May 21

Homework: The Battle over Busy Work

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Today’s guest post is by Amy Travis, who last wrote for my blog with A Recipe for Disaster

One evening a few weeks ago, I was witness to a father and son fighting over homework. It was a heated fight, happening on the bleachers while others were practicing basketball. At one point the father even stabbed at the son with the pencil they were fighting over. He was frustrated and so was his son. The funny thing is that just several months before this scene I had a discussion with my doctor about homework. She was intrigued that I homeschooled and said she could never home school because it would just be a fight since homework is. a. fight. every. single. night!

During the interview for the last teaching job I had, I was asked, “What do you think about homework?” I was so excited when I felt brave enough to answer this question with complete honesty. I said, “I don’t believe in homework and I wouldn’t give it if it were up to me, but I understand the system requires it.” The principal followed with, “Yes, we do require that the children have homework every single night.” Truth be told I wasn’t really honest with myself, because I took that job and gave that homework that I didn’t believe in.

Now why don’t I believe in that homework? The question should be why do so many believe in it?

I have heard it said that we are preparing them for college. Seriously? In Kindergarten? And what college are we preparing them for? Because if I remember correctly, college classes weren’t five days a week for 6 to 8 hours straight. I had 2 to 4 hours of classes a day which then gave me time to do my work outside of class on my own time. Do we realize that from Kindergarten thru Senior year we expect students to attend classes and do school work all day long and then several more hours of paperwork into the evening and night?? That isn’t a college schedule! Sorry, I’m not buying that argument.

Just like my doctor, many parents will tell you that homework is a family fight most – if not all – evenings. Is this really how families should be spending their evenings? What about reserving evenings for throwing a ball, playing board games, swimming, eating dinner together, cooking or riding bikes? How about we let children decide what it is they want to learn, do, or create during the afternoon to evening hours? I have to think that families would be better off with this type of lifestyle. Homework is like having a 40 hour/week job and then bringing extra work home. How many adults really want to do that? Yet children are expected to do it from the age of 5.

What happened to just being a kid?

I think families should be given back their family time. Homework is just busy work that parents have bought into thinking it is good for their children. Don’t buy it!

The discussions that that father and son could have while they wait for the sister to finish basketball practice could be priceless. Instead they are heated and strained, and so are the memories they are making.

Amy Travis is a former teacher, and an unschooling mom. When she isn’t writing blog posts for other people, she enjoys throwing parties, making cake balls, and ~~forcing~~ encouraging this introvert to get out and be social every once in awhile.

(photo by apdk)

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http://www.5dsandme.wordpress.com/ Amy

My kids are public schooled. I HATE homework. I HATE that they are in class all day and then given more work to do. I HATE that my son had to write out spelling words so many times and use them in a sentence, etc, etc, because he had already passed the pre-test. He already knew how to spell and USE the words.

Honestly, I go round and round about homework with the teachers. My daughter is in 1st grade and she is to have her folder signed every night that I have looked at it. IT. DOESN’T. HAPPEN. EVER. I told the teacher, yeah, I look at it, don’t worry about it. Don’t grade her down for something I didn’t do.

Every year, I am pushed more and more towards home schooling. Homework is one big reason.
- Amy Travis
  
  I believe parents should refuse like you have if it doesn’t fit into their family dynamics. Guessing it doesn’t fit into many family dynamics.
  - Joyce
    
    I have been nagged by the teachers and principal about how I am not being an “involved” parent if I don’t support their homework policy. I am so ready to be done. I explained it to my hubby like this: Trying to force my kids to do homework assignments is every bit as frustrating to me (and to them) as it would be if I tried to convince you that if you do NOT wash your car in jello every night you will not be a productive member of society. We both know the jello is not going to make the car clean, and it may damage the car’s paint in the long run, but we must do it because to not do it is being an irresponsible car owner. He agreed, and we will be homeschooling next year.
Hope

