatever reasons. The fact is, the best
students will succeed no matter what, either because they have supportive
families & social groups or because they're autodidacts, so the challenge is
tackling the other 80%.

In your experience, does this method work equally well no matter what the
class is or who the students are?

~~~
neap24
It seems to work equally well for advanced and non-advanced students, it's
just that the normal track students take a little longer to figure what the
"right amount" of homework for them to do is.

------
ThrustVectoring
Saying 'no' to homework doesn't go far enough, IMHO. They should be saying
'no' to the entire abominable structure of schooling.

------
tjr
Hmm. The article alludes to some studies that back up their point, but,
anecdotally, I think I got more out of doing homework than I did out of
sitting in class...

~~~
Retric
This right here is the core of a world of problems. _Data_ contradicts gut
feeling. _Data_ must be wrong.

~~~
Retric
PS: In response to a deleted post.

 _As a counter argument, doing homework can easily train people to do thing
wrong thing which takes a lot of effort to correct.

That does not preclude doing. In many cases mixing in 'homework' with class
work is probably a much better use of time. AKA ask everyone what 57+49 is
give them 30 seconds. Collect answers. Fix errors. Repeat._

~~~
tjr
I deleted the post because after 30 seconds I thought it was insufficiently
well thought out and written. :-)

 _In many cases mixing in 'homework' with class work is probably a much better
use of time. AKA ask everyone what 57+49 is give them 30 seconds. Collect
answers. Fix errors. Repeat._

Agreed. My school classroom experiences were mostly passive listening. The few
that mixed listening with reading with doing, right there in the classroom,
were marvelous. Little if any extra homework needed.

If that would be done? I think that'd be great. But if the proposal is just
passive lectures in class and that's it, I remain unconvinced.

------
FussyZeus
This sounds again like a problem of a system that is trying to educate a
thousand different kids with a thousand different lifestyles and a thousand
different home lives and a thousand different living situations all the same
way, because it still operates on the basis of the organization system of the
industrial revolution. Hell, we still organize our kids by their date of
manufacture.

Every time I read one of these it reads like "We're trying to make this 1940's
era system work but it just keeps sucking more and more" and yet every time
someone says we should just obliterate this thing and come up with something
better, they always get shouted down by the educational establishment.

unquietcode up there has a great thought, and I know I'm deep in it, but yes,
I got successful in howling opposition to, not because of the education
system. We sit our kids in tiny desks and have them do clerical work for 9
hours a day while high school dropouts drive Bugatti's and we wonder how our
kids intrinsically know that school is worthless.

------
Dowwie
"Let kids be kids" means something different for each household. In mine, that
meant video games and sports, but mostly the former.

Not sure what's going to come of any no-homework generation while this happens
elsewhere:

"Teens in Shanghai spend 14 hours a week on homework"
[http://qz.com/311360/students-in-these-countries-spend-
the-m...](http://qz.com/311360/students-in-these-countries-spend-the-most-
time-doing-homework/)

~~~
learc83
When I was in elementary school in the 90s, they used to try to scare us into
working harder by telling us stories about how Japanese kids went to school
half a day on Saturday.

When my parents were in school it was about keeping up with the Soviets.

These days, it's kids in Shanghai doing 14 hours a week of homework.

~~~
unsignedint
I remember half-day Saturdays!

It was more of a global thing in Japan. Many workers actually did half a day
on Saturday, so naturally were schools. Most of companies adopted 5 working
day per week perhaps around the end of 80th.

School was a bit late on this one, when I was in Japan (1st year in middle
school; 1992) was when they were start transitioning from 5.5 to 5. Although,
I have only experienced having only second Saturday of a month off.

After I left Japan, in 1995, they've transitioned to 2nd and 4th Saturdays
off, but It was not until 2002 schools in Japan transitioned to complete 5 day
a week schedule.

