Homework

Do I believe in homework? Yes I do, I think it is important for a child to bring some of the work that they are doing at school home with them to practice and further instill what they are learning in them. My daughter is in first grade this year and brought home her first homework packet yesterday. Now, I don't make her do her homework as soon as she gets home from school, instead we do it just after dinner while we are all still at the table. She seems to get a lot out of it and has even requested that I send a note to her teacher asking for more homework. The fact that she brings homework home does not stop her from being able to be a kid. We do playgroup and gymnastics and also Girl Scouts but she still always gets her homework done.

Homework always works for teachers ain't they.All the burden is taken up by the poor students.The free time gets cut short and everyday after the schooling there has to more time spent again on them in our homes.Homework is necessary to keep the child updated with their studies but there are institutions and teachers who take this system of homework very professionally and makes the student stressed out under crumbling studies, being a student one must be able to enjoy and have fun while learning new topics, which the learning process easier and creative. I now being regular college guy do have homework,can you believe this,I go to NCERC,here in Pambaby,India and this too keeps records of weakly assignments.

I always hated having to go to a public school and having alot of homework almost daily. I had chores to do at home also daily. I did my homework at night when everyone else went to bed and everything else was done. I had no time for myself at all. I do not believe in bringing school work home. That is what we go to school for.

I believe in a certain amount of homework, but NOT the terrible amount the kids get these days...I lived with my daughter for 3 months before moving into my apt & she has 2 teenagers & 1 ..12 year old...When the kiddo's got home i was there , my daughter was working, so i saw first hand that my grandchildren spent all day in school and had to come home & do a big pile of homework, my grandkids hardly got a break at all....I mean i would cook supper & my grandkids had to do homework until time to eat, by that time it was almost dark, all they had time to do is take a bath & go to bed...So as i said "some homework" is ok but not the amount that they give them now...My grandkids never got a break, and they even had homework on the weekends as well....

Well, very fortunate for me, my children are self-driven. So I do not have to push them to do their homework.Do i help them to do their homework? Never. Yes, when they were younger I do supervise their work and check their schoolbooks. As they always perform in their school subjects, I have stopped this unnecessary practice. Today all my children have graduated and working. I am very proud of them.

Hi, I'm from Italy and I'd like to add my experience to this discussion. in Italy homeschooling isn't really an option, everyone goes to public or private schools. Some years ago elementary school was only in the morning, so children had all the afternoon for homework and play time. Even if you had to do homewok, you had a lot of free time after that. This was possible because in the past moms could stay at home and didn't have to work. Today many moms have to work beacuse one salary isn't enough for one family, so kids remain at school until 4/5/6 p.m. in the afternoon. In this case homework isa choice of each teacher: someone only gives homework in the week end, but someone else decides to give homework anyway, even during the week. in conclusion, now life is too difficult for many kids, rapporting that to the life of 15 years ago!

When my son was in 4th and 5th grade, he started on it when he got home, and was still working on it at bedtime. It was horrible. After that it is very rare for him to bring anything home. They even give them time in class to do it.

I know cuz I have two children and one is starting school tomorrow. well the main point of giving out homework to children are: 1. they want to make sure students get what they learn today and the more they do homework(practices) then the more they understand better. 2. to keep them busy from doing nothing. Some kids hang out and waste a lot of time. For me, I always give my kids time to play and then do home later. I know it is dark but if they love to play then the back yard is good tho. or we can total all the time up for the weekend. mostly, I dont really set a time for dinner. if she hungry then I give her food right the way, then she play or do homework with no worry about dinner time

