Does Homework Really Help?

Warning: This is more of a rant, hopefully from a conscious parenting perspective. Sorry, Mom’s having a cranky day.

  

I just finished reading Artemis Fowl. Why? Because I have a book project to complete and it is due on Thursday.

  

Notice that I did not say my son has a book project due on Thursday.

  

True, his teacher did assign it to him and not to me, but who are we kidding?

  

My son is brilliant and creative and genuinely wants to do well in school; but asking a ten-year-old boy to read a three-hundred-page book, synthesize the 6-10 major plot points into one-sentence summaries, copy said plot points to little 3 inch by 3 inch papers, draw little 3 inch by 3 inch pictures to illustrate each plot point, and then create a giant graph, displaying these plot points and related illustrations in terms of chronological order and relative level of excitement is just too much.

  

And to what end?

  

When we are all done with this exercise, what will he have learned?

  

I hate homework.

  

I hated it when I was in school, as a student, and I hate it now, as a parent.

  

Why? Let’s do the math.

  

My sons spend six hours out of every twenty-four at school. According to WebMD, children between the ages of seven and twelve need ten to eleven hours of sleep each night for optimum growth and development. We’ll say 10.5, for our case study.

  

Now add on 45 minutes to get up and out the door in the morning; 30 minutes for dinner; and 30 minutes to settle down and get to sleep at night. Now add one hour and 45 minutes of school bus time each day.

  

Our school district’s “guideline” is ten minutes of homework for every grade year, so for my sixth-grader, that means one hour of homework each day. Maybe.

  

Unless your child’s teacher is a master planner – or your child is a budding rocket scientist – most days are double that guideline.

  

That leaves two hours for exercise, unstructured play, building family relationships and learning all the things not taught in school, such as religion, spirituality and value systems.

  

Assuming no time is wasted on TV, video games, cell phones or staring off into space.

  

This equation does not compute.

  

So what happens in reality? Compromise at every turn. Hopelessly inadequate multi-tasking.

  

Family dinners turn into a five minute dash through the kitchen. Conscious parenting priorities, like teaching values or promoting spiritual growth in our children, give way to battles over homework assignments.

 

No one gets enough sleep or play time.

  

And Mom gets way too involved in book projects.

  

Just step away from the superglue, ma’am.

  

Do I think the elimination of homework would fix all my problems? Not really. But it would sure make me feel better.

  

What bothers me the most, I think, is the inefficiency of it all. We ask our teachers to herd twenty (or more) children through a day of education then send the kids home with another hour (or more) of work to catch up on everything they missed during the day.

  

If our society was really serious about education (in my humble opinion), we would hire twice as many teachers and educate our children more successfully, in half the time.

   

We wouldn’t need homework because our children would learn what was necessary in school.

      

With no homework, we wouldn’t need “creative” book projects.

  

And in all our spare time, we could get back to the job of parenting our children.

  

  

Recommended Reading: 

  

For a much more comprehensive (and probably more helpful!) analysis of the homework situation, check out The Case Against Homework: How Homework is Hurting Children and What Parents Can Do About It, by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish.

  

Related Posts:

   

I’ve written about the challenge of educating our children while growing healthy families in, “Will you still love me if I fail this test?” and Teaching Our Sons to Love Reading.

Comments

[Debbie Owensby Moore]

I totally agree about homework. As I understand it, private montessori schools don't give homework exactly for this reason. At least my daughter's school didn't when we were enrolled. However, things have changed now that we are in a public school. I have appreciated,though my daughter's language arts teachers during the last three years (3rd-5th) grade. They all stated that book reports would be done in class because they were not interested in seeing the parents work. Thank God!

[Family Homework Answers]

Please don't apologize for "ranting." You are only articulating what millions of parents think and feel every night. I appreciate your honesty in admitting that YOU read Artemis Fowl, and YOU are going to do the book report. Teachers send home these assignments and massive projects, but nobody wants to talk about the fact that parents end up doing them. I'd like to see parents Just Say No to all of it: silly homework, busy work, doing their kids' book reports, math sheets, etc.