------
adrusi
I figured I'd share a relevant anecdote: throughout most of my school (at
least by seventh grade) I did virtually no homework. Not with the blessing of
my teacher, nor of my parents. But I knew that my parents wanted to shut their
eyes and pretend that my grades were improving for as long as they could until
the report card came home. I knew that most teachers could be convinced into
letting me make up some work at the end of the quarter to turn my Ds into Cs
if need be. And I knew that without doing the homework, I could still swing a
90% or greater in the remaining assignments.

I could sit down in class and be fully engaged an learn everything I need to
and more. While I avoided some higher-level classes because often they were
just the same as the regular classes with more homework, most of the classes I
took were of the advanced level. I wasn't just coasting.

I repeatedly tried throughout high school to change my habits, but for various
reasons, many personal, these attempts were doomed to fail.

I know I'm not the average case, but clearly homework is not at all necessary
for every kid to do well in school. Other commentors have given the opposite
anecdote, saying they did only homework and did well. I think maybe we should
accept that these grading policies should be tailored to the student. At the
risk of just rambling off my life story, I'm going to continue to show how
these homework problems affected me beyond high school.

Despite these problems, I was admitted to a good state university. I had a
3.0ish GPA because I brought it up with easy A classes like band, and because
I had several classes that where homework comprised only 5-10% of the grade. I
guess that. combined with my above-average extracurriculars got me in. I then
essentially flunked out after two semesters.

It's not that I didn't have the study habits. They were probably lacking a
little for the academic environment, but I definitely knew how learn
independently. I was just so completely used to ignoring my academic
responsibilities that I couldn't stop. When you've been saying "I don't need
to do this homework" for years, it's very easy to say "I don't need to study
this thing" even though you know very well that you have a lapse in
understanding.

I'm convinced that I would have done at least somewhat better in college if
only not doing homework in high school didn't feel like not doing something
that I had to do; if my parents and teachers hadn't treated not doing homework
as a bad thing. Obviously it _was_ in fact a bad thing, but it didn't have to
be.

~~~
protomyth
Did you happen to have a job during high school?

