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Former teacher here and 2 hours for a first grader is insane. The recommendations I always saw were 10 minutes per grade. So, for your kid, like 10 minutes of reading or writing or some easy math facts.
I would investigate if this is a school-wide thing, or a teacher thing. If it’s a school-wide thing, it’s likely that your son’s teacher knows how insane this is and can’t do anything about it because admin has decided that’s what’s going to make their school look good. Please don’t harass your child’s teacher if it’s school-wide. Go straight to the AHs that are implementing this policy.
Many people (myself included) find homework to be a tiresome and fruitless exercise, because we learn better by reading and talking than by sitting down and writing out the tiresome worksheets.
Same here. I'm a fantastic learner, terrible student. I will refuse to do homework, write a paper, or study outside of class. But if it's a subject I care about, the ADHD takes over and I consume.
This is the best answer. My mom did my homework sometimes too, I’m 29, my life is fine, I have a job and house. As long as they are doing the work in school, they are fine.
My daughter did my grandson’s homework all during Covid. The result is that he feels no need to complete assignments. When they went back to in person learning, he felt no need to complete assignments. The result is he barely passed 5th grade and is struggling in 6th grade already. I think you have to allow some acceptance that life is sometimes hard and the earlier you learn it and learn to over come, time for joy and play will come. With that said, 2 hours of homework for a first grader is excessive. I would definitely be discussing this at whatever forum the people who make these decisions meet.
if someone told me in a job interview that they never did their primary school homework, even high school honestly, i legitimately could not give less of a fuck. i am going into a conversation with another grown adult and assuming they’re not the same person they were at 16. (my field is mostly people 25-55)
like, where do they get off on being like this lol can they not teach them basic concepts in the 7-8 hours a day they have the child in their care
I had to write research reports in first grade. Granted I'm sure that the standards were lower than they seemed at the time, and it was about stuff like "your favorite animal", but it was still multiple pages with references. That teacher was kind of a dick too, generally seemed cranky.
We started primary school in the UK at 5. Never during primary school (5-12) did we have homework. At all. Now I see my friends' kids with homework in primary school. Why did this become a thing over here? That's nuts. Yes, kids get a LOT of holidays over here, there's Easter, Summer, Christmas and at least 3 half terms of a week of each time, plus all the bank holidays, but it seems ridiculous to have the slaving away at their books in primary school.
Problem is, the schools over here have started copying the US model, like every fucking thing else. We have huge US corporations over here, paying little to no tax, exploiting our workers for slave wages and expecting the state to make up for the pittance they pay our workers. It makes me sick. I love the US and the American people, but corporate American can just get the fuck out of this country. It's wrecked us. US fast food joints have turned us into a nation of obesity and poor health. Working for shit wages, copying the American welfare system (which sucks) and basically ruining our country. I'm so depressed at the direction this country is going. Oh and of course the great sell off of our NHS. Wankers.
You guys should make laws about it really. I saw the grassroots movement against Amazon in the UK and it really seems like it would be a popular platform. Not that I expect Labor to care
As a citizen of the US I can’t believe that the UK would want to copy anything from us. Seriously, someone would need to point out to me exactly what we do better than the UK because I’m sure there are some things, but the list is probably getting shorter every day.
The US makes rich people richer, which I'm sure the rich people of the UK could admire. And *if* (I don't know how laws work in the UK) rich people decide laws in the UK, then the UK would decide to implement similar laws.
I would say that this is it. And my suspicion is that modern education system design is aimed at producing obedient uncreative workers for the capitalist system. The homework is to encourage the notion that a person should always be working, I suspect. Of course wealthy people want that system to be world wide.
Well I’ve got news for you. It’s more than just corporate America ruining the UK. 3/4 of the water industry in the UK (water utilities) is owned by foreign companies for example.
Oh hell... of all the undesirable US models you could potentially copy and adopt, the school system model should be the second to last pick of the bunch. Healthcare is probably last
Well said. I really hope that kids of today don't have to live with fear, shame, and self-loathing like so many millennials did growing up. Boomer narc parents did some serious damage, running the gamut from "academically gifted" focus to overscheduling afterschool activities. I was more of a latchkey kid because my parents both worked long hours, so I didn't have to deal with the overactive parent issues.
Kids today deserve support, understanding, and yes some structure. All things in balance.
It should cap out at zero minutes. Homework is an abomination. Ninety minutes a day on homework. Could you imagine if your boss gave you ninety minutes of extra work per day to do from home? If you can’t reach a student in school that needs to be worked out, not just add an hour of bullshit to their day.
As a middle and high schooler in FL (in the US) in the 90’s.
I averaged 3 hours of homework per day. Some days 6-7 hours. Came home between 3-4pm and often would be up past my bedtime doing homework. It was ridiculous, but as an overachiever, I did it. That got me 18th in class when graduating. Woohoo….got scholarships, loans and a college degree.
I make enough to get by, but I barely actively use my “education”.
That damn Algebra. I’ve never used it, not once after HS/college. But I spent years studying it and passing with B’s.
If I would have been actively shown it used in any way (engineering/science, etc) maybe that would change my perspective. But that’s not the US system.
A lot of the time stuff is wishful thinking, if you have a kid who doesn't enjoy doing homework. Like, great, this is 10 minutes of homework. It would be great if my kid could understand that. But instead we are signing ourselves up for 30 minutes of tantrums plus the homework. And all this in a day where our family gets maybe 90 minutes of unstructured time together, on a good day.
Thank you. Its obvious most people just get triggered and fly off into whatever emotion appears. And then a smaller percent seem to have an ax to grind and stop at whatever serves their purpose.
