This thread has completely derailed from the topic of homework. Perhaps someone should start a thread similar to the kids’ “Freak Out” thread for parents worried about things over which they no longer have any control. By the time your kid is in BS, the college path and decisions are in the hands of your student and the school s/he attends. You just get to watch and wait for the happy outcome. 
(We need to revive the gin and tonic thread. Where is @PhotographerMom when you need her?)
The parents do it to themselves- so much of the casual conversations this weekend with parents turned to college within minutes. If we can’t help ourselves, just imagine what is like for the students. If they aren’t going through the applications right now, they still know people who are. Good luck getting them not to think about it. Their frontal lobes aren’t developed enough to have the perspective adults do. But clearly a lot of parents don’t have fully functional frontal lobes, either.
Yes, it will all be ok in the long run, and it is important to emphasize that. But the messaging coming from all directions, especially peers, can be overwhelming in the moment. No matter how good the parental or school messaging is.
I think many parents are deep into “college name matters.” When I went to college, it did feel like the name mattered. My husband has a job because the name mattered & alumni networking.
That seems to have lessened to a large degree. Maybe because with college admissions becoming more and more competitive it is more and more obvious that Harvard and Yale aren’t the only colleges with smart graduates and they certainly produce some dummies.
But it is true that many of the parents of high school aged kids grew up before “college name doesn’t matter, chill out” was a thing. They have to learn this and my guess is that very few parents make their way to CC to get that message.
We need to emphasize that there are a ton of college names that carry a lot of weight, not just a handful, but more importantly, it’s the quality education that can be had at those many colleges that is the ultimate prize. Again, it is our responsibility to send those right messages. Our kids really do listen to us and watch what we model.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Please return to the original topic of homework. You may start a new thread on a different subject if you’d like.
Bringing it back to the homework topic, I actually learned a lot more about issues with homework during parents weekend from the day student parents who are much more in tune with how much the kids get and the issues with submission (every teacher uses different platform to submit, does not always work properly etc, they get major points off if late etc). My boarder kid says very little so would not have known otherwise. The kids are supposed to be able to advocate with their teachers and ask for extensions etc. when needed but they rarely do, and before midterms there was way more work assigned than they advertise for daily homework, and no extensions given. That issue was raised to the dean by the day student parents who see the daily load. We shall see if anything changes, but we were promised it would be looked at. We for one were told our kid often looks tired in class and should get more sleep. Not sure how exactly are we to accomplished that from 100 miles away.
“Better college outcome”… that sort of thinking is part of the problem.
Sorry this thread died down after getting off topic, which is revealing unto itself. I find many of the comments somewhat fatalistic, but there is certainly no pedagogical reason I can think of justifying sweatshop level homework levels. Which schools have the best mix of social-emotional well being and intellectual challenge (not the same as workload) for their students? I, for one, would like to know, with actual school names. As a corollary, which acronym schools are the biggest sweatshops? I know PEA has that reputation, and much of the topic was seemingly about Groton, but there seems to be much skirting around the issue — to the extent that schools are not even being explicitly named. In other words, I as a parent would certainly be interested in my son attending a respectable but non-elite boarding school where he can stop and think about what he is reading, say, at his own pace — without that meaning 15 minutes less sleep that night.
Millbrook has that more relaxed culture.
It depends who you talk to, though. One kid in my son’s grade (not Millbrook, an “acronym” school) at was up till 4 am doing homework in 10th grade. My son was asleep by 11. It seriously mostly comes down to time management, and some kids struggle with that.
George School cares about balance. Kids who choose more rigor will probably put in more hours, but the ethos is not about grinding. When my son was there, the first question on the course planning sheet was “Am I getting enough sleep?” And there are things built into the schedule, including Quaker meeting, to ensure that everyone has time to reflect.
"Stopping and thinking " is at the core of their philosophy (i.e., mindfulness).