~~~
adrusi
No, I wanted to work, but my parents wouldn't allow it because they felt it
would make my academic performance even worse.

~~~
protomyth
I get the feeling it would have actually improved your academic performance.
It worked for quite a few people I know.

------
Htsthbjig
I was extremely lucky in my work life, I am successful as entrepreneur and I
believe it is because of the way I was raised as a kid in Spain.

When I went out of the school I was free to do whatever I wanted to do. I
never did homework but was good student, not brilliant, because I considered
the extra effort was not worth it, as the extra effort for better grades was
not linear but exponential.

I took school seriously when I was in the school but when I am out, I am out.
I rode my bike, I played soccer with my friends, I did swim in lakes or pools,
I climbed mountains, I camped in the forest.

All those experiences gave me probably as much as the school and trained me
for free environments.

I see the world as an environment I can change and I do routinely. Most people
can't and I believe it is because they were trained to be good in controlled
environments but just can't "think out of the box" because of their education
that was so controlled.

I have seen miserable kids with not a single moment of freedom in their day. A
girl of my class graduated with honors in the University, got tenure and
suicided. She was miserable if she did not made perfect exams, her parents
were like crazy "life is work and sacrifice" nazis.

They were not expected to choose their own paths, to make decisions, but were
expected to follow others to be good guys.

Most of the best entrepreneurs I know of had problems in the school. Most of
them wanted to do things on their own early on and the adult response was
repression.

------
orless
I'm really not sure if abandoning homework is a good idea. I went to school in
the Soviet Union/Russia, we had ca. 5 hours school a day and around 2-3 hours
of homework, 6 days a week. I surely can't provide solid scientific evidence
linking homework to results in learning, but I don't think it was
unreasanable.

I have to admit, I mostly remember math homework, I loved math and loved math
homework, it was always great fun to hack those problems and then problems
with * and __and __* (stars for the higher difficulty). We learned concepts in
the class, but we also needed to train mechanics with pure repetition. Some
commenters wrote about scaling - I think repetition is exactly something which
scales well in the homework, you don 't really need to do this in the class
with a teacher.

The same for foreign language, for instance. You don't really need a teacher a
classroom to memorize new words, that's perfect for the homework.

So I don't think homework is unreasonable, I think it's a valid approach to
"outsource" mechanical/repetitive tasks which don't require classroom or
supervision.

Having said that, 7 hours of school PLUS 2-3 hours of homework is definitely
too much.

------
danans
It seems like the only skill that homework really builds is tolerance for
being micromanaged, which I'm not sure is a good skill anyways.

I recall (with angst) the ridiculous way that homework was graded in school
(x% of credit taken away for every day the assignment was late). This sets
people up for a terrible relationship with work by making them focus on short-
term rewards/penalties instead of longer term goals, while disadvantaging
individuals who don't respond well to such a micromanaged model.

If we really want kids to develop well-rounded skills, we should make work
about longer term projects, whose goal is very well articulated and its
purpose is clear to students.

At the least, we should provide multiple paths for students to make the grade,
one based on homework for those who naturally do well with that environment,
and another based on long term projects for those who are naturally more
"bursty" in their learning process. You can still administer tests/quizzes for
both types of learners to gauge their progress.

------
drewg123
We opted out of a 9/10 greatschools.org public school by second grade due, in
part, to excessive homework in early elementary school (and also because of an
obsession with standardized tests).

My son had 15-20 minutes a night of homework in kindergarten and even more in
first grade. He was a "late" (by US standards) reader, which meant that he
could not be responsible for reading the instructions doing his homework
himself. These nightly homework sessions were pure misery for our family.
After 2 years, we felt that all they were achieving was to drum any love of
learning out of our son.

After 2 years in a Montessori-like school, he's reading well above grade
level, doing well at math, loving science, and has transferred to a new school
with a Spanish immersion program. I feel that if he'd stayed in public school,
he'd be well on the way to having "learning problems"

------
dcgoss
I am a sophomore in high school. In fact, I attend the same school as Zach
Masterman in the article (Harriton High School), and he is in one of my
classes. My one refute to his complaints is that perhaps he would have less
homework if he played less games in class. Quips aside, here are my two cents.

I certainly do not agree that all out of class work should be abolished.
However, I do think there is a threshold at which it becomes too much. As I
presume many of us on this website can relate to, there is lots to be gained
through personal study and developing good individual working habits. Many
students tend to complain about being forced to go to bed late, however I am
willing to bet that many of these students (myself included) sometimes push
their assignments back to later in the night and could go to bed earlier with
more efficient scheduling. This certainly does not always hold true, sometimes
there is just that much to do.

Being a three season athlete I have a little less time than others, however I
have found academic success. In general an HN appropriate modification of the
"time triangle"
([http://cdn1.theodysseyonline.com/files/2015/09/02/6357682979...](http://cdn1.theodysseyonline.com/files/2015/09/02/6357682979153755441561145936_tumblr_m071aegWRy1r5dp6f.png))
has held mostly true:

Pick 3 for the day: Sleep, Academics, Sports, Programming OR Social
Engagements

Also, a note about my school. It is in the notorious Lower Merion School
District, which is known for collecting lots of money in property taxes from
the local old money who send their kids to private school. Thus, they have
lots to spend per student (every student is given a new Macbook Air at the
beginning of freshman year to rent for 4 years. They receive the exact same
laptop every year, to incentivize keeping it in good shape. Only cost to
student is $80 insurance deposit per year. The program is extremely
successful.), every teacher is paid very well, great facilities, and they
perform very well as a school. There is also a competitive academic culture:
you are expected to do well at Harriton, and many do. Where homework plays in
that equation is unclear, but take it how you will.

My final point is that not everyone who isn't doing homework is sitting around
watching TV or playing on their phones. Some have found a passion in something
like programming, and actively pursue those passions in their free time
(working on side projects, or perhaps even trying to build a company). Our
district even provides a mini incubator with small amounts of seed money, free
mentorship, and summer office space.

~~~
jrapdx3
> Where homework plays in that equation is unclear, but take it how you will.

