Our pal Peter is quoted in an article by Maura Kelly about excessive amounts of homework in a recent issue of Time out Kids.
Kids have always complained (and complained) about homework overload.
But these days, parents are joining the fray. Take Peter Loffredo, a
52-year-old psychotherapist from Park Slope, whose nine-year-old son,
Bennett, often ends up in tears as he struggles to finish his spelling,
math or reading assignments—all of which take him an hour, on average,
to complete. “Imagine if you had to spend 60 minutes on taxes every
night,” says Loffredo. “Bennett rides the bus for an hour and then has
to find time for dinner and a bath before going to bed—there’s no time
for him to do much else besides hit the books. A playdate shoots the
whole schedule.” Loffredo fears that Bennett’s missing out not only on
social time but also on creative pursuits, like playing guitar. “The
imaginative side of the learning process is being stinted,” he says.Fed up, he recently put Bennett on the waiting list for the Brooklyn
Free School—a Park Slope institution that doesn’t give its students
compulsory homework assignments. Founded in 2004 by Alan Berger, a
certified New York high school teacher and former assistant principal
who became disenchanted with the way curricula were being designed, the
school allows children to seek out knowledge on topics they’re curious
about; each student has a personalized, self-directed learning
experience…
If my kids don’t finish their homework, I tell them Paul Krugman is going to creep into their room at night and psychoanalyze them to death.
Usually does the trick.
My thing about homework and school is how much of a difference does it make on the child who has concerned parents and the child who does not have concerned parents or parents that are not available to enforce the child to do their homework or do home study. Public school is the place that we as a whole society truly in it’s idealized form want to have all our kids in this society educated and be the best they can be, whether they have parents who help them with their education or not because having our children educated (and when I say our children I mean all the children in this country) is truly to everyone’s advantage. So when it comes to early childhood education, that of the 6 year old, homework becomes at times more the responsibilty of the parent then the child. And so the young child of 6 who does not have parents who care or has parents/caretakers not available time wise hurts the most and further divides the affluent educated families from the not. So I feel that a very limited amount of homework or at home study should be given to a child until it is determined what developmental age a child can and is mature enough to take on this responsibility for themselves without the help of their parents or caretakers. Now sure at any age certain parents will help their child more then other parents with their education for whatever reason, but at least if the child is at a more mature developmental age to handle it on their own they have more of a fighting chance to be on equal footing.
So my question is, is a 6 or 7 year old, old enough developmentally on their own to care about doing their homework and studying for themselves, if they are not then I feel that at home work should not be assigned or be very limited. Obviously parents of a 6 year old even if the child has no homework can still do more at home study of their own choosing with the child but I do think if it is determined that the average 6 year old is not developmentaly mature enough to take it on by themselves then there should not be forced assigned homework.
This may be all different when it comes to gifted programs and special need programs that schools have.
Peter: I guess subtlety just doesn’t cut it!
1- There was a smiley–> ;) wink-wink, irony? on the “Maybe if Bennett were trained to be more narcissistic…” comment. Attempt at humor on your self-admitted obsession with narcissistic tendencies in children, and comments thereon.
2- Paul Krugman comment was not by me but by the no-doubt pseudonymous Don Ho. I think it was another attempt at humor. I hope.
3-Ignoring inconvenient statements is no doubt a good technique, saves one the time it would take to tackle them.
To Lbola: It was 5 hours, not seven. And we have the luxury of both working at home, so glitches rarely affect both of us (and therefore, our son).
Are you kidding about your son having almost 7 hours of free time? Is it just me or are most lives like clockwork, running without a glitch? “The best laid plans…” There are many days when just waiting for a subway takes an extra hour out of my day. I have two children 6 and 9 and hardly a single day goes by that something out of the ordinary doesn’t come up. For example; waiting for the bus, last minute appointments, stopping to shop on the way home, talking through something upsetting that happened in school, getting a phone call from grandma, being awakened by nightmares, hunger pangs at odd hours, a search for a missing book etc. Any of these things can take hours that have not been “accounted for” and if I had our lives carved out by the hour my life would be extremely stressful for me and my kids.
All these statistics about so much free time seem so artificial; it seems to be missing the human factor. How are we all defining “free”? Does sitting on the toilet bowl count, or only if we had to search down a bathroom on the walk home from school?
My son goes to BNS and has at least 30 minutes of reading each night, not including another hour of homework, often more.
I agree with Nicholas, it’s not all about the homework, that’s just endemic of a larger problem. Schools are trying to fit in a certain curriculum, including standardized testing, to make sure they get funding. Sometimes we push our kids too hard and not for the right reasons. I also believe in alternative education, I’ve known quite a few families that home school with great success and it takes less than half the amount of time, and the kids have more time to pursue their individual interests.
I know home schooling is not for everybody, but it is a real eye opener to realize that it can take less than half the time to be well educated. Maybe we should all take a closer look at our current education system, this system was set up a long time ago, times have changed and so should this archaic education system.
Okay, Chandru – You start out by saying this: “Sorry I may not be as thoughtful as Nicolas.”