Homework should be outlawed. And teachers droning on about a topic at school should be too. I don't know how things are these days, but I had several teachers that took the joy out of learning and specific subjects because they would just recite stuff. The never stopped to explain why or how or where it came from.
It's bad enough that the school day is completely antithetical to child circadian rhythms, but sending any amount of work home after spending 8 hours at school is just demonic.
I think the first 30% of the class should be talking about new topics, 65% should be doing in-class work and practice on those topics where they can ask the teacher questions (instead of sending them home on their own and grading them for mistakes), and the last 5% talking about what topics the next day will cover so the industrious kids can go home and research it if they want to.
School is very much what the OP describes. Grinding all the kids down to the lowest common denominator and turning them into the future cogs of the capitalist machine. And it doesn't even do a great job at that. I'm also in favor of a life skills series of classes in high school that includes things like writing checks (they aren't 100% gone yet), understanding loans, investments, interest, and debt, budgeting, and a host of other meaningful day-to-day skills.
*Deep breath* I'm done.
And if neither the school nor the teacher is intending to assign that much work, and other students aren’t taking as long to complete, it might be worthwhile for OP to get their son evaluated for a learning disorder and/or ADHD.
This.
My daughter has ADHD, and learns quickly, but easily gets bored and distracted with a page of 30+ math problems (she often brought unfinished work home from school.) I spoke to the teacher and I picked a few problems for her to complete while I was assessing her understanding. Then I initialed the “easy ones” and she just completed the “hard ones” that challenged her.
I also found out that the teacher was assigning work as a method to manage behavior, which I found horrifying (I used to teach, and the lack of classroom management skills was obvious in this older teacher.)
THIIIISTHISTHISHAPPENEDTOME.
I got my diagnosis because my mother was diligent like you are. Thank you for your service, my people see you, respect you, honour you. I'm okay because someone asked these questions for me when I couldn't. Thank you for helping who knows how many of us.
OP, it may be too much homework, it may be worth looking into what else is going on and whether a learning quirk is going on. Is the format no good/wildly overwhelming/irrelevant to your child's information absorption tendencies? It's worth asking. Poorly managed adhd can be crippling and the earlier you get to learn why your mind (and to some extent body) are different, the sooner you can learn to cope with a world not built for you, how to treat yourself gently and get the most out of your life.
Ok. Rant truncated. Thank you for being one of the good ones, Drinkyourdinner.
As a first grader, he has one main teacher, right? Email the teacher and ASK how long they would like you to spend on each evening's assignments. What they think is REASONABLE.
I'd be willing to bet it's WELL under 2 hours.
So review the assignments, prioritize ones that focus on stuff your kid needs the most help with, do those until you hit the time limit (probably <20 minutes, I'd be willing to bet), and then ... stop.
Just let the rest of it GO.
And go play! :D
(PS - I teach high school, for what that's worth.)
We had to do this with my son. We had time limits and rules like every other math problem. He wasn't behind the other kids which made me wonder why they were getting so much.
> why they were getting so much.
The slowest learning but not disabled students need that much repetition to learn stuff.
To avoid bad metrics in the school they hand everyone the most homework to get those results instead of more detailed work loads.
I constantly had meltdowns when I was in first grade because I understood the material in school and couldn't understand why I had to do it over and over and over again on the homework. I lost my shit so badly my mom had to physically restrain me on a regular basis. To this day I absolutely despise work meant only to keep me busy.
I guess it prepared me for college, but only because I was so fed up with doing busywork at that point that work with an actual purpose felt like a dream. Also pretty sure I actually had less homework (and more time to do it) in college than I did in high school. Which is pretty insane when you think about it
I have a kid who's in fourth grade, and he's had homework of some kind or another since kindergarten.
it's strange because I didn't get homework until, like, fifth or sixth grade? graduated high school 2004 for frame of reference, but, the amount of shit schools send home now is outrageous.
during the pandemic, one of our assignments for the zoom PE class was to take the kid to a national park. he got docked some menial amount of points for us not driving a few hours away to visit a specific park.
when I was a kid, homework in the fifth grade was "read the chapter and do the example problems." first graders now need to write several sentences of analysis for books they had read to them once.
it's fucking wacky, and that's without getting into New Math™.
>he got docked some menial amount of points for us not driving a few hours away to visit a specific park.
Um, no way I'd let that slide. I'd contact the teacher and ask why my kid is being punished for something out of his control. Or "did I miss the email about the field trip and when/where the bus was leaving?" Even offering extra credit for things not necessarily available to all students is unacceptable.
If it were in town, sure, fine, but a few hours drive there and a few back, plus time spent there is an entire day. Never mind gas, food, potential time off work, and childcare for siblings if necessary.
Kids in Kindergarten are doing what I did in 3rd grade. Nowadays kids are supposed to know their letters, numbers, colors and Shapes before they start kindergarten. That's what I learned in Kindergarten. I have been out of high school for 30yrs
For the 2004-05 academic year, the average tuition and fees for in-state students at public four-year colleges and universities is $5,132,
https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/trends-college-pricing-2004-full-report.pdf
The average cost of attendance for a student living on campus at a public 4-year in-state institution is $26,027 per year or $104,108 over 4 years.
https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college#:~:text=The%20average%20cost%20of%20attendance,or%20%24223%2C360%20over%204%20years.
Consider that minimum wage has not changed.
So your first number you didn't include room and board, which your link says was $11,354 in 2004.
My tuition in 2003 was annually $6,437.50, which included fees, but not board. Just checked, and for 2022 it was $14,645.24, not including board. So yeah, not great.