Sure, in the enriched environment you describe students are more likely to
have the motivation to make the effort to learn and succeed. I'd guess you and
your classmates are engaged with the educational process, ready, even eager to
learn. Doing homework would seem the natural thing to do.

By all means it's right to take advantage of such favorable circumstance. The
issue for schools and students not so blessed is creating this kind of
benefit. The goal won't be achieved by strengthening the factory approach to
education. Piling on bureaucracy, "performance" testing, etc. will not help,
rather just lead to more discouragement.

I think great examples, like the one you present, give a clue. Find talented
teachers (I've known a number of them, they do exist) and leave them
unencumbered, let them teach. They will reach some students, and it will begin
to inspire others. Perhaps they will assign homework, but then if we offer
help to parents and students so they can cope with it better, homework would
serve constructive purpose in augmenting learning.

Technology can add to the cause, but by itself is no answer. Used wisely it
may play a useful role in evolving solutions, that is, realizing it's a means
to an end.

------
iron0012
I am continually shocked by how willing people are to opine, completely sans
any data except for their own (worthless) anecdotes, when it takes less than 5
seconds to google “homework meta-analysis”.

Believe it or not, scientists have studied whether homework is worth doing
before. You know, using science. Here’s one example of such a meta-analysis:
[https://larrycuban.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/review-of-
edu...](https://larrycuban.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/review-of-educational-
research-2006-cooper-1-62.pdf)

Unsurprisingly (to me at least), homework is positively associated with
improved academic performance.

Was that really so hard? Was it really easier to bloviate, as nearly everyone
seems wont to do, than to actually pursue the evidence?

------
robotresearcher
The main benefit of homework is instilling the habit of working to a deadline
without direct supervision, instead of giving in to distractions.

~~~
TeMPOraL
So I guess maybe my schools were too easy on the homework - I managed to slip
through doing as little as I could, electing for self-driven learning instead
(known to me as "whoa, this thing is cool!" when I was a kid), and the end
result is that I absolutely can't do bullshit work on a deadline without
direct supervision. It makes me feel at the same time both smart and totally
unfit for the contemporary workplace.

~~~
robotresearcher
Me too, my friend. I've spent too much time here this week because I have
something important I'm putting off. Sigh.

------
compStudent
As a current high school student (at a private high school that is
consistently ranked as one of the top in the country, so AMA if you want),
homework sucks. That is true.

But the benefit to homework is that it teaches time management skills. Thanks
to having hours of homework every night, I have learned to manage my time very
well. For example, I spent the summer working in a University Lab. While there
I spent ~10 hours a day at work, yet this still felt like a vacation to me. So
yes, being busy sucks--but it ensures that students will learn how to manage
their time effectively.

------
protomyth
School starts at 8AM around here and ends at 3:30PM with a 30 minute lunch
break. 4 classes in the morning and 3 in the afternoon of 55 minutes each with
5 minutes between classes to get to the locker and to a different classroom.
Around 32 hours of instruction and work per week. That's close to a full time
job, and some people want the students to do 2-3 hours of homework a night?

If schools must, increase the school day by 30 minutes or an hour, but that's
enough. Other things are just as important as school.

------
betadreamer
The real argument is not about whether we need homework or not. It's more
about can you learn more than 7 hours or so a day? Kids are at school from 8-3
being taught by the teachers and then they have to spend an another 30min to
1hour at home. This is just too much.

