What is wrong with the statement "My child gets hours worth of homework"?

Like, grammatically? It should be ”...gets hours’ worth…”

No, not gramattically.

As a child I just told my dad that, ” I didn’t have any homework”, or , “its already done”. Or my special “My assignment is to write about a television show” Homework should all be positive or extra credit.

I see nothing wrong with that statement. Are you referring to the fact that the child has homework, or maybe “hours” is too much?

When my grandson does his homework by himself, he takes hours, but when I sit down and have him read the questions/problems to me, it takes between 20 and 30 minutes.

@YARNLADY Yes! How much time homework or any given task takes depends on all kinds of things, like daydreaming or stopping to chat on the phone with a friend, ,to play a game, etc. I think the parents in general may just be counting the number of hours the child is away in his/her room with the books etc. in front of them

@flo Teachers these days give children and parents an expectation of how long assignments “should” take. It is a way for the child to be aware of how much time to commit before they start their homework, and is also an indicator to the parent if the child is struggling with a subject.

The times are usually based on the work of an average student doing grade level work.

My children were told to expect ten minutes of math for each year, so a fifth grader would be expected to take about fifty minutes doing math homework each Monday through Thursday. And the teachers also let parents know how much time other assignments should take.

What else can you measure homework in besides hours? I think it’s fine to count lapses of concentration in with time spent working on homework because, realistically, no student is going to be 100% focused all the time while working.

Is it like, hours every night after school? How many hours? 2? 3?

My daughter has gotten about 1 to 3 hours/night of homework every year since kindergarten. She’s just started 8th grade today. Monday through Thursday mostly. Rarely over the weekend.

Over the summer, they even get 3 to 4 books to read (and write reports about) and a 20-page math packet to complete.

Is it too much? Sometimes it feels that way, but she usually breezes through it. Math is where she struggles and it slows down.

I didn’t have much homework after school, growing up. Gosh, they’re already in school 7+ hours per day. Having 1 to 3 hours after school is an 8 to 10+ hour day. That’s too much for a kid, IMO.

If they get too little homework ot no homework, at all like a teacher said http://www.ksat.com/education/too-much-homework-not-in-this-class-none-at-all-none-all-year_ then what is the difference between that and not practicing piano or whatever else people learn.
@zenvelo if it’s the average then that would make sense.
@Dutchess_III But the 7 hours includes recess, lunch time, gym, right? I don’t think those are stressfull or “stressfull”.

@flo An 8 hour day for an adult also considers breaks and lunch time and other down time. For an adult a 10 hour day would be stressful, not to mention for children.

I think the biggest purpose for homework is to hopefully get the parents involved. What good does homework do if, for whatever reason, the student didn’t master the concept the first time, and there is no one there to help him?

I think 30 minutes to an hour is plenty.

@Dutchess_III But where do you get 30 minutes from? That must be for exceptional students, 30 minutes for all the subjects. For students of what grade? And how do you know it’s laziness on the teachers’ part that talks like the teacher in my link?

@flo Where do you get the idea they have to review every single subject covered during the day, every day? No elementary teacher would do that to their kids. Mostly they have math or spelling homework, or none at all.

In the grades where they alternate teachers, the teachers get together and coordinate homework assignments so the kids aren’t over loaded.

Even in HS, if I had homework at all, it was easily finished in an hour.

@Dutchess_III Is it better to have to cram at test exam time then? No it’s better to get it in the brain on a daily basis.
By the way I meant: And how do you know it’s not laziness on the teachers’ part that talks like the teacher in my link?

And re. “What good does homework do if, for whatever reason, the student didn’t master the concept the first time, and there is no one there to help him?” By the way there,s the family members to help them. That’s part of quality time with family Or ese , how would they siolve the problem? How would they know what question to ask the teacher or others without the homework?

Sigh. @flo read the entire paragraph. I said “I think the biggest purpose for homework is to hopefully get the parents involved.”. However, most of the parents don’t get involved.

@Dutchess_III I think the purpose of homework is to have the students master the material/s with or without help of family members

If I go by the teacher I would believe it’s only one, or the other, family time, or homework (the evil homework) time. You can repsond to my questions in my last post if you want.
Do you mean you’re against giving things a chance to sink in on a daily basis, (not just spelling and math) and also knowing what one doesn’t get in order to present questions to teacher or tutor etc.?

Do you have any idea how frustrating it would be to try and understand concept that you didn’t understand to begin with at school, at home, by yourself, with no one to help?

