When she’s not helping her kids with homework, Linda Thomas is a broadcast and print journalist in Seattle.
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Free Online Homework Help
If homework grinds you down like an old No. 2 pencil, check out Seattle Public Library’s free online homework resource for students and parents. Go to www.spl.org, click on the “using the library” tab, and then “get help” to be connected with math, science, English and social studies tutors. All you need is a library card, and that’s free too. Tutors are available between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m., seven nights a week. If you don’t have Internet access, many library branches also have homework help centers. Online homework help is also available at Kitsap, Sno-Isle and King County libraries.
Q: My son is in elementary school and has already gotten far more homework than last year, going from fourth to fifth grade. The work isn’t difficult, but there’s a lot of it. Keeping him on task is a nightly struggle at our house. I’ve talked with his teacher and she says no one else has complained. How much is too much homework?
A: I hate homework. Do I lose my mom sash and crown for admitting that?
I understand the importance of homework: It gives students a chance to review what they’re learning in class; it is feedback for teachers so they’ll know whether students understand the subjects covered in school; it’s a way to extend learning by having students discover new information about a subject; it’s practice; it gives parents an opportunity to be involved in their kids’ education. That’s all positive. But some nights, the homework routine in our house makes me feel like a crinkled, crumpled sheet of notebook paper.
Seattle Public Schools requires its teachers to assign homework. The district’s homework policy was adopted way back in 1983 and hasn’t been modified since. Here are the district’s guidelines for the minimum/maximum amount of homework a student should receive:
Grades K-2: Five to 10 minutes per day or 20 to 40 minutes each week Grades 3-4: 10 to 20 minutes per day, 40-80 minutes each week Grades 5-6: 20 to 40 minutes per day, 80-160 minutes a week Middle School: One to two hours per night, five to 10 hours per week High School: Two hours per night, 10 hours each week
The recommendations often don’t match the reality of homework. While some students zip through the work and skip off to their rooms for an extra half hour of reading, many children struggle with assignments and need constant direction or help. My kids (in third and eighth grades) generally understand the work they need to do. Even so, the support, supervision, nudging and nagging occasionally drag on for three hours. They’re drained. I dread the evenings.
So, how much is too much?
“It depends. Do we want kids to love learning, or do we want kids to get accustomed to doing homework so they can handle the workload in middle school, high school and college?” asks David Ackerman, an elementary school principal for more than 20 years.
Ackerman spent several years at Loyal Heights and Cooper in Seattle and is now the principal of Oak Knoll Elementary in Menlo Park, California. He’s among the many educators who are questioning the value of homework, even though schools are under more pressure than ever to raise academic standards and test scores.
After doing his own homework on the subject, Ackerman concludes the “preponderance of the research clearly shows homework for elementary students does not make a difference in achievement.”
Large amounts of work outside of class time, he believes, “stifle motivation, diminish a child’s love of learning, turn reading into a chore, negatively affect the quality of family time, diminish creativity, and turn learning to drudgery.”
Within the past year, Ackerman decided his school would significantly cut back on homework. While not calling it a homework “ban,” students no longer get weekly homework packets and “busy work.” Any tasks that are assigned are based on reading – preferably reading of the child’s choice.
Ackerman has gotten some resistance from teachers and parents who passionately argue that homework is an indicator of academic excellence and rigor. But he says the school’s test scores are up this year higher than ever before. Oak Knoll students are in the top 10 percent for California Standards Tests.
In a letter to parents explaining Oak Knoll’s homework policy, Ackerman wrote:
“I certainly don’t believe that homework teaches our children responsibility. There are very few choices in homework. The children are completing work that is required. They are complying with adult demands. Comply or suffer the consequences. That is not my idea of responsibility.”
I’d love to know if you agree or disagree with Ackerman’s homework philosophy, and why. Post your comments below, or write me at linda@lindathomas.com.