Homeworks are important. It's the only time that they can think by themselves
and put what they learn in practice. But after being taught so long at school,
kids are tired to learn. They want to play!

~~~
carb
30min to 1 hour of homework is too much? If they have seven periods a day and
we assume they only average homework from each class once every few days, then
the kids only have 20 minutes of homework per class. That should be the
minimum for a homework assignment, not the maximum. Less time that than and no
knowledge reinforcement is happening because the homework is too easy.

------
SCHiM
I HATED homework. I can honestly say that it's one of the main reasons I
didn't have a fun time at school, since these things tend to snowball out of
control.

Don't do your homework -> get into trouble -> teachers thing you're * -> etc.

When universities started to doing the same (in my country) I just quit. Now I
work in tech, I love my job. And the best part is that I thought all the
skills I needed to myself without the huge (wasteful) drains on free time.

------
k__
I never did homework in school.

Got a lot of hate from the teachers, but it only lowered my grades one mark.

Finished school with C+ so with homework I'd probably got B+

When I got home I played video games and later surfed the Internet and chatted
all day.

This changed massively when I started my undergrad studies. I didn't have to
come to university, like I had to go to school, so I stayed at home. After I
failed all my Math classes in the first semester I started working at home
really hard in the second semester to get all the Math done. After the first
year I knew how to find out what was expected in the exams, something I was
missing in school. I stopped showing up at classes and just created a list of
stuff that was needed for the exams. I learned this at home a month or a week
before the exam and kept working/partying the rest of the semester.

For my post-grad studies I switched to a remote university entirely and saved
a bunch of time and money with this.

Since I had to work with remote teams on group projects in the post-grad
studies, I also decided that I wanted to work remote in my 'regular' job also.

Long story short, I hated homework as a kid, now I only do "homework".

~~~
cortesoft
The thing that sucked about homework wasn't the fact that it was doing 'work'
at 'home'... it was that it was often rote, boring, and time consuming work
that did little to stimulate the brain.

------
drumdance
This issue seems to go back and forth. Here's an argument in the Atlantic a
few years ago arguing for more homework (for kids who struggle in school).

[http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/poor-
st...](http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/poor-students-
need-homework/279566/)

------
gayprogrammer
I didn't see anything from the side of parents who want more homework. Why are
some parents asking for more? Are their children misbehaving? Are their
children not learning the material? I am guessing that homework doesn't
automatically make up for a school's or teachers' shortcomings.

~~~
clinta
I've seen parents argue for more homework so that homework would make up a
larger percentage of the students grade in an attempt to make up for the fact
that their child is a "Bad test taker".

It always bothered me because a grade should reflect the percentage of the
material you actually learned. Not be just an accounting of how many hours you
spent trying to learn it.

~~~
Goronmon
_It always bothered me because a grade should reflect the percentage of the
material you actually learned. Not be just an accounting of how many hours you
spent trying to learn it._

Well, the argument in those cases is that tests aren't always a reliable
indicator of the material being learned. Speaking from my experience, I was a
great test taker in high school, and they rarely indicated my actual knowledge
of the material. It's not hard for me to imagine plenty of students having the
opposite problem.

------
malcolmgreaves
I learned the most from _good_ homework assignments. These assignments were
always multi-week (1-2) affairs. They were big, complicated, and covered a lot
of things. But, since they weren't due within a day, they gave me the time to
really work at them. To rack my brain against their problems and discover, on
my own, how to solve them. Of course, I almost always needed to talk with my
TAs, professor, and fellow students multiple times throughout the assignment.
And this made me become pro-active about seeking help, which I use on a daily
basis in the real world.

Worksheets? Yes, I never learned a damn thing from these time wasters. I feel
that mini-projects are the way to go.

------
c3534l
> An elementary school in Gaithersburg, Md., has banned homework altogether in
> favor of 30 minutes of nightly reading.

Is this reading that's supposed to go on at home? I'm now confused as to how
the article is trying to define homework.

But yeah, when I was in school there'd be 8 hours at school, then 3 hours of
homework. And the homework was all busy work and the time spent in school was
mostly pointless as well. School probably killed my innate desire to learn
more than anything else in my life. It took me a while after I graduated enjoy
it again.

------
Ch_livecodingtv
I know a family in South Korea with children, who wakes up at 7 am for Grade
school until 1 PM. Go to English academy the next hour, then goes to several
other academies of Math, Science, Music. Comes home exhausted at 7-8 pm but
has to do online tutorials for English. Plus the homework after that. The
parents pity their child. But they said they don't have any choice. The
classmates are too competitive. If they stop doing that their child may look
stupid in school. This is pathetic. But how to stop?