Yep! My kindergartner’s last day is Wednesday. She (or was it me?) has had homework every day this year as well as some special “projects” that needed heavy parent involvement.
I notified the school board today of my intent to homeschool. We are done fighting about homework!
- Amy Travis
  
  Good for you! Hope you enjoy it.
Serenarain

I’m still recovering from homework and found that I was really triggered when helping my son work on a second grade report. My husband and son were fine, and my son was really proud of the report, but it brought up all kinds of painful memories for me. We’re fortunate that our school understands how much the kids are expected to do, doesn’t assign homework to kindergardeners, and first and second graders just need to read a book of their choosing to their families at night. They’ve had 2 reports in second grade, which have actually been interesting – a family tree and a hero report. The teacher broke them into very achievable steps and spread the assignment out over several weeks so they were able to understand and complete each part of the assignment easily. Watching my son do this with great pride, I was so grateful that he’s having such a different experience than I had, but I don’t trust this will always be the case, and we’ve already talked about home-schooling in junior high and high school for this very reason.
- Amy Travis
  
  Good for that teacher.
  
  I know many stressed junior high and high school students. The reason is usually the workload. They are still kids.
Heather Caliri

Your point about how college homework is different than high school homework is so great–and I can’t believe I never realized it. Because truthfully, high school was much more stressful and unsatisfying than college. So much of my workload was busy work that I was uninterested in, and I had so little time to do it.
I went to a difficult school, and I took hard classes, and I felt such freedom to (mostly) study things I was interested in, and to have the time to do it.
- Amy Travis
  
  I don’t think there are many out there that have ever thought about how college is different from high school. They just hear that kids are being prepared for college, and because that is so important to so many they buy it.
  
  Glad you finally got to study what interested you.
http://lovingsimpleliving.com/ Lorilee

Yes! I love it I have been doing a curriculum that is very low busy work (and low writing for the younger ages if they don’t want to0) and I am working more and more to an unschooling schedule. The fighting isn’t about learning or not, not even usually about verbally quizing to make sure they understand it. …it is about filling out tons of worksheets making kids and parents feel behind.
Modern Mia Gardening

What an eye-opening post. I had an epiphany while reading it. I hated high school and under due to the homework. Hours of it every night plus a pt job. College, well, college was so much different. NO homework but I’d happily spend hours researching/designing for my classes. Your post also got me thinking about a fellow homeschool friend who issues homework each day to her children. It boggles my mind but they do it for each subject each day.
http://www.montessorimoments-dynamite.blogspot.com/ Megan

It’s funny – Montessori schools don’t do homework, and yet I have parents ask me every conference what they should be doing at home… and my students are all under 3. I tell them, let your kids clean with you. Let them help wash the dishes. Let them dress themselves. Give them the time they need to do what they want to do and don’t interrupt their concentration unless it’s an immediate safety concern. And don’t make them do it if they don’t want to, unless it’s important. Letters and numbers? They’ll get to it. They’ll hit a stage when they LOVE it, and don’t want to do anything else… but only if you don’t push them on it now. I totally agree about homework. Of course, I’d also like to see all public schools converted to Montessori, where the children work based on interest and don’t focus solely on academics… but’s that’s another debate. Although I’m curious – do you know about Montessori and if so what’s your take on it as an alternative to traditional schools for families who can’t/won’t unschool (since I know that’s your first choice)?
- Amy Travis
  
  I think Montessori is a great alternative. A couple other options that are similar to unschooling are Free schools and Democratic schools.
Psychluver

I loved school as a child, mostly because I LOVED to learn (still do) but as it got to higher grades, especially high school I hated it. I could clearly see what a waste of time so much of the “learning” was for me.

My mom did not agree with homework and never made us do it in elementary school, unless we chose to it just didn’t get done. She would just say that she didn’t expect me to go to school all day and then come home for more work.