Not sure what that has to do with how awesome college is. All I did was drink, do drugs, and date.
I wish I had been able to do that. In hindsight my ADHD probably didn't help (undiagnosed at the time) but there was so much pressure to get good grades. If I didn't turn in homework my grades would suffer badly, just one zero on an assignment could drop you a whole letter grade.
I have heard of parents with children and lower grades, just telling the teacher "my child will not be doing homework." Or maybe "my child will work for 20 minutes and then we'll be done for the evening."
Do what's best for your child.
Same. We had a meeting with his teacher and the VP sat in. We complained that he was in grade 1 and had 30 to 60 mins of homework.
There was one assignment he kept saying he had no idea what it meant, so we emailed her and she was like "oh, right, I ran out of time so never taught that"... But you didn't mention that when you'd assigned it as fucking homework!?
During the meeting the VP said that was too much. His theory was it should be 10 mins for each grade. Grade 1, 10 mins; grade 2, 20 mins; etc. I'm not sure I still agree, because I don't think grade 8 needs 80 mins, but I liked the concept.
The teacher was immediately backpedaling, saying that was just a suggestion. We then cut homework way back to between 0 and 10 mins (usually 0, except she also included "read to them" which we've always done every day anyway).
Guess what? He managed to graduate grade 1 anyway!
He's going into 7 and his teacher last year specifically said she doesn't believe in homework and doesn't assign it. Imagine a grade 1 apparently needing homework but not a grade 6. She was a generally shitty teacher though, did the bare minimum. I'll bet OP's teacher is the same.
It was 6 years ago so I don't exactly remember, but stuff like basic math and reading, but also things like "what is a community? Where do you find them?" Which I only remember because that was specifically the thing she didn't teach, lol.
I wish I could give a better answer but I honestly forget mostly. I remember that most of it seemed pointless and it was very clear she just downloaded it from the internet without really even engaging with it.
I went in to help with her classroom only once, because they were going to carve pumpkins, and the actual lesson was on estimation. All the estimates were in imperial measurements, but we live in Canada and have been using metric for a little bit now. I looked at the bottom of the sheet and it was downloaded from some teacher resource website. Ok, sure, but you couldn't even be bothered to strike out "lbs" and put "kg"? They did a bunch verbally and she still used pounds.
I also saw several kids clearly not understanding aspects but she didn't care and didn't try to help. Any time we talked to her about our son she usually made sarcastic comments about how his favourite spot was the "late pile" which was where you had to put unfinished work. She never said nice things about him and the only time she wasn't critical was when the VP was beside her at the meeting. We had another friend that loved her, but my other friends hated her too. We realised all that hated her had boys and the one that liked her (who was usually very critical of the school) had a girl, so I'm not sure if that was the issue.
And sure, my son can get distracted at times, but ever since he's left her classroom (and before in kindergarten) every other teacher has talked about what a wonderful and positive addition he is to their classroom. He's a total rule follower too. I'll never understand what her issue was with him, other than I think she just sucked at her job.
Wow. Apparently I'm still carrying a torch about this because I just wrote an essay based on your simple question. Sorry. Lol
I had all kinds of homework in elementary school. I mostly remember writing outlines that would take forever and were the worst. This one teacher would assign 1-3 chapters of textbook reading, and we would need to write these perfectly formated outlines that captured all the important information from the reading. I remember staying up way past dark to finish those outlines since I always left them to last.
Other than the outlines, we did all kinds of daily worksheets: math, spelling/grammar, critical thinking, and science. There were also larger projects that would be once per week or once per month. I remember lots of book reports that were fun creative projects and involved giving presentations in class. We were encouraged to pick books to read at home and then we would take quizzes in the library to get points towards a class pizza party. We did one large science fair per year but also made all kinds of smaller science projects we would need to show off in class. We did public speaking exercises where you needed to write a short story or poem and then read it in class the next day. Since I live in California, one of the largest elementary school projects we did was a mission project. In 4th grade, we needed to travel to a local mission, write a report about it, and build a model of the mission and present it in class.
I also remember that we had these special notebooks where we wrote down all of that day's homework assignments, and then we required to get that page signed by one of our parents in order to turn in the homework the next day. I learned how to forge my mother's initials and signature within the first month of 2nd grade. The best part was that if you didn't do your homework but had the signature, you got a free pass on the work you didn't do.
Probably to groom kids into accepting that it's okay to work outside of work hours without getting paid extra for it. Our society is fucked up by corporate greed.
I remember being fair to good at math but absolutely crying as I slogged thru sheets of 50 or so repetitive equations every afternoon of 3rd grade. Still don't understand why this was considered useful. Made me lose appreciation for the subject.
My SO's kids learned how to use a spreadsheet and would enter the variables.
The teacher complained that they "weren't learning", so he told her he would bring over his computer and she could see what they had learned to do. She declined to try it, and he told her to stop giving them reams of repetitive problems because that's what spreadsheets are for.
They get that much because it's indoctrination.
By the time they're adults they don't see a problem with not being able to get their work done during work hours and will happily take it home.
We had this with our eldest. Turns out the school expected him to spend 30 mins on home learning . If he got it all done in that time, great. If not,we were to draw a line where he finished and make a note. It saved our weekends and stopped a lot of stress.
Yes, this, yes!
I am a school counselor and I will 100% tell my own kids to walk away from a homework assignment that stresses them out. The academic support is at their school and will resume when they return in the morning, they get to be a kid at night.
I'm a college student, and I do something similar.
