I am a teacher - I have been for the past 16 years. I've been at the middle school level for 10 years and in a high school for 6 years. During that time I have tried what is new, given old strategies a new try and I have learned what works and does not work in my classroom along the way! I started my career as a high school chemistry teacher - long before "Breaking Bad" gave chem teachers some 'street cred'...and during all this time I was never a proponent of giving students homework just to give them work to do at home.
When I started teaching I wasn't very good - I'll be honest. I lectured 2-3 times a week and we did a lab on the block day. I would give HW nearly every night because that is what the teachers I had in high school did and that is what the teachers around me were doing. As time went on I started to think more about what I was doing and I started to become a better and more effective teacher. I had students working fairly hard in my classroom and I started to see that they didn't really need to do any HW as long as they were working in class. I also realized students in my classroom had more going on after school than I did 'back in the day'. They were on travel club teams, took music lessons, had to babysit their siblings or just about anything else you can think of - kids today are busy! Over time my philosophy about HW has changed. I was able to watch
Waiting for Superman and I made some changes in my classroom. I gave little to no HW, but I expected students to work hard in class.
Last week while reading my Twitter feed I came across a tweet from
@jcorippo - which was actually a retweet of
@TDOttowa who had 'scooped' a blog from @pernilleripp (just another example of the power of Twitter). If you don't understand the "@" or "retweet" or "scooped" that is all fine...that is just how I ended up reading this great blog "Why the Grade x 10 Minutes for Homework is a Fail".
While reading the blog I started thinking about my 6 year old daughter who is in 1st grade. She is a great kid and seems to love school and learning. When she was in preschool she would tell me the things she had learned that day and she was excited to share what she had heard in a book or from her teacher. In Kindergarten her teacher was able to keep her enthusiasm to learn at a high level and she learned to read - giving her the ability to learn more things on her own. Over the summer between Kinder and 1st she started saying things like "I'm going to have a lot of homework in 1st grade" and "I think 1st grade is going to be hard".
I knew that she was right and I said things like "you don't want everything to be easy, if it's always easy you aren't learning anything" and "that's ok, you are a hard worker and with hard work you'll be able to figure it out". She is now 11 weeks in to 1st grade and I asked her what she thought about 1st grade so far. Her answer surprised me.
She said she liked school and she was having fun...but she also said she didn't like going to school any more and she wished it was summer already. (From an 8th grader I would understand this...but not from a 1st grader) I asked why she wished school was over and she said something like "I used to like to go to school because it was fun, but now there is too much homework". Of course I tried to remind her that she was working hard and doing well and I told her that I thought she actually likes the HW. She quickly told me "I used to like HW, but it is always the same thing over and over". She followed that up by telling me "my HW is just doing what they did in class at home". She is only 6 years old and she understands that HW is just a repeat of what she has done in the classroom.
She goes to a great school (971 API for those of you who understand that) and I know that her teacher is awesome and doing all she can to prepare her for 2nd grade and the impending Common Core State Standards that are just around the corner. I have felt like she has a lot of HW so I sat down and took a look at what she was doing each week. Here is what I found...
My daughter receives a homework packet every Monday that is due the next Monday. It is fairly simple and I always think it won't take too long. The packet includes the following:
- Small amount of ELA for each day (3 mins per day)
- Book report - one page that does not have too much writing (20 mins per week)
- Oral report - reading something and then practicing (20 mins per week)
- CCSS Math workbook pages (5 mins per day)
- Spelling list - 10 words that are all super easy right now (2 mins per day)
- Optional math work in the packet (3 mins per day)
- Reading log (at least 10 mins per day - for 7 days)
I have seen many articles and blogs stating the typical amount of HW for students should be 10 mins per day per grade level - so 10 mins per day for a 1st grader (120 mins a day for a 12th grader). My daughter's HW adds up to 155 mins per week or 22 mins per day - double what I expected. I hadn't really thought about it too much...but when I add it up and see 155 min per week that seems like a lot. And realize this does not include soccer practice, AWANA (church group for K-3), soccer games on Saturdays, church on Sundays and any other family time! My wife and I have talked about getting her back in to swim lessons, maybe signing up for gymnastics and/or piano lessons - but I'm not sure the poor kid has any time left in her week (although we just decided she is going to play softball starting in January).
So what's my take away from all of this? Like I said, I know that she is in a great school and I truly believe that her teacher is awesome and is doing what she needs to do in order to prepare her for what is next in a 1st grader's life. So for this year I'll continue helping my daughter with her homework and encouraging her to do her best. I want her to love learning - and I'll try to keep that as our focus. Hopefully as she goes through the rest of her school years she will find a balance between learning and homework. Hopefully more teachers will realize how busy kids are and keep them working hard in the classroom so that their time at home can be a time for family and extra curricular activities rather than worksheets and busy work.
