After Donna Cushlanis’s son kept bursting into tears midway through his second-grade math problems, which one night took over an hour, she told him not to do all of his homework.
“How many times do you have to add seven plus two?” Ms. Cushlanis, 46, said. “I have no problem with doing homework, but that put us both over the edge. I got to the point that this is enough.”
Ms. Cushlanis, a secretary for the Galloway school district, complained to her boss, Annette C. Giaquinto, the superintendent. It turned out that the district, which serves 3,500 kindergarten through eighth-grade students, was already re-evaluating its homework practices. The school board will vote this summer on a proposal to limit weeknight homework to 10 minutes for each year of school — 20 minutes for second graders, and so forth — and ban assignments on weekends, holidays and school vacations.
Galloway, a mostly middle-class community northwest of Atlantic City, is part of a wave of districts across the nation trying to remake homework amid concerns that high-stakes testing and competition for college have fueled a nightly grind that is stressing out children and depriving them of play and rest, yet doing little to raise achievement, particularly in elementary grades.
I was never allowed to use a calculator as a kid, my dad was old school, an abacus yes but not a calculator. I didn’t let mine use one until Jr. high. funny thing, they and I learned how to do math. Something I have a seriously have a hard time getting adults to do now even with a calculator. Even simple math concepts such as the order of operations takes a significant amount of time to get them to understand and use. When, as an older adult I was pursuing my undergraduate degree I was surprised by the number of freshman having real problems with basic math/reading skills. I am not a big fan of rote learning but there is something to be said for what is essentially Pavlovian conditioning. Quick whats three times seven? If you master the minor things, you can then concentrate on the conceptual.
How is this “hour” of homework time frame determined. Is it one hour for the slow kid or the smart one? This same old rhyme has been running around for years. I have a coworker who makes the same argument as this parent. In the end he does the homework for his kids. So apparently the kid is smart enough to get his dad to do it for him so he can play on the computer. But not smart enough to do the homework.
Looking back through admittedly rose colored glasses I seem to recall two to three hours of homework per night. Of course I did mine during study hall, at least that’s what I told my parents. I was however, blessed with a 90 minute bus ride in the morning.
You can call me old fashioned if you wish, but, I think schools should be concentrating at least through fourth or fifth grade on the fundamentals of reading, math, and science. Students should be able to master these or they don’t pass period. All the warm fuzzy stuff is nice and has its place but musicians and painters also need to know how to read.
The time guidelines don’t bother me too much. What bothers me is the busywork aspect.
When I was in High School, we’d get things like “The Declaration of _____ was signed in 1776.” The expectation was to fill in the blank. However, the requirement was to write out the whole sentence. Good for “penmanship”, but bad for time…. Multiply that by a dozen or so….
And the “five times seven” thing, or whatever, IS important until the kids master the multiplication tables. Gets kinda silly by Jr. High….
Worse may be what happened to my daughter in elementary school. She missed a couple days and asked me to help her with her math homework. Turns out that there were a whole bunch of different ways to round off numbers, and that she was supposed to use most of them to add up different columns. OK, we’d work it out…. Which is when I found out that the _methods_ weren’t explained in the textbook. Just “use Fred’s Fireworks Method for these”….
I asked the teacher a bit later – open house thing – and she admitted that they were teaching that from a separate handout that only the teacher’s had, and really didn’t give a damn anyway….
Can’t even blame this on Zero. He was still sweeping up in mosques at the time….
Obviously a touchy subject. Should we let teachers, undisputed pedophobes torture our children at school AND at home? By all means, yes.
Tell those who are concerned that the US is falling down the educational achievement scale not to worry. Over forty years ago those of us in Comparative Education discovered that these tests are NEVER, were never, conducted in exactly the same manner in all countries tested! It was found, for example in one of the Scandinavian countries, that it was the usual practice to show the candidates the exam papers BEFORE the actual test! That was only one discrepancy. There is a golden rule in Comparative education, that you are NEVER ever comparing like with like. Also, consider this, there are other, maybe unseen downsides. Compare the US with Japan in terms of what can be done by one child at one age with the US. The US is way way behind. Now. Would you compare this for the child suicide rate in both countries? I not saying suicide is an outcome of high pressure study, because I really don’t know, I can’t separate it from other influences, but it just might be. Stressed school is not new. One ex-Japanese prisoner of war was asked how terrifying his many years of starvation and ill-treatment had affected him. He told the questioner, “My dear boy, it was nothing, insignificant. After all, I was educated in an English Public School, no experience is more life threatening than that.”
Public schools in England by the way are private, huge fee paying, Spartan, high discipline establishments. Public school in the US is rather different isn’t it.
You are not, as I pointed out, ever comparing like with like.
Class of 60
In 1956 I refused to do any homework in High School (Temple City and La Puente High Schools (California): I failed every class and never had another elective. I never graduate (GED)1968.
I still do not believe that learning in school is the same as learning at home, they are two different environments to be studied.
I am a retired laborer.
#58 I wish it were so. However despite what a lot of people think I suggest you go on line and look at your state curriculum and see how that matches up with what you were expected to do. You may be in for a huge shock.
Everything is being pushed down into the lower grades. They want the 2nd grades to do multiple step problems!
If you had 16 apples and sold Tom five apples and Alice three apples and your mother gives you 6 more apples how many apples do you have?
What the hell is pmbpodcast drinking?
Is it legal, is it distilled in the Kentucky Blue Mountains? Whatever it is, it sure must kill all known germs.
That Newton sure does move around the time-universe doesn’t he?
Sorry – Space-Time universe – hic!
It’s OUTRAGEOUS when a child has so much homework that he barely has time left over to take drugs and vandalize the school. I think that concerned parents should exercise their constitutional right to bear arms at the next meeting of the school board.
¡Viva la Revolución!
#69 Or they can do a series of single step problems. 16-5=11, 11-3=8, 8+6=14 Looks like second grade math to me.
From witnessing my kid’s homework experiences the thing that drove me nuts was the lack of coordination by her different teachers. Some nights no homework and others she had homework from multiple subjects. No balance.
Theone,
Nice story! Did you eventually turn into a law abiding citizen?
I’m not anti-homework. I am currently studying education at university and the research is pretty clear that homework helps. But in second grade? Very limited benefit, at best.
But your sack full of books was awesome. There is nothing better for an early grade-school kid than free reading. (not to dis math)