Well, let’s take a look at a couple of your recent comments.
Chandru: “Maybe if Bennett were trained to be more narcissistic, he could put his own needs first instead of attending to others, and thus manage to eke out some fun time to himself?”
Hmmm… Here you are responding to my concerns about over-involved, enmeshed parenting.
Chandru: “Paul Krugman often sleeps in between me and my wife in our bed. Does that make me an abuser or just a bad parent?”
Apology accepted.
PL
Sorry I may not be as thoughtful as Nicolas.
Peter, interesting method of skewing statistics to make your point. 13-14 waking hrs, 1-2 free, so 92% of time is “structured”…why pick 12/13 instead of 12/14 (86%)? Also, the 1-2 hrs, as at least a couple of comments have pointed out, is itself stretching (or should it be compressing) quite a bit. Not including weekend free time is another way that makes that 92% figure, aaah…chimerical? Besides, what does a percentage figure here really measure? Surely it’s used for effect alone…”my God, Buffy, do you realize that our child has just 8% of free time! Time to change schools!”
One can see why statistics and studies need to be taken with a large grain of salt.
On parents reading for example; the ECLS study, or at least the sound bite by Dubner that “reading to kids does not matter”: here’s at least one counter (and if I had the time I would find many)[http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-6543(199521)65%3A1%3C1%3AJBRMFS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K#abstract] “The results support the hypothesis that book reading, in particular, affects acquisition of the written language register. The effect of parent-preschooler reading is not dependent on the socioeconomic status of the families or on several methodological differences between the studies.”
On a purely anecdotal level, my son, now IV grader at 321, wakes at 7:30, comes home at 3:15 and goes to sleep around 10. That’s 6-3/4 hrs. If, indeed, he spends an hour on homework (some of which is taken up in arguing various esoteric issues) and he spends 45 mins. at dinner (hardly structured,) that leaves him 5 hours a day.
Personally, I have no fear of his imaginativeness being stunted.
All good points, Nicholas. Thanks for your thoughtful responses.
Also, I apologize but I forgot this one key comment:
Please don’t forget that the juggling I’m referring to doesn’t just stem from professional employment. Personally, not only do I have to juggle a job where I have multiple responsibilities to multiple people and/or teams, but I also have to juggle the time I want to spend with each of my two children, plus the time I need to devote to my friends, my family, and not least of all myself. Those all require juggling and managing priorities and time, and it’s not about denying my imagination or working myself to death.
If I have one week in which to attend a friend’s wedding, console another friend who just broke up, watch one child’s guitar recital and another’s soccer game, put in my hours at work, and still have time to drop off the dry-cleaning and feed the kids and take some time to relax and maybe go for a bike ride, that requires a huge amount of time management to fit it all in.
I don’t think those things rob me of anything valuable – rather, they are the building blocks that make up my life, and the things that I need and *want* in my life. Learning how to manage that time to fit them all in – and to realize that maybe I need to de-prioritize watching Top Chef and learning another language this week in order to fit them in – is just a required part of life in these times.
The point I was making was that regardless of where it comes from – a boss, the demands of maintaining friendships, family members that need time, or even just trying to manage multiple hobbies and past-times – everyone needs to learn how to manage their time and prioritize their life in order to be successful and happy, and yes, even to figure out how to slot in “down time” for day dreaming and creating and doing other things that may not have a hard measurable output but that are still critical to being happy and well-rounded human beings. Starting to learn those lessons as a child isn’t a bad thing.
Peter, I do agree that ideally a child would have much less than 92% of their day taken up by structured activities – although I’m not 100% sure I’d keep things like bath time or meal time in there, and there was a lot of rounding up. I do think that realistically you can squeeze a lot more than 8% of the day out of most days. Even if you do, yes, I still agree – it’d be ideal if a child did have more free, creative time to explore and find their own way. Of course, there are also weekends (although if your kids are like mine, those often seem to be full of structured activities like soccer games).
My younger son went to a Montessori school and loved it (and really blossomed in it). I do agree that having a less standardized and structured learning experience is useful – but I personally feel that looking at the hour of daily homework as anything other than a very small symptom of the problems in our educational system is a mistake. (I’m not saying *you* do, but there’s a huge uproar among many parents about the amount of homework – and this post’s subject was regarding the amount of homework – and my point is that they may be focusing on the wrong thing. Maybe it’s a start, but I’m not sure it’s even a very good start.)
I’m a big fan of alternative learning experiences and schools that follow non-standard teaching methods – everything I’ve read and experienced of them has shown a lot of positives and not only that but a lot of potential for getting more out of kids and giving more back to them. I think the battle to fight should be more focused on what happens *at* school than what happens *after* school, within reason. (Obviously, if a child is getting 5 hours of homework a night, for instance, that would require immediate attention.) I think much of the external experience for a child can be shaped by their parents – whether it’s turning bath time into a fun, playful learning experience, or maybe involving the children in meal planning or cooking, or turning a commute into a chance to learn about maps or see what children can observe while walking down the street. I don’t know that cutting back homework (past a reasonable amount, and I realize “reasonable” is a very debatable term) is necessarily the right answer, though.