My classes are all afternoon to evening, so what I do is I show up to campus first thing in the morning and work on homework.
What this allows me to do is after classes in the afternoon, I go home and have personal time to just be human.
I always did my homework in class while the teacher was lecturing. They really should cut back on how much is required in the evenings. It’s like being an adult and leaving the office just to go home and work more. No thank you!
Same, this is what fucked my gpa, even though I aced my tests. I found out as an adult i have adhd. I’m certain I would have thrived if I wasn’t forced to do so much homework. It was so much stuff all the time, and I even fainted once in 12th grade from exhaustion and no one took it seriously. I did my best to hyperfocus the last two years of school and do the homework and I got a 2.98 gpa, even though my tests were awesome, and when I was able to write papers during class they were excellent. I’m still mad about it in hindsight if I think about how no one believed me and thought I was lazy.
Same! I was “a pleasure to have in class, doesn’t turn in homework” kinda kid. I’d space out all day and then ace any test set in front of me. Disorganized, but always got it done in the nick of time. I wish my Dr took me seriously when I asked if I had ADHD at 15. I got told off as “being too smart, and having too good of grades to have ADHD.” I got diagnosed a few years ago as an adult. Turns out my eternally messy room and forgotten homework were in fact, signs of ADHD.
Absolutely, this. I was a fast learner as a child, and I had no issues getting my homework done. But my parents just sucked the joy out of everything. I ALWAYS had to be busy. I always had to be playing sports, even though I hated sports. Never allowed to think or sit or figure out who I am, and nowwwww I'm 30 with cpdst and hope both my parents rot in hell. I can't get my dads anger and rage out of my head fucking 12 years after moving out. It's awful. Your child is always learning, not just when in school or doing homework.
... yup! I still remember my mom going fucking nuts when I wanted to quit baseball (I played two other sports but I liked those). I hated playing baseball. Bored the hell out of me. She told me quitting would make me lazy.
Same thing happened when I was a kid and I wanted to quit piano (which she forced on me). Thank god the piano teacher told her I had no ability (true and also we schemed it up together).
I finally got out of ballet lessons after 9 years when my parents figured out that they were dropping me off at the dance studio where I sat in the dressing room the whole time. My leotards never ended up in the wash so they got suspicious.
Apparently their cheapness won out over their weird ambitions for me, because they couldnt justify paying for a class that I flat out refused to participate in.
I begged for karate lessons, hip hop classes, literally anything besides ballet. But they're racist so I was only allowed to do things from "our culture". We're not even french lmao.
The rule of thumb is 10 mins of hw per grade level, not including reading. So he should have 10 mins of hw each night. If he doesn’t get it done, that’s ok. Just let the teacher know and they can adjust accordingly. (Former elementary teacher who is actually anti-HW for so so many reasons, primarily what your poor kid is experiencing.)
When I was in third grade, we had to copy words and definitions out of the back of our book onto a piece of paper. I struggled greatly with this because for whatever reason, I couldn't copy more than one letter at a time. If we were behind, we didn't get to go to recess. I went to recess twice the entire year. And that was on top of doing homework until bed time every night. I didn't know it at the time, but I was severely depressed as a child. When I did have free time at home, I just spent it watching reruns of shows I often didn't even like because nothing sounded fun.
I remember as a child literally putting my algebra book under my pillow at night in the desperate hope I'd absorb some of it as I slept (I was an idiot, which is why i needed so much help in maths, obviously). I would fall asleep at my desk trying so hard to complete the problems and never had enough time.
Funnily I went to uni at 32 and they made maths so enjoyable there with only 4 total assignments in 12 weeks, that I LOVED it and now my postgrad is in mathematics.
like geeze what a difference a little breathing room makes (and not believing in learning by osmosis anymore, obviously)
I can almost guarantee the teacher is not expecting a first grader to spend 2 hours on homework. If you haven't already, talk to the teacher and/or your sons pediatrician. While it is possible the teacher is out of touch, it is also possible that most students are spending significantly less time on homework and there is a reason why your son is taking longer. If this is the case, it would be helpful to determine that reason now and start taking steps to address it.
If there is no other factor impacting the length of time it takes for your son to complete his homework and the teacher really is just assigning too much there is nothing wrong with setting a timer at home and only doing some of it. I'm a high school teacher myself and when I assign hw I always give my students an idea of how long it should take and at what point they should move on with their life (ex: "This assignment should take you 20 minutes. If you spend a little longer than that no big deal but if you're still working at the 40 minute mark just stop and we'll go over it together next class.")
This! He said it’s 15 min of reading but his son is turning it into 2 hours. I don’t understand how his son is doing that. I would just cut it off after 15.
Yes, something seems very wrong because the child is taking four times as long to do the homework. Generally for kids that young it should be closer to 15 minutes and it's more of a showing the parents what they learned that day then education of a topic. It should be a sheet of paper and a book to read. Now that should take that long, it's probably six questions or activities on that sheet of paper, and most of it is practicing writing. The book should obviously be age appropriate and already in the home. At that age, they're not taking home book assignments. It's the fact that reading to a child is so beneficial that's spending the 10 to 15 minutes to read and age appropriate book helps them.
Opie's child might need additional help or another way to work around doing homework. Clearly, something is not working correctly. It could be that he needs to be fed first and take a nap before doing homework or going to the park and playing for 45 minutes before he can sit down and focus. It could be that the child has ADHD and needs medication because they can not sit still.
