So, yesterday I'm at this PTA fundraiser thingy, and I'm chatting with another mom whose 4th grader had the same teacher last year that Child 1 has this year, and I mentioned how homework has been a real challenge for us. She said that she doesn't care about homework anymore, ever since she saw the movie
Race to Nowhere. She told me that in it she learned that there is no benefit to elementary school kids doing homework, that the benefit only starts at middle school and even then it should only be about an hour a day; 2 hours a day in high school. (I was like, is this an actual study, or was it "100% of 3rd graders agree! Homework is pointless!") She said I should see the movie. I haven't seen the movie but I did google it, and found this:
A 2006 synthesis on the effects of homework by Harris Cooper shows no correlation between homework and learning in elementary school, a .7 correlation in middle school for up to 1 hour of homework (and the correlation is only on teacher prepared exams) and a correlation in high school for up to 2 hours of homework. Too much homework is correlated with increases in rates of depression, lack of engagement with school, weight gain and sleep deprivation.
- Homework Facts and Action
Well, you don't need to tell ME twice!
2 comments:
I totally agree. I gave my students choices for homework--whatever they wanted (because I had to give them something).
I usually gave out math worksheets. I had millions of different ones. I would hold up the choices and tell kids they could do and easy one or a really, incredibly difficult and challenging one that would show how brilliant they were and what a great teacher I was. They almost all chose the hard one. And I made sure they could all do it.
Homework is stupid in elementary school. I couldn't agree more.
It really takes a lot of the pressure off; I'm not actually being a horrible, neglectful parent if I let him have downtime after school instead of forcing his nose into all those goddamn Everyday Math worksheets.
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