<p>This thread is reminding me of the dreaded fifth grade tree project my daughter’s school used to have The kids were required to select a tree and study the tree over the course of the entire school year. They had to photograph it once a week and write a paragraph about it once a month. (this was before digital cameras!) In the spring, when it bloomed, they had to pick a branch and measure the buds on it each day for a week. Then compile it all in June into a book.</p>
<p>As you can imagine this project was hell - if you missed a day or a week you were doomed! Plus I can’t tell you how long it took my daughter to print, paste, and label the pictures and text from a full year.</p>
<p>My daughter’s grade had a lot of very active and outspoken moms who talked the new school principal into getting rid of the project - her grade was the last one to do it.</p>
<p>Miami–I said BUSY work. Not work. And college work is done or not done on the student’s schedule.<br>
Kiddie–Did you put your voice in with the other moms to get rid of that project?</p>
<p>Parents who do this are just depriving their children of an opportunity to a) learn, b) get more organized, or c) be assertive with the teacher. If necessary, I would meet with the teacher or principal, or lead a revolt along with other parents before doing my child’s homework. Kiddie, your daughter’s project is a perfect example of parental intervention being necessary!</p>
<p>My son’s school is known for being highly rigorous, which includes a boatload of homework. Fortunately, the teachers understand this, and are a model of what a school SHOULD be, IMO.</p>
<p>In the lower grades (middle school) they said the parent was welcome to write “too much homework” on the top of the page, and the teacher would give an extension or let the assignment go. In high school, students learn to advocate for themselves and approach the teacher if they are swamped. The teachers work out a plan with the students. If enough students approach the teachers, the teachers have been known to cut back on assignments. </p>
<p>So the students are given high standards but also learn that advocating for themselves is effective. I love my son’s school. :)</p>
<p>Yep, many are on a completely wrong track, doing thier kdis a great disservice! All these efforts could have been chanelled into right direction with great results. Oh, well, we are in free country, these are free choices of free individuals. All choices have consequences though…and control of them may not be in your hands any more. Best wishes with whatever you choose to do!</p>
<p>My offspring’s high school has a community service requirement. Tutoring counts towards it. The students have to be pre-approved by the teachers to tutor a given subject. The teachers are required to supervise the tutors a bit. This tutoring is free and is usually offered just before or after school or during the tutors’ “free periods,” i.e., when they would normally be in a study hall. Other kids can get out of study hall to go see the tutor. The schedule is published in advanced and kids have to sign up. </p>
<p>This is a recent thing. It was begun to do an end run around the fact that some parents were hiring private tutors others can’t afford. While the adult tutors may be more experienced teachers, from what I’ve heard, the kids are darn good and the teachers work with them, but not with the private tutors. Plus, the better teachers ask the tutors to let them know if they are getting questions about the same topic from lots of kids. That way, they can go back over that topic in class. In extreme cases, if a tutor tells a teacher a kid just can’t seem to grasp a topic, then the teacher will meet individually with him/her. </p>
<p>Maybe your school district would be willing to do something like this?</p>
<p>Our high school honor societies now require tutoring hours as a prerequisite for membership. This is a new thing, which D will check into if necessary.</p>
<p>An assignment D received last night highlighted another issue: the teachers do not seem to teach kids how to approach a complicated project. They think the kids should just know (which maybe some do), or should have had practice already in middle school tackling a complex assignment (which is almost never the case). After I helped D determine what steps would be required to do it well, she was fine and could take it from there. </p>
<p>I do want to be available to help my D, but it has been stressful and tiring for me as an older mom and I think there’s something wrong with the way our schools are functioning. Btw, for those who don’t know me, our family is hard-working and academically focused–older kids went to elite schools etc.–so this isn’t laziness talking.</p>
<p>“Memorization, not Rationalization” - His daughter</p>
<p>It was alarming that despite all the homework they were doing they weren’t actually learning anything. Despite three hour assignments on the state capitals etc she didn’t even know them, and despite knowing all the conjugations of those Spanish words she didn’t know what the words actually meant.</p>
<p>Even worse he was accused of “cyberbulling” for bringing up the workload in an E-mail chain.</p>
<p>^ That story really made me feel better, because in middle school when I e-mailed D’s science teacher about issues with the class, she complained to the principal that she felt threatened. I was polite and professional, but I laid out the issues with all my facts in order. I suppose that was too intimidating, since their normal defense is to imply you don’t know the whole story. The principal asked me to take it easier on her, to which I replied that I would be nicer if she would do her job more competently.</p>
<p>So, this is my third child to enter the high school, and therefore I attended my third freshman “back to school night” this week. I am so sick of hearing from the high school teachers how different their classes are from the middle school classes, how the kids have never done this more analytical/rigorous/you-name-it kind of work before, how they are not prepared for it and so it will be stressful for them, etc. Why is there not more coordination with the middle school so that the gap is not as huge? I already addressed that issue with the middle school principal after my second freshman back-to-school night of hearing how the kids are unprepared coming out of 8th grade. Nothing has changed.</p>
<p>I think there is a lot one could do with your typical school day that would allow a determined student to get some of the homework done during school hours. I agree with the sentiment that there is a lot of unnecessary fluff in the curriculum, but I think it extends to the actual classes students are required to take.</p>
<p>When you look at how many middle school/high school students are involved in community sports and school related athletic programs, is it really necessary to add a gym class every day of the week? In middle school, how about the required recess time? Some children need to run off excess energy, some really do not. There should be an option to stay inside and start homework if the child wants to do so. The “electives” should be optional as well in my opinion. Art and music exposure is a wonderful thing in the very early years, but by the time a child hits middle school they either love it or they don’t. A “resource” period should be something children can choose from to fill the “elective” space. My D loved the whole art/music thing, my son not so much. He chose choir to fill the elective solely because we all felt it would entail the least homework, and he had a crazy athletic schedule after school. He was miserable in choir and it was a total waste of 5 hours a week for him. There just appears to be no flexibility in either the private or public systems.</p>
