Homework in grade school may not be that beneficial. Somehow, the minutes of homework for each grade level seem to be leveling up higher and higher. One has to wonder, “what do they do at school all day?” Even for math and science, students could do this work at school. I’ve volunteered at school, I see what they do. I also see the pages of homework assigned for the sake of homework.
I’m not sure when homework became required for all ages.
When I went to school we didn’t have “homework” until 7th grade. We had to write a few reports in elementary school, but we didn’t have homework every night. We didn’t carry backpacks stuffed with books, we didn’t have homework contracts that our parents had to sign so they knew what was required.
We left our books in our desks at school.
In the 1960s, I came home from elementary school, changed my clothes (because we had to wear dresses to school) and went out to “play” — I put on my “play clothes.” I ran around outside with my friends and played things like croquet??? I guess, since this is a photo of me with my friend, Pam Hale and my sister.
Later, when I got books and homework, I thought I was pretty grown-up. And I took it seriously and did my work.
My first two kids went through public school.
I was fully involved with all the parent responsibilities and I knew the rules for homework. Twenty minutes in kindergarten, adding 20 minutes more each year. My third child learned how to get his homework done quickly — he would do the math problems on the sheet that were spread out to make a cutsie little picture, and then he would hand it over to his younger brother who was not in school yet, and his 4 year-old brother would color it in (all the answers that added up to 4 color blue, etc, etc.)
When my fourth child started 5th grade, I became fed-up with some of the silly homework assignments. (Please write an essay on how you figured out that 7 x 6 = 42.) I pulled him out and homeschooled him along with his older brother who was in 7th grade.
It was my first year of homeschool. I found out that we could cover more work in less time. Instead of six hours of school and three to four hours of homework, my kids did it all in four to six hours.
Now this is what I’ve noticed. My last homeschooled child started college. He loved his classes. He loved his homework and even read the textbook for anthropology. He enjoyed his homework, having not been forced to do it for 13 years of grade school. My homeschooled kids did not have homework, and they have graduated from college, and one will be going to medical school. All without homework in grade school and high school.
I think kids get too much homework in traditional school and then they burn-out in the higher grades. Other parents are noticing the same thing and some elementary schools have dropped the homework, as reported in this article from Harvard School of Education. Now, I realize that you can’t tell the school teacher what to do. And I realize that not everyone can homeschool. But there are often other choices, such as charter schools.
I don’t know, it’s a dilema. My kids are raised, but now I have grandkids. The one in kindergarten right now has an hour of homework every night. And she can already read, but she still has to color the shapes, and not read ahead during class time. And take tests. She is stressed out. And her mom is stressed out.
This reminds me if my son, Daniel. One day, in the middle of math homework which was always a BIG chore on my part — begging, pleading, coaxing and then “yes” problem one is finished… on to problem 2… only 36 problems all together — he looked at me and said, “Homework is something teachers give to their students to torture them!” I didn’t laugh then, but I wanted to. I thought it was hysterical! Danny has always been able to make me laugh. When I told his teacher because I thought it was funny, she was very upset! *LOL* Oh, well… some people don’t have a sense of humor. Now it might seem that Danny was “slow” in math, but it was not that at all. He didn’t like it much. When he was at school, he said they would spend a full 1/2 hour on one concept… practicing over and over and over 2×2, 2×3, 2×4, 2×5 — oh and don’t forget the identity of 2×1. Then after the teacher spent a full 1/2 hour on five problems, they would sit a their desks for another 1/2 hour doing the same problems at their seat. Then for the next week, the students had 1/2 hour of the same 5 math problems. Danny said, “Why do I have to do this? I already know this!” He was right. When I did, at last, take him into homeschool, he hated math completely. So what I did was give him the chapter test at the beginning of the unit. Each concept in the chapter had 2 problems in the chapter test. Then I would grade the test. If he got both problems for a section correct, we completely skipped that section when doing the chapter. If he missed one or both of the problems, we would do the work for the appropriate sections. He settled down about math after that and saved me a lot of distress. He, too, did his work more rapidly in homeschool. For a while during his home schooling period, I was still working at his elementary school as the computer teacher, so he would get his assignments and go to “Nana’s” house to do the assignments while I was in school during the morning. When I arrived at my mom’s later, I would review the work he had done. My mom told me she had a rule that he had to finish all of his work before he could watch “Little House on the Prairie” with her. That was a major motivation for him, so I never got to Mom’s house before Danny got his work done. Then we would go down to Montrose to the pizza parlor where they had an all-you-can-eat luncheon bar and we would have pizza and salad and go over his work and I would introduce new concepts to him for the next day. After it was completed, Daniel would get a few quarters and play video games. All of a sudden, the kid who never wanted to do his school work was anxious to do it because he knew the things he liked would be his reward. We went on field trips some days, especially after I brought his sister into homeschool, also, the next year. We went to San Diego to the hands-on science museum, to the mission in Santa Barbara (Shannon was in 4th grade), Olvera Street, China Town, La Brea Tar Pits… it was a learning adventure for all of us! Of course, there was no “homework” other than the completion of assignments from the day’s teaching. I put the kids back in during Junior High because at that point we only had one junior high — Clark was closed down and only Rosemont remained open. Thus there was only ONE feeder school into CVHS then, so I felt it would be better socially for the kids to go back in junior high. I should have continued with homeschool, now that I look back on it. But I have to agree that most homework is nonsense. The only things that are really good assignments are those like the construction of a diorama. Those are FUN projects, at least for me. I like this blog entry, Deila!