^That sounds cool. That would have helped me in high school. In hindsight, I wish I had relaxed more. I was literally aiming to get 100 in every class and win every piano contest. Not sure why I was so driven, but I could have used some mindfulness.
@MaineLonghorn , you are my doppelganger!
I don’t think the workload is always driven by college concerns. Some schools, particularly boarding schools, may have found that large amounts of unstructured time lead to increases in high risk activities for teens. Our private school cut way back on homework in response to parent demands. The amount of partying soared.
Such a good point, @roycroftmom ! One of the reasons many BS have Saturday classes is to take Friday night out of play.
But ime, schools can also create a lot of time obligations without it being homework. Iow, keep the students busy with activities that are interesting and "wholesome ".
And there is a difference between homework that enhances learning and is thought-provoking vs pure busy work. One of the LPS near us has a reputation for tons of homework but all of it has an “answer”, vs essays, etc. I’m convinced that the teachers do that so they don’t have to answer to parents about grading, but the real outcome is that the kids who are willing to work into the wee hours, vs the ones who have mastery of the material or interesting ideas, will get the best grades and highest class rank. It can be really unhealthy!
I’d also say that it isn’t necessarily driven by the schools either. These schools tend to have a large percentage of Type As who approach work like @MaineLonghorn and @gardenstategal. A lot of the expectations are self-driven or family driven.
@doschicos I agree that some of this is family driven, but I guess I don’t see that as the point. Either schools are giving too much homework, for their students as a whole, or they are not. All classes will have students with a range of executive function skills and internalized pressures. The question, as I see it, is can the 25th percentile of the class in those skills (disproportionately, this will be boys, especially in the 9th grade) succeed doing 3 hours of homework a night — or not?
@roycroftmom I think we are giving schools too much credit: they have obviously dropped the ball on this. Kids will be plenty busy and structured with three hours’ homework a night, or even two, and I have no issue with Saturday classes (probably good for kids with executive function issues).
@gardenstatelegal I totally agree there is a huge discrepancy between homework that enhances learning and busywork. What I think is going on here is that busywork-homework is being used by teachers as de facto grade differentiation; certainly it is not enhancing actual learning. I think it also encourages a kind of superficial knowledge on the part of students that is the opposite of the kind of intellectual exploration these schools should be known for.
I also have to ask: what are the values we want to instill here? That 80-hour a week workloads are a good thing? And, get used to it, because that’s what you will be doing/should be doing when you hit the real world? Is the boarding school workload now more than 50 years ago? Without knowing, I expect it was. Because us Americans worked fewer hours then as well…
Thanks very much for school suggestions. Are there slightly more sane acronym or near acronym schools? I think I have heard mention of Concord — whether that is true or not —. but that’s all I have right now. Mercersburg seems to have a better balance too, though I don’t know for sure.
“What I think is going on here is that busywork-homework is being used by teachers as de facto grade differentiation; certainly it is not enhancing actual learning. I think it also encourages a kind of superficial knowledge on the part of students that is the opposite of the kind of intellectual exploration these schools should be known for.”
That doesn’t ring true to me. IMO, at least at my kids’ school, not a lot of busywork. Public school, yes. One of the reasons we chose private school.
“Is the boarding school workload now more than 50 years ago? Without knowing, I expect it was. Because us Americans worked fewer hours then as well…”
As a BS kid myself, I don’t think the workload was that different. I do think students have more distractions vying for their time, though.
Yrs, my comment about busywork was about the LPS. I didn’t get the sense that my kid felt his homework at BS was a waste of time. And @Pincite , if you missed it, George School is not a “crush” school either.
@Pincite, take a look at The Masters School, too, if you are truly open to non “elite” (but well regarded and respected) schools.
I have mixed feelings. One of mine went to school in the homework heavy years. It was crushing, but I do admit it prepared her unbelievably well for college where she soared from the moment she arrived and thus landed fabulous internships and jobs. Another was in high school when it shifted to homework lite, and I do worry that led to less preparedness, fewer time management skills, and frankly less grit overall. It is a hard balance.