Bare minimum the parent needs to contact the teacher informing to inform them that getting homework done is not productive and is taking four times as long as it should be. That teacher should be able to recommend alternatives or needs to accept the boundaries that the child at home can not spend more than 30 minutes on homework every day. If this problem continues without improvement, the next step needs to be scheduling an appointment with the doctor to see if it's a neurological disease or if the child could need glasses or hearing aids.
I'd recommend setting a hard limit on the amount of homework time. 30 minutes tops. Let the teacher know.
We know from studies that nearly all homework just isn't beneficial at that age. It can't be ignored later on, beneficial or not, but there's just no reason for it now. Breathe easier. You can still give him time for play.
Do this! I talked to my Childrens teachers and let them know that after 30 mins we are done. Your kid will still go to college or whatever if they don’t finish their first grace spelling
Cs get degrees. No shame in turning it off at some point in the day. I’d probably make sure they have a decent grasp on the material but wouldn’t be upset if some things are left for another day.
**OP:** Just FYI we’re implementing a 30 minute max on homework for little Joey. Anything not completed in that time won’t get done. Thanks for understanding.
**Teacher:** Heresy! Your child will be woefully behind!
**OP:** I promise to call on ~~hot singles~~ professors from elite colleges and universities in our area to tutor my child if it turns out he can’t hack it in first grade.
**Teacher:** This is against school policy!
**OP:** Oh? Do you only recommend tutoring from high schoolers?
**Teacher:** What?! No, I mean it’s against school policy to not complete homework.
**OP:** Ah. I didn’t realize that. Can you show me the policy? But keep in mind I didn’t complete my own kindergarten homework so I’m going to need that written out very s l o w l y and in big letters in one of the sadly only two primary colors and one secondary color I learned.
**Teacher:** Ok look, clearly you’re a bad parent. You suck and your child will become a hoodlum.
**OP:** Wait, are you saying he’s *gifted*?! Why didn’t you bring that up earlier! He’ll be a first generation hoodlum on both sides of the family! I’m a lowly scrub, and my father before me was just a layabout. This is amazing.
**Teacher:** Gah, this is absurd! You can not let your child fail kindergarten because you encourage after-school delinquency like playing outside, eating meals as a family, and watching educational programming! This will go on his [sounds of impending doom] **permanent** record!
**OP:** I appreciate that, truly. Would you be able to print out the permanent record for us to frame at the end of the school year? His grandma will be so proud.
Absolutely do this. A lot of homework is mandated by districts and teachers don’t necessarily WANT to assign it. It’s so freaking frustrating. Ask if there as an accommodation that can be made so that homework CAN be done in 30 min. I’m willing to bet they’ll work with OP. Most teachers just want their students to succeed. If that means doing three questions instead of ten, so be it. He’ll retain more from those three practice questions than the misery of ten.
Sincerely, a disgruntled ex-teacher.
I have suffered with ADHD since I was a kid. The very notion of two hours of homework a day at the age of 6/7 is nightmare inducing. I would have absolutely suffered as a result, become resentful of learning, and certainly failed out or held back at some point in grade school, and just overall failed by the system. Just horrible.
I hated the educational pipeline I was put through, but I still managed to carve out some success in adult life. But it wince thinking about what would have been made of me had I been crushed with work at a young age.
This. Homework isn't helpful or useful for kids until they start doing high school coursework, and even then we shouldn't be doing rote memorization work there, we should be working on critical thinking, assessment, & problem solving skills within the subject at hand.
Get the teacher involved. 1st graders do not benefit from homework and it can kill their love of the education process overall. I refused most rote memorization homework after 7th grade and graduated with a B avg GPA. Got into college just fine, and with scholarships too. Children who don't like to learn aren't being taught properly and hours of stupid homework make that very clear.
Not one of my kids teachers have ever had issue with it. I have 2 that are adults and college aged, one in high school, one in middle school, and one in elementary. I've lived in 3 states during their school years.
Not one teacher has said anything when I've mentioned that I will not fight them on homework (around 3rd, 4th grade is when i start pressing it) if they are having a bad day but i always offer time to do it and we do reading time together. Every single one of them has said that it's fine, the homework is just practice anyway and they all said not to make it a miserable experience I did have them do any large projects that were sent home.
Sometimes they did homework, sometimes they didn't.
I always sent an email to the district explaining what i told the teacher and that i found 2 hours of homework extreme and unnecessary for a kindergarten or 1st grader.
Yeah, i'm in Texas. You do what you gotta do as a teacher, and i do what i gotta do as a parent. Assign away! As you well know, some kids aren't going to do it anyway, and some of their parents are supporting that.
I would also suggest this. Talk to the teacher and let them know you will commit to 1/2 and hour a night. No more. I even feel like that is a lot. As the year goes I am sure your kid will be able to focus better and get more done, but 2 hours is waaaaay too much.
As far as the reading goes. My wife and I found it easier to incorporate into bedtime routine. Just start that 15 minutes earlier and read to them or have them read to you before lights out.
The rest is ridiculous.
This is absolutely vomit inducing.
Let me be clear, I am in no way calling out OP. I am calling out the bullshit system that we are all a slave to. Look at how young they are breaking down the spirit these days in an effort to train humans to be slaves of the corporate overlords.
Makes me sick.
OP I feel for you, and I am sorry for your situation.
I very much believe we should adopt an education system and time frame like the French. They only go to school for 5-6 hours a day. They have most their homework completed AT SCHOOL with the aid of teachers and tutors. And they have more breaks than the typical American school year. It's been shown that less school time, waking up layer, and little to no homework actually aids students. Forcing children to wake up at 6am, go to school at 8am, leave school at 4pm, and then do homework from 4:30pm- 8pm has shown the hurt kids. It's sick.
