Homework is a major stress in my family’s life. It is intrusive as well as counter productive. There is no research to back up the claim that homework is good for children, makes smarter students, or makes kids more ready for college, and the challenges of the world. In fact, homework stresses children out. I am a mom to four children and I can tell you first hand it creates a lot turmoil in my children's lives. My oldest daughter, who is now in high school, was up late into the night for most of 8th grade doing hours of homework. One night she was rocking on the floor pulling her hair and crying! It just so happens 8th grade is a big year for students taking standardized tests. We approached the middle school principal and got basically nowhere. His attitude was that stress is a part of student life. So we signed our daughter up for homework club at his suggestion. And my daughter refused to go. Instead, she sucked it up and did the homework. She complained less, afraid that we would send her to homework club if she mentioned a word about homework.
To keep up with all her work she told me she wanted to drink energy shots. Energy shots are those little bottles of caffeine and who knows what, that are sold in convenience stores. I was not too happy by her request and took it as an opportunity to explain to her how bad those energy shots and Monster drinks are for her growing body. She explained to me that some of her friends drink them to keep up with school work. That is a problem. Are we pushing our children over the edge, to the point of using “drugs” (caffeine is an addictive drug)?
My daughter wanted to use a concoction of caffeine and high doses of sugar and chemicals, that are harmful to her body, in the race for good grades. At the end of the day, when we take a step back and look at life, grades are a blip in the whole of the experience, of what learning is all about. I am thankful that she can’t easily buy energy drinks, we live too far away for any convenience stores, but quite honestly, those energy drinks shouldn’t be be sold to minors in the first place! And homework and good grades should not encourage kids to use “drugs”, (Caffeine is an addictive drug, especially when formulated in high doses and used for the effect of caffeine.)
On many a weekend my daughter was up in her room doing hours of homework. She was cranky, tired, and did school work almost around the clock. Fortunately her freshman year of high school has been much easier so far. Not surprising though, since the next big test year is not until the 10th grade. I am sure her homework will increase then. Did I mention we live in a district with two schools that are proud Blue Ribbon schools? Incase you’re not aware of what a National Blue Ribbon School Program is:
“The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognizes public and private elementary, middle, and high schools based on their overall academic excellence or their progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups. Every year the U. S. Department of Education seeks out and celebrates great American schools, schools demonstrating that all students can achieve to high levels. More than 7,500 of schools across the country have been presented with this coveted award.” http://www2.ed.gov/programs/nclbbrs/index.html
Originally The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program was designed to close the achievement gap in schools where at least 40% of the student population was at a disadvantage. In 2003 as part of, No Child Left Behind, The National Blue Ribbon School Program changed, “In 2003, the program was restructured to bring it in line with the No Child Left Behind Law, placing a stronger emphasis on state assessment data and requiring schools to demonstrate high academic success.” School were able to nominate themselves in the beginning. Now schools earn the titled based on these criteria, “Nominated schools submit applications describing school operations such as the use of assessments and assessment data, curricula, professional development, leadership, and community and family involvement. A total of 417 schools may be nominated in any year; state quotas are determined by numbers of students and schools. The Blue Ribbon award is considered the highest honor an American school can achieve.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Blue_Ribbon_Schools_Program
So what does this mean for the student? On paper it means better schools, but in reality it means more work, more stress, and greater emphasis on testing data, which brings us to why I am writing this, homework and stress. What does homework have to do with testing and stress? Everything! Ask any parent and they will tell you homework is lots of textbooks, workbooks, worksheets, computer work, and lots of busy rote memorization. Standardized testing relies a lot on this type of learning. My daughter’s backpack weighs over 10lbs! One night my stepdaughter was doing math homework on the computer for three hours. She had to answer 10 math questions, if she got even one wrong, she had to answer 10 new questions. It was unbelievable. I am sorry my children have to spend countless hours doing this kind of work.