Tell you what. Here is your math homework for tonight. I’ll give you one hint: PEMDAS.
Anyone who has graduated from High School should be able to figure it out.

You can ask for help all you want but everyone will be too busy or just don’t really care enough to help you, even though you really, really want to understand.

@Dutchess_III So how does no homework or very littel homework help anything? If the teacher didn’t teach well enough it in class then the teacher is not competent enough. But how is demonizing school / homework or the teachers that do give homework help? “Yay no school!” “Yay snow day!” Yay no homework! Some parents talk like that to children. If I can do the math there in your post is it because I did get a lot of homework or not?

Depends on the kid, really. If a child is having trouble mastering the concept then hopefully someone at home can and will help.

The teacher can teach her heart out, but there are some kids who just won’t get it. My son never “got” spelling. We spent an hour every night before his spelling tests, finding tricks and ways to spell that list of words right. The times he got 100% were as much of a celebration for me as it was to him.
My middle daughter, on the other hand, “gets” spelling. She doesn’t even have to think about it.

Hell, when I was a kid, if the school didn’t call a snow day on a day that had great snow, my MOM would call a snow day for us!

FWIW, as a recent student, I’d say homework is very necessary, but there should be more of a balance. In high school, taking all the honor’s classes, I was typically doing homework from the time I got home at 3 or 4 (if I stayed after for extracurriculars) until 8 or 9, which was awful. School stress was actually harmful to my health in high school, and that’s obviously a problem. But without being made to get through work on my own, I never would have been able to learn some of the math and science I did. In those subjects I really learn best by doing problems – teacher can explain the concepts till she’s blue in the face but it doesn’t fully click till I put it into practice on my own. What drove me nuts was the hours and hours of mandatory note taking from the textbook that my history teachers would assign. I would lose focus like crazy due to the dryness of the material and it just went on and on.

@flo Just wondering if you noticed that the teacher in question is talking to her second grade parents. She is not saying anything about upper level students.

My grandsons receive a homework packet for the summer of the assignments they worked on during the school year. This year it contained two pages a day for the weekdays of the summer. I have written a note on some of them that the assignment required too much supervision.

The boys attend a start up school. The oldest one started in kindergarten, and the school grows by a grade each year. The amount of homework has changed over the last 4 years, less and less, due to parent input.

@flo How much homework did your kids have, and did you help them with it?

I believe that homework is not good for children in K to 5th grade. Period. It hangs over their heads when they should be playing games (read learning) or having fun playing outside (read growing healthy bodies). Of course, if the alternative is sitting and watching TV after school, then that is not what I mean. But to correct that is not to give homework, but to not allow TV at all during the week.
I do think that some homework might be good if there is some actual new information being presented in school and the child is interested in following up on that. This could happen in middle school, and one hopes in high school.

And @skfinkel is a parenting expert.

Well, I guess I screwed up helping me son with his spelling homework all of his elementary years. I should have stormed the teacher and bitched instead, took a stand and all. That would have done my son a lot of good.

If all teachers are beyond great, and all the students are in the genius plus terretory, then what?

“If all teachers are beyond great, and all the students are in the genius plus terretory, then what?” Where did that come from @flo? Nobody said all teachers are great and all students are geniuses.

@Dutchess_III I never claimed anyone did.

So where did that comment come from?

I think two pages of homework per week day over summer vacation is excessive, @YARNLADY.

@Dutchess_III: There’s a happy medium that does not involve storming in and bitching. Gently bringing it up via email, note, phone call or visit to the teacher to discuss and hear the teacher’s views and maybe swaying her to yours is an option. If the child’s homework is excessive and the teacher is not open to suggestions or changes, it can always be brought up to the principal but in a way that does not seem like or involve storming in or bitching.

@jca The two pages consisted of one page of reading, with two questions about the story, and one page of math with anywhere from 3 to 10 questions.

@YARNLADY: For every week night in the summer, I think that’s a lot of work. Do you think so too?

@jca You completely missed the point of my post. Please read all the words “Well, I guess I screwed up helping me son with his spelling homework all of his elementary years. I should have stormed the teacher and bitched instead, took a stand and all. That would have done my son a lot of good.”
I had no desire to storm the school and bitch because my son had to practice his spelling. I helped him with it.

You should also know me well enough that storming the school and bitching is not my style.

@Dutchess_III: I know you didn’t storm and bitch. I could tell you were being sarcastic. You were referring to the other extreme. I’m pointing out that there’s a happy medium that doesn’t have to be storming and bitching.