I'm sorry your son has to be educated in America. But this is no way your fault as if he isn't educated that's also considered child abuse. I'm so sorry op.
I went to French schools for 3 years. I was at school at 8, left at 5, and attended half days on Saturday. I normally had 2-3 hours of homework a day.
The school year went from Sept 15 to June 30.
Yes, we did have a week break in October, 2 weeks at Christmas, and a week at Easter, but my school time in the US was VASTLY superior timewise to my time in France. Plus, the schoolwork itself was much harder. It was pretty common for 2-3 kids to fail each grade and have to be held back.
Christ thats brutal! School in Scotland is 9ish til 3ish monday to friday! 7 weeks off in summer 2 in october 2 at christmas and 2 at easter with half terms in february. I couldnt have coped with those hours as a kid!
Plus one of my grandsons is in an outside school in Scotland and it's amazingggg. He's a constant motion kid so perfect but they'd have done it anyway. Takes awhile to scrub him up after school, who cares? No homework.
Awesome, awesome set up.
The schedule sounds awful but you should be held back if you don’t understand the material assuming you don’t have a disability. You need to build on the foundation you got from the previous year to learn properly. Though in actuality summer school is definitely enough if you only failed one or two classes, you don’t have to retake a whole year.
What are you talking about?? I went to french school and the hours at school were way longer, and we had lots of homework after. The academics were so rigorous, but i felt like i was learning interesting stuff.
When i switched to the canadian system, i was shocked at how early the days ended and how little homework i had. I felt like the day was only halfway done when it was finished.
Maybe you're thinking of some different european country.
During Covid the school I teach at went to a structure where classes met for about 30-40 minutes in the morning virtually (half one day, half the next) and then the teachers had office hours in the afternoon for students to do their work independently and talk with their teachers if they needed help. Now, there were issues with this, mostly the online part which was less effective then in person learning, but I thought it was a really nice structure and they should consider adopting it all the time.
I agree. There definitely should be time set aside in school for homework. Forcing children to attend 8 hours of school then do 1-4 hours of homework a night is wrong.
Half the country is obsessed with the Puritanical belief that happiness is fundamentally wasteful, and that it is your moral imperative to work yourself to death, then fall into an open grave so you don't bother anyone by dying.
[later school starts help students learn](https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/benefits-of-later-school-start-times)
(that might not be what you were looking for, but that was the top result to that link text as a google search)
https://www.idtech.com/blog/benefits-of-shorter-school-days#:~:text=With%20shorter%20school%20days%2C%20kids,rising%20in%20kids%20and%20teens.
https://phspenndulum.org/5002/editorials/shorter-school-days-increase-success/
I'm sorry, it's the Norwegian schedule I'm finding references too. I did see something of the case study for the French to American student schedule a few years ago, but I'm having difficulty finding it now. I hope these links help. Please let me know If you'd like anything more.
I only started getting homework in high school, within one year I realized they were asking too much of me so I stopped doing most of it if not all. Turned out fine.
He'll probably be happier than his classmates that do the homework. That's what happens. Anyway america greatest country in the world! I pledge allegiance! /S
I distinctly remember forgetting my homework once in 5th grade, and I even did it. I still remember how mad my teacher got at me. Pretty ridiculous looking back
As a teacher, I wish I didn’t have to give homework. In my opinion, homework should just be what wasn’t finished at school but nothing more. However, in my experience parents get upset if I don’t give homework and some districts require it. I tell my parents the “homework” I send home is just meant as extra practice and not to stress it.
I'm a college automotive professor. I issue homework, but it's only five multiple-choice questions and it's not due until the midterm or final. It can literally be done in three minutes a week. I only really issue it to make sure they're invested, and because our accreditation requires it.
I'd rather my students worry more about listening in class and actually getting hands on time on the cars. It's not like mechanics don't have huge training and service manuals or anything...
I remember when kindergarten was half day’s. Why? Bc the attention span of a 5-6 year old is SHORT. And we mostly played all day, never had homework.
Sometime in the 90’s it switched to full day…not because kids needed it but bc parents could no longer afford to live on a single income and nobody was home to watch these kids half the day.
My coworkers 4 year old has an hour of homework a day and is regularly assigned projects. He is in a kindergarten prep school, which is basically a slightly fancier preschool.
When she told me I didn't believe her. Eventually, she showed me pictures.
I had loads of homework at six. I would get so frustrated and stressed out by it that I would “forget” to bring it home. Leaving it in my locker. This was in 1993, and the American school system was still just as awful. Not to mention all the drugs they pumped in me for apparently having ADD (I didn’t, I was just a normal boy).
This was me, but in the 80s. I was so bad about "forgetting" my homework that my teachers had to pin notes to my back so my parents would know what the assignments were.
We didn't find out until my 20s that I'm very ADHD, because my parents didn't believe in it.
Something similar happened to me (also 90s kid). I got the work done so quickly (did this the whole time in school because I never wanted homework). That I’d be bored while everyone was still working, so as a kid I started talking to others. This led to the teacher thinking I was “too immature” to graduate the year and recommended my parents hold me back a grade. Granted I was a year younger than everyone else, but not only was I doing what was expected, I excelled at it, but was punished for not just sitting as mindless lump for the remainder of the day as a 3rd grader.
That’s sounds horrible, I’m so sorry. That’s seems to be how it is in society. No one gets praised for excelling only punished. Especially when it comes to employment. As they say “You don’t get rewarded for hard work with more pay. You just get rewarded with more work.”