Good luck with the application to the Free School – it does sound like it has the potential to be a wonderful experience for a child.
How much homework would a 9-year old get at PS 321? I think an hour is pretty fair. I went to one of those fancy, pompous Upper East Side private schools and I seem to remember a hell of a lot of homework. I hated doing it, but I did manage to learn a lot…I also managed to play a lot, too, it seems. We must have gotten out early or something.
Dear Nicholas – Here’s the thing – if a kid has a day of 13 to 14 waking hours out of which only 1 to 2 hours are for unstructured leisure time, that means that roughly 92% of his day is task-oriented or a planned activity. What kind of individual do you think will evolve from that kind of lifestyle? As Dubner’s research indicates – not an Einstein. In fact, Einstein himself once said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
On the other hand, you say, Nicholas: “In the real world most people are going to have to struggle with these issues…” and learn to “juggle priorities and manage time in the face of multiple assignments and multiple sources of work.”
I say that perhaps that kind of juggling act is a reality we don’t have to impose on our children. Maybe we can make room for our children’s creativity to express itself and reap the benefits as a society of having more citizens like Einstein and fewer burnt out workaholics only trying to get to the end of the day and the end of the week year after year until they’ve forgotten how to actually create anything from their imagination.
Maybe if Bennett were trained to be more narcissitic, he could put his own needs first instead of attending to others, and thus manage to eke out some fun time to himself? ;)
While I do agree that as a whole children are getting too much homework (at least in Park Slope, I can’t vouch for other areas), I do have to wonder – 1 hour isn’t actually all that bad, and maybe the problem is just a matter of time management and less about too much homework.
Personally, I get concerned because sometimes it takes multiple hours for my sons to complete their homework, and that to me is definitely too much. However, one hour? Realistically, kids are in school for a little over 6 hours. Add in an hour of homework, and then the aforementioned hour of commuting each way. We’re up to 9 hours now. I’ll even throw in an extra hour of waiting for buses and whatever else – ok, 10 hours.
If a child is up from 7 am to 8 pm, that’s 13 hours, giving you 3 hours of leeway. If the kid is up until 9 pm, make that 4 hours (and we already included homework!). If they can’t figure out how to manage dinner, a bath, and still have some fun time with 3-4 hours a night worth of free time, then maybe getting that hour of homework is a good thing as it’s going to force them to learn how to manage their time more effectively.
The one thing I *do* think homework can do quite effectively is that – teach someone how to juggle priorities and manage time in the face of multiple assignments and multiple sources of work, some due short-term, some long-term, some assigned by school, some by home life (whether chores, or fun time like playdates). In the real world most people are going to have to struggle with these same issues; figuring out how to deal with them as children will make it a lot easier later on in life.
(Again: I do agree that as a whole there’s too much homework, I’m just saying that if they can’t cope with 1 hour without their social schedule being shot and tears every night, maybe it’s less about that hour of homework…)
As an interesting follow-up to Maura’s piece in TONY Kids, parents might want to check out Stephen Dubner’s “Freakonomics” article in today’s NY Times on-line about what really matters in parenting regarding a child’s success in school/life. Of course, it turns out it’s who the parents are that matters much more than what the parents do, and as I am often compelled to point out, most of the time less is more. Here’s an excerpt from Dubner’s piece: “Do Parents Matter?”
“The U.S. Department of Education recently undertook a monumental project called the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, which tracks the progress of more than 20,000 American schoolchildren from kindergarten through the fifth grade. Aside from gathering each child’s test scores and the standard demographic information, the ECLS also asks the children’s parents a wide range of questions about the families’ habits and activities. The result is an extraordinarily rich set of data that, when given a rigorous economic analysis, tells some compelling stories about parenting technique.
A child with at least 50 kids’ books in his home, for instance, scores roughly 5 percentile points higher than a child with no books, and a child with 100 books scores another 5 percentile points higher than a child with 50 books. Most people would look at this correlation and draw the obvious cause-and-effect conclusion: A little boy named, say, Brandon has a lot of books in his home; Brandon does beautifully on his reading test; this must be because Brandon’s parents read to him regularly.
But the ECLS data show no correlation between a child’s test scores and how often his parents read to him. How can this be? Here is a sampling of other parental factors that matter and don’t:
•Matters: The child has highly educated parents.
•Doesn’t: The child regularly watches TV at home.
•Matters: The child’s parents have high income.
•Doesn’t: The child’s mother didn’t work between birth and kindergarten.
•Matters: The child’s parents speak English in the home.
•Doesn’t: The child’s parents regularly take him to museums.
•Matters: The child’s mother was 30 or older at time of the child’s birth.
•Doesn’t: The child attended Head Start.
Culture cramming may be a foundational belief of modern parenting but, according to the data, it doesn’t improve early childhood test scores. Frequent museum visits would seem to be no more productive than trips to the grocery store. Watching TV, meanwhile, doesn’t turn a child’s brain into mush after all; nor does the presence of a home computer turn a child into Einstein.”
Very interesting!