A lot of kids head off for school around 7 am. Then they get out around 3 pm, which means that they could be home by 4 pm, but then there are after-school activities. Those can extend the school day to 6 or 7 pm. Including preparation and travel time, that is nearly 12 hours devoted to school.
Even this isn’t enough schooling for our Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan who said, “In all seriousness, … schools should be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day, seven days a week, 11-12 months of the year.” So even if the school day ended when the bell rang, it would already be too much, but then schools have the audacity to assign homework!
Homework steals the last free hours students might have shared with their parents, siblings, grandparents, relatives, and more importantly – God. Schools are making it hard to be pro-family and pro-school because there simply isn’t enough time in the day!
Schools act like they are the only thing that should matter in children’s lives.
This isn’t always the teacher’s choice either; many teachers are required to assign a certain amount of homework every night! And it doesn’t matter if your kids are already acing the subject because homework is assigned indiscriminately, whether there is a need or not.
This creates all sorts of drama in homes as parents strictly enforce the unreasonable demands of their children’s schools. Parents may think it is their duty, but I think it is a parents’ duty to do what is best for their kids, even if that means telling schools NO!
Schools are overworking our kids, highjacking their childhoods, and as a result making kids hate “learning.” Schools have no right to demand such extreme devotion; they are overstepping their bounds.
There are better things our kids could do with their free-time after school.
As I said in Revealing School, “Parents shouldn’t allow children to do homework until the more important matters of life are taken care of. Instead of asking, “Have you done your homework?” start with: Have you read your Bible today? Have you loved someone today? Have you said your prayers? Have you called your Grandmother lately? Time is so short and children grow so fast. Do not allow them to waste their entire childhood in the vain pursuit of “good” grades!”
Do you have any limits on homework?
Learn what school is really all about!
“…because THEIR simply isn’t enough time in the day”
That’s why we need homework.
Leah, actually I did plenty of homework in school…and see, it didn’t help. I still make basic errors. At any rate thank you for pointing it out. Hope it did not trip you up too much, and you were still able to understand what was meant.
LoL! Touche!
My 2nd grader gets home at 4:20 each day and usually has spelling words to practice, sometimes reading, and occasionally math. Thankfully, I think we have a lighter load than a lot of families, but even so, it’s frustrating to spend so much time after school working with him on homework because as soon as he’s done, I have to start working on dinner, then we eat and it’s time to start getting ready for bed. There really isn’t enough time in the day!
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Thanks for sharing your experience Judy. I think that is what most parents feel like.
Although, I see your point a LOT! I also think that if you try and buck the system to much with not giving your child the chance to do their homework or encouraging him to do it, you’re doing him a major injustice.
Here’s why:
1.) He will get dinged in school for it big time. Especially in the society we live in.
2.) He won’t really have the chance to learn the material that is given to him because gosh knows teachers are having to cram in a lot in a day and they have to assign the homework so that the student has a fighting chance at learning the material. (Teachers have literally become a glorified babysitter from what I’ve seen in our local school systems.)
3.) If you want to install him those wonderful values and morals, you may want to consider homeschooling him. He can still be a part of those school programs (i.e. sports, and any other aspect that the public school offers.) Then his schedule is based off of your terms.
4.) Our kids need to get use to working long hours because in just about every job they are going to obtain in the future is going to require them.
I clearly see your point, and I lived through it when my kids were attempting to attend our local schools. I felt your frustration just as much! I had to do it with multiple kids and it did shock me how much homework the kids would bring home each day starting in the early grades.
Then I whined to a teacher friend of mine, and she pointed out all of the same things I just did to you. If I want my child to be successful and have fighting chance at keeping up I knew I had to make some changes. Hence why we homeschool. There are still days when we have a LONG day filled with school work, but there is a LOT of flexibility.
I feel for you. It’s always a tough decision and a hard one.
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I think that parents just should help kids with homework, since overall performance is still importan. I have recently read that kids helped with homework by their parents are more successful at studying and show more interest in it. here are some other interesting facts about parental involvement in studies.
http://www.homework-desk.com/blog/parents_helping_kids_wtih_hw_/
Great article. I Like to read such articles.Students can get professionalhomework help from allhomeworkhelp.com to write an awesome article.
Yes, I’m a Tutor. Parents should allow their children to do homework. Parents can help their kids if necessary or if the kid must need help. Start motivating your kids. If will boost kid mind with self confidence. Also, I’m sugessting you “Some Effective Suggestions to Know How to Concentrate on Homework” It will help you and you will help your kid. Thanks
Homework is the base that sharpens student’s skills. It strengthen your analytical and decision making qualities. So, parents should allow them to bear the load of homework.
I think my daughter has a lot of homework. She is in Kindergarten and has anywhere from 3-5 separate assignments a night. It can take anywhere from half an hour to an hour and a half. I believe it’s excessive.
I agree that students get too much homework. I remember my own miserable school days. In grade school, homework usually took from the time I got home to dinner time. This left no free time for me. I feel like homework robbed me of a good amount of my childhood. Things only got worst with middle school and high school. Homework took from when school ended to bed time. I remember one time in high school, I had a lot of homework from all my classes. I realized that I could not finish it all by bedtime. I chose to focus my energy on the homework from the classes where my grade was weak and I need the points from the homework assignments to pass. I worked all evening until I noticed it was 9p.m. at night. I had one more assignment for religion class. I decided that homework was not worth losing sleep over, and since I already had an “A” in religion class that missing one homework assignment would be fine. My religion teacher scolded me the next day over not doing the assignment, I explained why I had chose not to do the homework. She went on to lecture how her class was just as important as the others. Today as an adult, I still think I made the right decision. Missing one homework assignment was not going to cause me to fail the class and getting adequate sleep was more important.
Kids already spend many hours in school, allowing them to have free time when they get home is beneficial. Nobody wants to spend hours at a desk studying a variety of subjects and then come home to do more class work. Students have lives outside of school. School should not consume their whole day, and students shouldn’t have to pull all nighters to finish the assignments on time. I am all for pushing for schools and colleges to assign less homework and having homework free nights.
Many homework assignments are useless. Take college and high school essays for instance. Most students struggle and loose sleep over them, turn them into the professor for a grade, and never look at them again. How many people get jobs writing essays. Homework doesn’t sharpen students skills, its busy work that takes up the whole afternoon/evening and in some cases the whole night. The time spent on homework would be better spent on gaining life skills and work experiences. When a person applies for a job, an employer doesn’t look at his or her homework assignments. What matters is if the person has the skill set and work experience to qualify for the job.