Have you tried to read a textbook since you were in school? I love history, but the American Revolution is as boring as my daughter claims it is when you read about it from a textbook, which by the way is manufactured by a small group of companies, http://www.wired.com/2012/01/why-education-publishing-is-big-business/. The largest textbook publisher is Pearson, Pearson is also the producer of the controversial Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium aka SBAC. Pearson collects private data from school districts throughout the USA. Actually, the amount of private data collected about our children in schools these days is alarming! Last spring, Pearson was caught spying on students in NJ, “The spying–or “monitoring,” to use Pearson’s word–was confirmed at one school district–the Watching Hills Regional High School district in Warren by its superintendent, Elizabeth Jewett.”http://www.bobbraunsledger.com/breaking-pearson-nj-spying-on-social-media-of-students-taking-parcc-tests/.
Some may argue that to keep the test “secure”, spying on children is okay if it stops cheating. Cheating is never good, but Pearson really doesn't care about cheating, they care about protecting their private intellectual property. “Currently, Pearson has partnered with 18 states in the U.S., as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, to produce pricey testing materials. For a five-year contract, Pearson was paid $32 million to produce standardized tests for New York. Its contract in Texas was worth $500 million. Pearson also owns Connections Academy, a company that runs for-profit, virtual charter schools. It also owns the GED program, although competitors have been creating alternatives in order to combat Pearson’s expensive tests. By and large, the massive corporation has far-reaching control over the education industry.” http://www.alternet.org/education/corporations-profit-standardized-tests
The question that begs to be asked, why are we relying on giant corporations to produce the textbooks and the tests that our children learn from? Pearson is basically designing American public school curriculum. The greatest irony I find with Pearson is that Pearson is an English company, creating textbooks, and spying on our children. I know the American Revolution was a long time ago and England and the USA are allies, but why is an English company producing American textbooks? Why aren't local school districts producing local textbooks? Some may argue that we need oversight. Why can’t we have a basic outline, and each state determines a core of what children should learn i.e. history, science, math, and reading? How each district achieves those goals should be based on their own assessments and not a giant corporation making billions in profits, while homogenizing our country. Diversity is a good thing and makes a stronger country. Unfortunately, It’s all about money, not education. Local school districts are beholden to the Federal Government’s money. The Federal government is beholden to the policymakers, and the policymakers are beholden to the people who fund their campaigns. It’s quite the vicious circle. Local schools get money from the Feds by complying with federal mandates like No Child Left Behind, and Race To The Top, which gave us Common Core and the SBAC and all this awful homework. Honestly, I don’t care about Blue Ribbon Schools and test scores, I care about diversity in education, I care about deep learning, not something a textbook teaches, and most of all I care about my children's health.
My younger children who are twins, have it just as hard as their older sisters. 5th grade is preparing them for loads, and loads of intense schoolwork in middle school. Again, I met with my 5th grader’s principal, she was nice, and suggested I time my children. When they reach the national education homework standard of 10 minutes per grade, per night, they could be done. Not as simple as it seems when a teacher doesn't cooperate with that rule, and it's still a lot for a kid to do! To help my children keep up with the demands of homework we signed them up for homework club. I was reluctant, 7 hours all day in school is long enough, but, we are giving it a try. So far, I got a pink slip home because my daughter didn’t finish her homework even after spending an hour after school! So I wrote the teacher and told him it was too much, again, I got nowhere other than, I totally disagree with the amount of work he assigns. At least he knows my position and we haven’t gotten a pink slip lately, so maybe my complaining is having an impact?