<p>Of course these adjustments do not address the issue of too much homework being assigned, but they do give students the additional time that is obviously now required to meet expectations.</p>
<p>I haven’t really followed this thread, but what poetgrl just wrote made me laugh. </p>
<p>Several years ago, my older ds was taking BC Cal from a curmudgeonly legend at the school. Short on warmth but got excellent results. About the sixth week of school, he sends me an e-mail saying ds had gotten a 66 on the last test and that “the wheels have fallen off the bus.” So we talked to my ds and decided to meet with the teacher. When ds told him that, he said I was being a “helicopter mom.” lol I couldn’t win.</p>
<p>At back-to-school night the math teacher said she does not check homework. So one parent said, “So then it would be good to sit down with my son every night and go over the work with him?” The teacher looked appalled, and said “Well I would hope that wouldn’t be necessary.”</p>
<p>My requirement for math homework was always the same. I did not care how she did it, herself or ask our help (we did not volunteer, we always waited for her to ask), no matter what, the answer has to be correct and achieved at home before next class. All those commnets about teacher going over and explaining everything, they went into deaf ears, so to speak. I did not care. I knew she had a very good teacher who explain much better than any of us. But the correct answer had to be achived before teacher’s explanations…many thanks few years later when she realized that her strong math background made it so much easier in Chem., Physics and overal logical thinking.</p>
<p>One of the things I really loved about my son’s freshman year last year was the school’s comprehensive approach to teaching the boys how to get to the completed project of a well-researched, well-written, properly-cited research paper. The school started with the summer work in having the kids do a small essay of about 5 paragraphs based on a specific book that had to be cited to MLA specifications for such a paper. The school provided strict guidelines for that. The kids chose their own topic based on the subject of history and then had to meet bench marks, like a good thesis, annotated bibliography, drafts, and ultimately the final product. Since it was broken up so carefully and taught so completely, the ultimate paper was a thing of beauty AND the kids (including my son who was previously a horrible writer) learned each aspect down to their souls. They are expected to do a similar paper in a different subject each year with less guidance and support, culminating in a final paper that involved a year of independent work. I love, love this because my girls never got taught the nuts and bolts, and now no one can take this knowledge away from my son. It has built his confidence so well in his writing ability, and doing the research on sites like JStor and Questia were learning experiences unto themselves. He developed a fantastic depth of knowledge on the subject that he will discuss every time the issue appears in curent events.</p>
<p>We’re in the process of adjusting to our 9th grader’s increased homework load - stressful and exhausting is the main feeling around here. I hope this is just a period of adjustment and S will pick up the pace and learn to work more quickly. He has six academic classes and each teacher assigns a minimum of 30 minutes homework per night - they’ve said if it takes less time than that, the student should go back over the work because that’s too quick (does not include studying for tests). So that’s three hours minimum per night. He’s organized, but an extra 10 minutes per subject adds another hour onto the night. Combined with sports…he’s going to bed between 11 and 12 every night. He’s had a cold for a month. It’s a joyless grind and I feel that we’re all being robbed of the last remnants of his childhood. He’s a normally joyful kid who is stressed out and miserable. </p>
<p>I’ve been making him do two subjects after school on Friday so Sunday isn’t so bad. He used to love his free TGIF night. This weekend will require the writing of two papers, plus studying for two tests early in the week, plus regular homework. His confirmation is on Sunday, and I’d like him to have all the work finished beforehand, otherwise we’ll have to race through it to get home and back to work.</p>
<p>I can tell you that some of what he is learning will soon be forgotten - half of it is useful - math, especially, but a lot of it is nonsense.</p>
<p>Gourmetmom, we went through exactly the same thing last year, even to being sick at this time. Add in the disruption for about 7 weeks from Superstorm Sandy and it was hell year. But with the spring did come maturity and familiarity with the process. The end of the year was a very, very good one.</p>
<p>This year, he is slipping a little bit with handing in homework, but not terribly and he does have a handle on the subjects and the process. If next year is just a little better, still, we will be all good.</p>
<p>“Combined with sports…he’s going to bed between 11 and 12 every night”
-I did not allow any homework after sport practice that tool 3 hours every day. Everything had to be done before. It requires, again, one most important skill - time management. They know pretty much the big homework well ahead of time. For the most part, they can do it on the weekends (even during out ot town meets). The smaller every day routine things could be handled before practice. Some homework I never seen D. doing at home at all, it was done at school. Most math (with exceptions of few times whne she needed our help), Spanish and most hard science like Chem. and Physics (again, few questions here, even while at college).
They have study halls, there is no reason not to use them. They can do a lot diring sport practice, like writing a paper in a head, then all they need at home is to type it. All of these skills will be very valuable at college and even Grad. school.</p>
<p>Is there anywhere that practice doesn’t immediately follow school? For my kids, there was never a gap between school and sports practice.</p>
<p>My son feels like a big shot this year because his music rehearsals are in the morning, so he gets home earlier and can use that time slot for a power nap before homework, studying and instrument practice. Greatest thing for him.</p>
<p>
My son has study hall, but neither of my daughters ever did. Some schools don’t allow free periods other than lunch.</p>
<p>“Is there anywhere that practice doesn’t immediately follow school?”
-it is even better. Then they can come home and focus entirely on homework instead of worrying about cuelling practice coming their way. The was the same - no homework past 10pm, period. It is not worth it, they cannot focus next day, they are not rested enough. Personally, my kid required 10 hours of sleep. She cannot afford it now on a regular basis, but she admit, she is still a big sleeper.</p>