Now I plan on unschooling out daughter and future children, and my mom is on board even though she doesn’t know the term unschooling.
moronuki

I had been homeschooling my son, but for first grade, he decided he wanted to go to school–and this has been my biggest frustration. It’s just first grade, so there isn’t a ton of homework, but the hours between when he comes home from school and when we have dinner and then start the bedtime preparations are so short. I don’t want to spend them nagging him about something he hates. One part of his homework is to read for 20 minutes independently, and he loves that part of it, so he does that daily, but I’ve stopped making him do the rest of it every night. He needs time to play with his little brother and talk with his parents and visit our little baby chicks. All the good stuff. I just came back from the school end-of-year awards ceremony, and he didn’t win the perfect attendance awards and things like that, but he was voted “class herpetologist” and “renaissance man” so we’re plenty proud of him. And we’re going back to homeschooling when this school year is done.
Sheila

When I was a first-grade teacher, I did give homework. First off, it was school policy (no idea why), and second, it was a chance for the parents to actually work with their kids. I honestly think they learned more in those 15 minutes a day with their parents than they did in six hours with me. There’s something about having someone work with you, one-on-one, which is the one thing you don’t get much of in the classroom no matter how bad your teacher wants to. I didn’t give rewards for doing homework or punishment for not doing it — I considered it the parent’s responsibility and left the kids out of it. So when sometimes parents would say “we went to grandma’s and didn’t do homework last night,” I just shrugged. Certainly not going to penalize the kid for going to his grandma’s!

When I taught junior high, I had a policy: if you spend 20 minutes on your homework and you’re not done, STOP, and tell me you ran out of time when you turn it in. That’s a sign for me I’m giving too much. Because each kid is taking six subjects — 20 minutes for each adds up to two hours! When I told the kids this, they all heaved a huge sigh of relief — “You’re the ONLY teacher who seems to understand that we have other classes besides yours!” But I remember spending hours on my math homework every night … sometimes the rest of the family would go to bed, leaving me up at ten or eleven at night, sobbing over long division. And that’s in fifth grade! I know the teacher didn’t intend for the homework to take hours, but I had trouble with it and that’s how long it took me. It wasn’t an option for me to stop because I’d spent long enough on it — like it is in the classroom, where you stop each subject after an hour or so.

Funny thing though — when I was homeschooled, my mom did assign me homework. She didn’t want my public-schooled brother to be jealous that I got free time in the afternoon and he didn’t.
- Xyz
  
  many of my childrens teachers say the same thing. If you are spending an hour on homework its too much time!!! They are allowed to stop and hand in what they did finish. Our middle school teachers “team teach” and it seems they have it worked out
  together so the kids arent getting homework for each subject everynight. My kids at most have an hour of homework(often not even that). They are done with school at 2pm and have til 9pm to do what they want. Gotta love my kids teachers
Jenna

Amen! I never did homework in high school, it drove the teachers nuts. I remember telling several of them ”If I’m getting As on your tests it means I know the material. You successfully taught it to me, congratulations, you did your job.”

Between my straight A tests and zeros on all the homework I pulled Bs across the board. I was (and still am) satisfied with that.

Oh, and all of this is part of the reason we homeschool.
Kelly Brumley

this comment has absolutely nothing to do with homework…but I will tell you that I have really enjoyed your blog….I will be honest when I first started reading it I thought you were a little out in left field, but honestly by the time I have gotten to page 11 I see the true wisdom in your words. I love the how peaceful you seem. I would love to give up the yelling and empty threats. Today was different and I tried my best to not yell, not spank, not give timeouts….and I had the best day with my kids that I have had in a long time. ((hugs))
- pathlesstaken
  
  Thanks so much for the kind words. And most people find me out in left field when they first come across me. I’m so happy to hear about your more peaceful day with your kids!
Joyce

I have been fighting this battle with my kids’ school for years now. I do not believe in homework at all. If my kid is screwing around in class and not working and therefore needs to finish something at home I am not opposed to it, but for the most part homework is busy work and I do not welcome it into my family time.
We are going to finish out this year where they are, but next year I will be homeschooling and we will find our own path.