Life in our home since the school year began has been met with a lot of belly aching about homework, tests, and stress. It’s really not very fun and not a good way to instill a love of learning that’s for sure. The worst part is when my younger fifth grade twins wakeup in the middle of the night crying about school, a test, not finishing homework, or not studying enough. Both my 5th graders have done this. My daughter couldn’t sleep one night and when I asked what was wrong she was crying about a test, that she was afraid and couldn’t sleep, because she was afraid that she would fail. My son woke up screaming in the night because of school related stress. He’s not himself somedays, and that makes me sad. I picked him up from school early twice already this year due to stomach issues, basically stress. When I brought him home he was fine. He cries about school. He has a really hard time with sitting in a chair, at a desk, for the majority of his day. If he doesn’t compete his homework he could be subjected to this: “He/she may be asked to stay in during recess to complete the work.” http://www.portlandctschools.org/brownstone-handbook.html. Children only get gym a few times a week and 25 minutes of recess daily. Studies have shown that children do better when they have more time to move their bodies. Hours and hours of sitting and doing school work is unhealthy. My pediatrician told me that my oldest daughter has small bruises on her spine from sitting in a chair at school all day. It’s too much sitting! We're making progress though, recently Connecticut adopted a law making it illegal to deny a child recess,
“public act 13-173 b) Not later than October 1, 2013, each local and regional board of education shall adopt a policy, as the board deems appropriate, concerning the issue regarding any school employee being involved in preventing a student from participating in the entire time devoted to physical exercise in the regular school day, pursuant to subsection (a) of this section, as a form of discipline. For purposes of this section, "school employee" means (1) a teacher, substitute teacher, school administrator, school superintendent, guidance counselor, psychologist, social worker, nurse, physician, school paraprofessional or coach employed by a local or regional board of education or working in a public elementary, middle or high school; or (2) any other individual who, in the performance of his or her duties, has regular contact with students and who provides services to or on behalf of students enrolled in a public elementary, middle or high school, pursuant to a contract with the local or regional board of education.” https://www.cga.ct.gov/2013/act/pa/pdf/2013PA-00173-R00HB-06525-PA.pdf
Seems someone is not doing their homework at our school and is in violation of CT law.
Having time with your family, pursuing other activities outside of school, time to read what you want, to stare at the sky if that’s what you want to do, does not interfere with learning, it enhances it. Deep learning, the kind that stays with you for life is not about rote memorization. When a child learns to read, it’s like riding a bike, you don’t forget how to read. By the way, all children learn to read at different paces, but that’s a whole other article that I need to write! Here is a list of some articles and websites that I have found on my journey to leave school at school and restore personal time for my children and family.
“If we step back from the heated debates about homework and look at how homework is used around the world, we find the highest homework loads are associated with countries that have lower incomes and higher social inequality.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/09/02/homework-could-have-an-effect-on-kids-health-should-schools-ban-it/
“What parents and teachers need is support from administrators who are
willing to challenge the conventional wisdom. They need principals who
question the slogans that pass for arguments: that homework creates a link between school and family (as if there weren’t more constructive ways to make that connection!), or that it “reinforces” what students were taught in class (a word that denotes the repetition of rote behaviors, not the development of understanding), or that it teaches children self-discipline and responsibility (a claim for which absolutely no evidence exists).
Above all, principals need to help their faculties see that the most important criterion for judging decisions about homework (or other policies, for that matter) is the impact they’re likely to have on students’ attitudes about what they’re doing. “Most of what homework is doing is driving kids away from learning,” says education professor Harvey Daniels. Let’s face it: Most children dread homework, or at best see it as something to be gotten through. Thus, even if it did provide other benefits, they would have to be weighed against its likely effect on kids’ love of learning.” http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/rethinking-homework/
“The 2013 American Psychological Association survey, for example, found that 45 percent of U.S. schoolchildren were stressed-out by school - and homework was the leading cause.”
“We tend to think of homework as a necessary part of learning, a practice that teaches children discipline and keeps them from idleness. Yet a growing body of research reveals an astonishing truth: homework has little to no benefit in enhancing learning or performance in elementary and middle school, and only minor benefits, usually in math, in high school. This conclusion comes courtesy of a review of all major homework studies recently highlighted the Washington Post, including an update to a 2001 review conducted by the leading U.S. researcher on homework, Harris Cooper of Duke University.” http://www.alternet.org/education/why-more-and-more-parents-are-opting-their-kids-out-homework
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