Absolutely not. I am sooo grateful that my daughter's school does not really give out homework. She is in kindergarten and she actually did just get a small packet this week, but it's like 4 pages, and we did it all yesterday right after school. The school policy states that if a child does not finish their assigned work from class, then it must be finished at home, but they are allowed time in class to complete work. It is not the school nor teacher's fault if a child does not make good use of class time, and it is the responsibility of a student to complete their work to the best of their ability. They do not assign EXTRA work though for any students other than kindergarten, because kindergarten is half day. The only time I believe anything extra should be done is in the way of special projects or finals, or perhaps things like book reports. I don't think these things should be regular either, perhaps once a quarter - maybe the book reports once a month or twice a month. You're right in saying that kids need time to be kids. When I was a kid, I did not have homework. I didn't have anything ASSIGNED and I worked hard to get everything FROM school completed AT SCHOOL. This is what I tell my son in high school too - make use of class time. If you don't, then you have to do it at home! I tell my daughter to participate in class and do her work as quickly as possible so she doesn't run out of time. In my opinion, the most a child should have to do as long as they are completing most or all of their classwork in class is maybe 15 minutes. There is no reason EVER for a child to have more than that, if they have more than that, it's because they are not applying themselves, they are wasting time, dawdling, procrastinating, etc. Homework - if there is any - is supposed to be extra practice or a quick review of concepts and ideas they have learned at school, not a new concept that they have to learn AT HOME. This is ridiculous. We send our kids to school because there are certified and degreed TEACHERS who are there to teach. If we were supposed to do it, then why send the kids to school? If the teacher is sending home extra assigments on top of what the kids did at school and there are too many so it takes more than 30 minutes, then they are sending home too much. If kids are at school 6 hours, 2 hours of extra work equals 8 hours. If what has happened here has happened everywhere and the majority of the day is now devoted solely to academics and there is no more regular pe and art and music and elective type creative things, then the kids are spending TOO MUCH TIME on academics anyway, they shouldn't be sending home ANYTHING. If it were more balanced and out of 6 hours at school, at least half of that is devoted to pe, art, music, drama, and play, THEN maybe I could see sending home 30 min of extra practice because 3 hours are devoted to non-academics. I just don't see that though, not with the budget cuts. As far as what we do, this was the first packet we received, and since I volunteer, often I get to see what will come home before it actually comes home. I am fine with a packet of 4 or 5 pages because there are 5 days in the week. We got the same type of thing from preschool and have never had an issue doing the whole thing in about 20 minutes. If it ever got to the point where I thought it was too much, I would tell the teacher that we'd spend 20 minutes and after that, no more. If it wasn't done, well, it was still 20 minutes and that's all I consider fair for a five year old for one week. Sorry. I always even myself try to do the crappy stuff that I don't want to do as quickly and right away as possible so I can be DONE and get on with everything else I FEEL like doing. I have been this way since I was a kid, and I think it's the best way to deal. I wouldn't be against taking a break first or doing something else we had planned first because it was time, but after that we'd have to buckle down and get the crappy thing done so it's done. As far as homework being wrong, most of the time the teachers mostly look to see if it's finished, not necessarily if it's correct. Since I had middle schoolers and now high schoolers, i have talked to many teachers and the general consensus is this: in middle and high school they do not ASSIGN homework unless your kids are in AP courses preparing for college. Whatever homework your kids have from approx 6th grade on is their own fault, not the teachers. The stuff elementary school teachers say about 'preparing for the homework load in middle and high school' is a crock of bs. They also know the kids won't do assigned homework and most of the parents work fulltime and can't be of much help there either. They figure instead of marking 10 out of 12 kids with zeros every day, better to do the majority of the assignments in class. I have never seen the point of regular homework, again if a child wastes class time and doesn't do an assignment in class, of course they should do it at home, but assigning extra on top of an assignment in class? No. I wouldn't do it even if I were a teacher. Perhaps for a student who wasn't getting the concept but not for kids who were proficient and picking up things just fine. I wouldn't see a point.

I know exactly what u are saying. i don't think there is anything wrong in having homework but i do think they can give too much & do nowadays. When my boys were in school & there was 20 years difference in them they always got to go out & play till supper time if they wanted to. we did homework after supper & it did not take that long. They do need a break. when they get grown it will be work all day, fix supper , get your kids a bath & in the bed, Maybe u will have an hour to call your own before u have to get up & do it all again. That routine comes soon enought for kids. They need to be kids as long as they can & enjoy it.