I am aware of that @jca.

I’ve been thinking about homework for 4 days now! I just don’t remember having homework as a kid. The only “homework” I can think of were assignments given in class that, for whatever reason, the kid couldn’t finish in that time, so they had to take it home to finish, and turn it in the next day.
I asked Rick. He said he doesn’t really remember homework either. He said if he had any he always got it done really quick, the next morning, before school.

I’ve been reading things lately about that there’s a movement to abolish homework.

I feel like for little kids (elementary school age), the parents get stuck dealing with the homework. Yes, it’s important for kids to learn the routine and get used to homework and studying at home but the parents really get stuck monitoring it, helping with it and making sure it’s done. Class projects, same thing.

See, “parents getting stuck” is just the wrong attitude. Parents are interacting with their kids when they help with their education. Gosh, they have the time to run them here and there and everywhere, but spending 30 minutes a couple of evenings a week to get involved is getting “stuck”?

@Dutchess_III: I agree with what you said but there are those who have more homework than they can handle. Kids who are in 4th grade and 5th grade whose parents have told me they have hours of homework every night.

See, I feel that’s just wrong. If any of my kid’s elementary teacher actually assigned hours worth of homework I’d find out why.

Yes parents interacting with their children whether it’s homework related or not is quality time. They are helping them not repeat a grade or be depressed, get to paasing grade into college etc. So, how can a parent be against the interest of their child by demonizing homework?

The amount of homework in @YARNLADY ‘s post is looks ok, unless the parent preferes the child to do house chores that they themselves should do. or unless the parent/s underestimates the potential and shouldn’t even be in school at all.

Do people think of getting rid of a road just because there are potholes on it? If there’s too much homework all that needs to be done is reduce it to a reasonable amount.

What on earth are you talking about, @flo?

Correction typo…
1)...By demonizing homework, and teachers who give homework are working against the interest of their children, they’re reducing their chances of them getting the pasing grade into college etc.

2)....unless the parent preferes the child to do house chores that they themselves should do, or unless the parent/s underestimates the potential of the child and shouldn’t even be in school at all, or other reasons.

Who has been demonizing homework? I don’t have a problem with homework. I have a problem with hours of homework every night for elementary students (especially.)

Children should do their share of household chores. That has nothing to do with anything at all.

It’s the law that children have to go to school. There is no child, no matter how unintelligent, who doesn’t go to school.

The word hours is relative, subjective, and I don’t know what else. If the parent is too busy doing a ton of their own job related work, to help the child, they are going to convince him/herself that it’s the homework that is too much, (even if it’s not really) not the job realted work that’s too much.

@Dutchess_III I’m not talking about you, considering your post above:

“See, “parents getting stuck” is just the wrong attitude. Parents are interacting with their kids when they help with their education. Gosh, they have the time to run them here and there and everywhere, but spending 30 minutes a couple of evenings a week to get involved is getting “stuck”?”
Re. the other 2 items you can reread my post, you’re missing a word or 2. I’m referring to attitudes (not the law) of some parents, re. underesatimating the potential of the child.
And re. the chores, I’m referring to, the parents chore, not the child’s chore. “They themselves should do”, as I wrote, meaning if the parents prefers the child to wash the kitchen floor…

Well, I always let them wash the kitchen floor after they were done with their homework.

@Dutchess_III I laughed out loud!

Good! :D :D

My kids did, probably, 75% of the house work. Because they made 90% of the messes.

@jca The two pages turned out to be exactly the right amount. I usually let them postpone part of the work until the weekend.

I think two pages of homework per week night in the summer is a bit much. Most schools I’ve attended and my daughter attends ask you to read a handful of books over the summer and write a short synopsis on each. My daughter’s 9 and for her, the reading log allows for about 3 sentences per book. That’s reasonable. I think daily HW in the summer in the form of pages of work s kind of mean, even if it can be put off till the weekend.

I think it’s kind of mean too. When I was little, and when even my kids were little, we were never assigned homework beyond the end of the year. When we were done with 4th grade, we were done. Done. Done. Done. Time to spend all day, every day at the pool or in the woods or whatever.

Now, every year the library would put on a reading competition thing. But since I loved to read, that was just icing on the cake.

@jca They were enrolled in a College Prep Academy Charter School which begins preparing them for college from kindergarten. It worked out for both of them for several years, but the older one (age 9) chose to homeschool this year.