------
Retric
The vast majority of homework has little direct value.

The real problem is many classes are poorly structured and need to crutch of
outside work to cover the material. Even in college I often found reading the
textbook was more useful and faster than attending class.

PS: I still remember many math classes where attendance took 5 minutes, then
30 seconds of (new idea! yay), followed by 40 minutes of mind numbing boredom.

~~~
sotojuan
I really hate how so many of my classes in college have mandatory assistance.
In a lot of my classes the professor just poorly summarized the textbook.

I think some courses could take inspiration from my English classes. In them,
we had to read (novel or literary criticism paper) by ourselves, but in class
we only asked questions, discussed the works and got help with our writing. I
don't know if this can be applied to Computer Science classes, but I liked it
a lot.

~~~
omnius19
Oh it can definitely be applied to computer science classes. At my college,
most computer science classes had optional lectures and were heavily project
based. Some of the slower or less experienced students went to lecture
(usually less than 1/3 of the class) but most students skipped it. Instead, we
would work on our projects and go to office hours for one on one assistance
with a ta or prof if we needed help. This was expected behavior and they made
tons of hours open to the students so it worked great.

------
samfisher83
If you want to get good at something you have to put in the work. I wonder
what would have happened if MJ didn't put in time into practice.

~~~
sf56
A lot of kids that show promise in something outside of school get a free pass
on homework. I wonder what would have happened if MJ was too buried under
homework to get in any practice time.

------
lazyant
I'm good with a bit of homework when the kids are not too little; there's
something to say for sitting down by yourself and trying to focus and figure
things out or memorize a little bit (it can be done at school too or instead
of at home); if students don't have a minimum of study habits, how are they
going to go about hard STEM courses in universities?

------
Macsenour
As a SCRUM teacher, I do 2 hours of talking, with Q&A, and then 3 hours of
practical where we put the LEGO version of the Daily Bugle together.

I learned LONG ago that my students learned so much more by DOING than by
lecture. As children, why would it be reversed with homework? If anything, I
should reduce the talking and add more Lego fun for kids.

------
Overtonwindow
I think homework is necessary for some subjects, like math and physics,
because practice is where the learning comes from IMHO. In other subjects,
homework is anachronistic. I think we should extend the school day like Japan,
and build homework and social networks into the school setting.

~~~
JshWright
You want to _extend_ an 8 hour day even further?

~~~
aianus
I don't know about the U.S. but in Toronto school ran from 8:45am to 3:15pm
which is 6.5 hours. My poor dad had to shift his schedule to work 7:15 to 3:15
to pick me up. It would have made a lot more sense to extend the school day by
1.5h to a standard 8h day and not assign homework.

~~~
JshWright
When I was in school (admittedly, 15 years ago...), I got on the bus at 7am
and got off at 3pm. This was in upstate New York.

------
learc83
If we're talking about high school, bring back study hall. Kids can't absorb
information from lectures 7 hours a day, so why try?

7 hours a day 5 days a week (most of the year) for 13 years is surely enough
time to prepare for college/trade school/apprenticeship/unskilled labor.

------
kzhahou
For everyone here saying "no homework": do you think that math homework is
also a waste of time?

------
seansmccullough
I always just did my homework at school in middle and high school. I graduated
high school in 2009, so I imagine kids get a lot more homework now?

------
csense
The problem with homework is the proportion of busywork assigned.

A typical math textbook consists of several columns of fifty nearly identical
problems, of which the teacher typically assigns thirty.

I don't need to solve thirty quadratic equations by factoring in order to
demonstrate that I know how to solve quadratic equations by factoring. The
first three or four will suffice.

And don't get me started on the astonishing number of assignments consisting
of crosswords, word searches, paint-by-numbers, and similar activities with
zero academic value.

------
ilovefood
After refusing them to get proper vaccination, let's prevent them from getting
proper education. Evolution baby!

~~~
JshWright
"Vaccinations are effective at preventing disease, with minimal side effects."

"Hours of homework (after 7 hours of school) is 'proper education'."

Are you really claiming that those two statements have a remotely similar body
of evidence supporting them?