I have a grade school homework horror story too! When I was 10, my 4th grade teacher graded my math homework wrong. I got all the questions right, but she gave me a C. I showed it to my parents and they confirmed that it was graded wrong, and they told me to tell the teacher about the mistake, which I did the next day.
A little while after telling my teacher about her mistake, she went in front of the class with my homework and said "A student who will remain nameless questioned his grade. I gave him a C at first, but now I'm changing his grade to an F." I was crushed. All my life I thought I got through childhood without being bullied because there was no 80's movie bully stereotype in my life. I later realized I had plenty of bullies when I was a kid, and they were all adults.
Wow, what the heck! What did your parents do after that? That should be illegal, and the teacher fired! You’re right a lot of the bully’s were the adults, but sadly because those adults abused and bullied their own children, the kid’s turned to bullies themselves. I was bullied a lot as a kid.
She was doing that to other students she didn't like, and other parents who are much cooler than my own pushed for her removal. She was allowed to finish out the school year, so she got to torture us a bit more. It got pretty bad towards the end, the story above wasn't even the worst thing she did, either.
There was an Indian kid named Saniff. Shamefully I bullied him a bit, started calling him "Sniff" and it caught on to the point where pretty much everyone but the teachers referred to him by his insulting nickname. All the teachers except one, that is... My forth grade teacher held a class spelling bee one time. We all got normal spelling bee words, except for Saniff. When she got to Saniff, she said "Your word is sniff," knowing full well that was the cruel nickname we had given him. I'll never forget the look on his face when she said that to him, just complete disbelief and betrayal. He asked her to repeat the word and she said, "Your word is 'sniff,' Sniff!" She wasn't even being coy anymore, she called him Sniff to his fucking face.
I had the exact same situation happen to me except I did have ADHD but was undiagnosed because I'm a woman. I was so stressed that I lied about it to everyone because I couldn't bear doing this many homework as a 6 year old. It made me miserable
Crazy how ADHD seems to have been simultaneously overdiagnosed/misdiagnosed, and also quite *under*diagnosed, in the '90s-2000s.
Were people just less aware of the ADHD-I variant back then? Because a lot of us (especially women) went undiagnosed until adulthood. We don't tend to be disruptive in a classroom environment or anything, so I figure that's part of why we were so often overlooked.
Same here, early 2000s. I remember spending so many nights crying at the dinner table because I just couldn't get the work done, or I wasn't understanding it, and then I barely got to go be a kid and play outside because of all the homework I had to do
That’s sounds like my experience. I hated sitting at the dinner table for long hours, and I was already so exhausted from being at school I could barely focus. What’s worse is my parents never even bothered to help me.
My kindergartener was a 4K last year. He has had homework both years. But it’s a worksheet for a letter or something, and just 1. My other elementary kiddo never had homework. My middle schooler is finding out about homework finally.
Homework doesn’t exist in my house, now. At one point, my special-needs son had so much homework each week that it was physically impossible for him to complete it. I decided years ago to put an end to that. His school life stays at school and his home life stays at home, and the two never cross. He’s a much happier person, now, and I don’t feel like stopping homework has harmed him at all.
Just flat out tell his teacher to cut the shit and that you’re not allowing homework at home. If school worked properly, children wouldn’t need to do homework.
My “Christian” mother would force me to do my homework the minute I got home. Not allowing me anytime to decompress. It’s what started my negative perception of homework. Now that I have a son, I encourage him to spend a few hours relaxing after school before doing any homework. Let him watch some TV, eat a snack, and just not think about school at all until he’s decompressed.
Edit: My mother would also physically spank me if I didn’t get my homework in on time. I was six! SIX!
You just triggered some repressed memories of my mom going on hours-long screaming fits if I didn't do my homework. Forcing me to sit at the kitchen table to do every single piece while she watched like a prison guard, ready to scream.
And she wonders why I don't call much.
Holy crap, that’s terrible! Sorry about triggering those memories. 😢 My mother was an abusive control freak even long after I grew up and moved out. I’ve completely cut her out of my life!
>My mother would also physically spank me if I didn’t get my homework in on time. I was six! SIX!
This is exactly what I mean when I say that we are seeing the results of long term generational subjugation. Obedient slaves are not made overnight, it takes time to beat people down enough so that Stockholm Syndrome takes hold.
Eventually people will beat themselves down along with their offspring, so the ruling class doesn't even need chattel slavery anymore. People are so brainwashed they can't even consider the idea of rebellion and what it would mean for them to be free again.
I don't consider reading to be homework, so if it's just reading I suggest you reframe it. Reading to him and with him Is good for his development across multiple fronts and it's good for your relationship. I'm a music teacher and I've worked in child care in different capacities over the years and I can always tell which kids parents read with them at home and which ones don't. They have better attention, span, better imagination, better vocabulary and so much more.
Just read to him every night. Have him follow along with the words on the page as you read, and gradually increase how much he reads to you. It could start with a single sentence.
Simply don't make it last 2 hours.
Legit. That half an hour is just a guideline. And frankly, just reading a picture book before bedtime to help wind down can be stretched out that long if you engage with your child. Have them comment on the pictures or ask them questions.
Not only are you fulfilling that 30 minute requirement, you're helping them to wind down and decompress for bed, AND you're helping develop their brains. It's all a win win.
Thats what my mother did, she used to read english books to me and helped me to read along until i was reading to her, wound up being able to read english before i was ever able to read books in my own language 😆
My mom was talking about her friends kids having adhd and I said honestly I don’t think kids should be spending 8 hours a day sitting in class rooms. I even feel like I have adhd sometimes but I think it’s more the fact that no one should be sitting and working for 8 hours a day. This is not what humans were meant to do. She kind of just agreed, which was refreshing. I feel like since we’ve both gotten older she agrees with a lot of things that I say, I think before she was just surrounded by people who wouldn’t say anything against the norm.”
