Ever feel like you have too much to do? Or that your homework has taken over your life? Your not alone lots of students feel this way. Not only do kids today have more homework than ever before they are also burdened with an out of school curriculum encompassing everything and anything from soccer, baseball, gymnastic, and music lessons. How can we expect our children to manage it all? Homework can shift the home environment from a calm safe haven to a war zone. How much homework should children have?
What age should it become this intense? I most certainly don’t think elementary students should have hours of homework every night. As the homework piles on so does the stress. “I didn’t feel stressed until I was in my 30’s and it hurts that my 11 year old daughter already feels that way” states Libby age 43.
It has been proven that homework will increase the academic performance but the study only focused on Jr. High and High School student – what about the elementary students with boat loads of complex homework? Especially when at a young age a homework overdose can turn a child off learning all together.
With pressure to get into the top universities and for over all success the pressure piles on at an early age. To get into college one wants to have taken A.P. classes and to get into those in high school one wants to be in honors classes in Jr. High. And to get in the honors classes one has to do well in elementary… Push push push when is it too much? What should we expect of our children? How much will be enough? Often times parents get sucked into the homework craze helping their kids a little too much. Even going as far as doing homework for them. “They (schools) have us hostage to homework” explains David Kooyman.
What is the answer, we want our kids to do well but is all this homework really helping? Sometimes it’s just busy work and sometimes teachers don’t realize how much time is really being spent on the assignments. We need a more realistic approach to education.
My personal beliefs are that homework in the elementary setting should not be done. I can accept maybe one assignment every so often, something that was just unable to be completed at school. Junior high and senior high there should be adequate studying and homework, so as not to "overdose" a student into becoming disinterested in schooling. The homework and studying in high school should be preparing students to become skilled for college, if they so choose to attend.
Yours in Crisis,
ER Adam
I agree that elementary students shouldn't have a pile of homework because when I was in grammar school in fifth grade, I had almost a pile of homework to do every night and my mother totally helped me get it done, so I would be able to go to sleep at a decent hour; also if I didn't get some of it done the night before, I would get it done after breakfast and before I went to school, some mornings.