~~~
ilovefood
They both tend to improve our ability to adapt in a hostile environment: real
life. Like I said, evolution.

~~~
JshWright
I don't dispute the fact that education and vaccination are both good things.
The flaw in your argument is that you are assuming that "education" and "hours
of homework" are equivalent.

~~~
ilovefood
Parents weeping about their kids' "hours of homework" is the educational part
here. I'm really shocked about the article and truly enjoying the comments.

~~~
JshWright
So just to be clear, you feel that 2-3 hours of homework is appropriate for a
kid, after they spent 7-8 hours in school?

------
a3voices
I learned the most from doing homework and studying for tests. In class I
mostly daydreamed and didn't pay attention to much.

~~~
sotojuan
This was me in high school, and even now in college. I couldn't get myself to
do work during class and read or daydreamed (one time I brought a pillow to
school). At home I did most of my learning and doing.

I don't know why I was this way, but I think I was just more comfortable in my
room and thus more likely to learn.

~~~
beeboop
I think it makes sense. In a lecture you're having to learn at the pace of the
lecturer. If it's too slow or too fast you lose interest. At home on your own
you go at your own pace.

------
zaccus
Seriously, parents are complaining about 10-20 min of homework a night? Kids
should be spending 1-2 hrs on homework every night, and if they run out of
homework they should be working on a personal project or reading. That doesn't
have to encroach on their fun time; I'm talking about 2 hrs max. Every night.
That's not asking a lot.

It's about learning how to manage your time and developing a productive
routine. Kids will be expected to do plenty of homework once they get to
college, I don't see the point in not assigning it before then.

~~~
munificent
Let's look at my first-grader's schedule. Kids need more sleep than adults, so
we aim for about 11 hours. (For teens, they recommend 10, last I checked.)
School is 7 hours. 1.5 hours for gymnastics, sports, or some other extra-
curricular activity. An hour of transit. Another hour for breakfast and dinner
(assuming all they do is sit down and eat, and don't help prepare anything or
do the dishes). An hour for a bath. About thirty minutes to get dressed, brush
teeth, pack bag, etc.

    
    
        11   - sleep
         7   - school
         1.5 - gymnastics
         1   - meals
         1   - transit
         1   - bath
         0.5 - get ready
    

We're at 23 hours, and there has been _zero_ unstructured time (outside of
playing in the bath). This is a first-grader. When she's older she'll be in
school longer, have more extra-curricular activities, and more socializing.

You're telling me two hours isn't asking a lot?

~~~
ericssmith
Since I appreciate seeing someone else's schedule, figured I would post ours.
I have 6 and 8yo. and we live quite close to school.

    
    
      10.5 - sleep
      0.75 - morning routine (teeth, dress, find lost things)
      7    - school 
      0.5  - transit
      2.75 - free time
      0.5  - dinner
      0.5  - evening routine (pjs,teeth, don't take bath every day)
      0.5  - workbooks & parent tutoring or school homework
      0.5  - independent reading of chapter books
      0.5  - stories read to them
    

By time they get to workbooks, they are quite tired. But they are used to
being tutored in small doses so they get through it. At this point, all
structured activities outside of school are on the weekend (e.g. girl scouts,
soccer). Also, ideally they would go to bed 1/2 hr earlier.

Because we personally tutor our kids, I'm sure we will resent an increased
homework burden as they get older, especially as we are able to tutor to a
relatively high level for most subjects. Unfortunately the school does not
coordinate with us on the learning objectives, so we more or less rely on
Common Core standards to know what's expected.

~~~
learc83
>Because we personally tutor our kids, I'm sure we will resent an increased
homework burden as they get older, especially as we are able to tutor to a
relatively high level for most subjects.

Yep, just wait a few more years and you're tutoring will consist more of
helping your kids figure out the instructions for ridiculous homework
assignments than actually teaching subject matter.