Oh homework Oh! HiDfollin, in my country most of the kids go to public school. Let me share the daily routine of a kids in my country : need to get up early around 6am. Maybe take some light breakfast like milk and bread, going to school while the day is still dark around 6.30 am. Reach school, start school life... Because the school has extended the school hours to 3.30pm, so normally kids can only reach home at 4pm. Of course taken simple lunch in the school. Okay, it is so call the home work time, it starts at 5pm, immediately after they take some tea break and shower. If you do it fast , you got chance to watch tv, else few hours sitting and busy with home works. Oh homework Oh! The only way to improve the study?

I understand the point of homework, and I think it's important, but there is far too much homework being assigned these days for kids to have any times to themselves. In high school, there is almost no time to do anything other than schoolwork, sometimes even on the weekends. Even when a student doesn't have as much homework, they always have to study for a test. There should not be as much homework assigned in school.

On one hand, it is nice to teach your kids business before pleasure. However, if they are young let them have fun. If they are in middle school, they need some structure. When I was in high school, I always came home and did my work right away.

Well, I sort of believe in homework. There are students that definitely achieve progress in obtaining knowledge, as it's the real intention of homework. For these, a few exercises should work fine. However, there are students that are not like that. I myself wasn't. I'm in college now, but when I was a kid in the school I had no problems with doing homework and playing with friends - I didn't have them every day. And I must say I was quite negligent. Sometimes I didn't do a thing, just because I was too stressed from school to keep the same rhytm home. Different environments leads to different moods, different wishes. I never really did any progress by doing homework. It didn't make anything clearer for me. But, I have a method of learning I carry on me until nowadays: the only way I learn is to pay attention to the teacher himself. Thus, I will learn - not reading books. I believe homework can be good, but still: kids have to be kids. The kids of today are waaaaaaay different from the yesterday's kids. And sometimes we need a break from the madness the world's becoming. So, the solution would be to reduce the ammount of homework.

I totally hear what you're saying, and it makes me sad too. I am a child of the 1990s, graduated highschool in 2000. We had some homework, but not so much that it took over our lives, and I didn't get any REAL homework until the SEVENTH (not second, but SEVENTH) grade!!! I think what they are doing to kids these days is crimminal!!!

My son gets a very short break when he gets home from school to have a snack, but then he has to get down to business with his homework. I used to let him run around for about an hour before I made him start on his homework, but he handles schoolwork best when he does not have a big gap between school and homework. He does not get that much work to do at home though most nights. Last night is the most work he has had since school started back up a few weeks ago and it took him about an hour. Apparently he was one of the only kids in the class that did it, so they have to do it tonight and he gets a homework free night.

I am NOT a big fan of homework. There is plenty of time to get the work done in school if they give them study halls as they should (they stopped offering that in our public school in middle school this year, and put in more "electives" that they are required to take - we are homeschooling this year and that is one of the reasons). It is just ridiculous to have them in school (7.5 hrs a day here) and then send home hours of homework. And then expect those who have sports, or other things they want to do to get it all done by the next morning. I do NOT like it. Seems like kids don't get to be kids anymore.

i don't think the past decade or decades were much better or easier for students . not in my country. it remains the same. it has been pretty difficult for children to do anything except study cause they spend almost all day in school. but here in my country it still depends from what school you to go whether public or private school. the public schools here have longer school hours but actually have lighter work load. they were given less assignment to bring with them at home and they were taught less at school. though they do more activities that has nothing to do with studies. unlike in private schools, students are given many homeworks and are being taught many things in schools so they are more busy and have less time to socialize. but it will still all depend on the students, many students just don't bother to do their assignment anyways, and most specially in public schools , like the students were not being forced to their assignments . and most public school students here just go to their friends after school and even in school they just mostly treat it a place to see their friends and not to study and that is why many public school graduate if they do graduate don't get to land on a good job not unless they have money for further studies.