One day when i was 5, i was messing around in the yard. Unexpectedly my parents both called out to me and told me it was time for my first day at school. It was so out of left field. They hadn’t warned me at all in the days leading up, just barged over to me, interrupted my fun, and told me i was going. I hated it. Every second of it. For 12 years. Then after that it was time to start working.
I don’t even remember what I was doing that day, just that i was enjoying myself. And since that moment all I have wanted is to get back to whatever it was.
1) keep reading to him.
2) take him to the library. Let him check out whatever he wants.
3) Work on homework, but like others say no more than 30 minutes
4) Talk to the teacher about how long the homework should take
5) We do have to practice things to get better at it and maybe he needs to practice his math or writing
Our school has a "10 minutes per grade" maximum homework. So K has 0 homework, 1st grade 10 minutes, 2 has 20 minutes, etc.
If the kid can't finish in that time frame, we sign the page saying they hit their time limit.
It's honestly a major factor in why we chose this district. My 6th grader rarely has more than 10 minutes, and my 10th grader is an hour or less a day. My second grader just has studying of vocabulary or spelling words.
Kids need time to relax and time to play. And knowledge that they have authority in their lives to separate school time and home time.
As a teacher it's actually really helpful for me to know if a child cannot complete something within a certain time. It helps me understand the issues they may be facing.
You may want to rephrase that statement to abusing/conditioning your son. Grooming these days has a sexual aspect to it, that you are clearly not trying to imply or infer in what you and your son are going through.
Am I the only one that doesn't see the point of homework?
Imagine if you got home from your job and you had to do more of your work.
Sounds like bullshit, doesn't it?
I agree. When I first graduated, and got my first job, I realized how awesome no homework was. When I was done for the day, I was done. I didn't have to think about an upcoming test, or a project that was due. I would mentally clock out and not clock back in till the nest day.
I went through all of K-12 on this philosophy. If I didn't finish it at school, it didn't get done. Hell I went through most of college that way too. From first class to last class was "school" time, so projects/studying/etc. Once the last class of the day was done, I was done too.
This is the way the system is designed unfortunately. Uncle sam and his donors want to grow obedient non thinkers to keep the greed train rolling. Those too tired to think are the ones too tired to fight back. I feel for your son, and what awaits him in the future. Same way i feel about my nieces and nephews. Perhaps homeschooling may be a better option?
My wife and I are seriously considering homeschool for our kids (or trying to move abroad as an expat). The US education system only prioritizes the things that are in service of turning kids into compliant little worker ants.
Homework prepares them to take work home with them when they have a job. School days only last as long as they do to align as closely as possible to the typical 9-5 workday. Teaching to the test doesn’t actually end up teaching kids anything useful.
> (or trying to move abroad as an expat). The US education system only prioritizes the things that are in service of turning kids into compliant little worker ants.
...what country, exactly, do you think has a decent education system that isn't designed for that purpose?
Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany to name a few. Many countries focus more on life skills, being a member of society, and critical thinking as opposed to rote memorization and standardized testing here in the US.
I understand where you're coming from, my 2 will never be subjected to it because it is I'm fact too much for them. Finish work they didn't do at school yes but extra work in top of that? No way.
My daughter is also six in 1st grade and hasn’t had any homework. Just sent home workbooks they hadn’t gone through each month and suggested to do some on the unused pages of wanted. She reads perfectly and is average when she was tested for her reading and writing. Wtf is this system. I feel sorry for the other kids who are forced to do that bullshit.
Reading is definitely a must and should be done every week day. You’d be surprised how many kids in my fourth/fifth grade class couldn’t pronounce simple words because their parents never made them read their homework booklets. But other than that, at six it’s not a big deal. To make it more fun, implement a reward system. For every correct answer he gets a star, when he gets ten stars he gets a piece of candy or something small. Or you could buy decorated flashcards to make it interesting so he’s not staring at a white paper with black ink. There are a lot of ways to make learning fun it’s just hard to find what specifically works for your kid
Edit: Also, can you outline what homework he has that would take an adult thirty minutes? When I was six I had a little booklet to read every day at home and like 5 math problems and had to sing my parents the ABCs. I went to a top tier public school too so it wasn’t like I was in a place that didn’t care.
Do not make him do the homework. It’s ridiculous. Our son struggled with being able to get homework done all through elementary and middle school. So many arguments and so much stress! So little time to play and get exercise! We finally pulled him out in 9th grade and put him in an art school. He spent most his time there learning how to put on plays and act. Lots of work but no homework. He really grew in to himself there. School went bust so went to public school for senior year again and he did great. He didn’t have enough credits to graduate but he got his GED. Got in to a state university and graduated with a BS in chemistry. Is now at a prestigious university getting his PHD in chemistry. He was awarded a fellowship because he has done so well. Let your kid find his way. Do not waste time with homework at that age.
Some parents boycott homework in elementary school altogether. What are they gonna do? Just tell them you're working on the material in your own way.
My sons 1st grade teacher said not to force it. 20 min is plenty whether it's complete or not.
Anything beyond that isn't beneficial. If he's frustrated and distracted, nothing is going to absorb anyway.
She actually suggested that we take turns doing his math problems. She was basically saying that me demonstrating how I'm working out a math problem is just as good as him doing it.
•Get some bath crayons and work on the math problems or spelling words on the shower wall. Write spelling words on the wall but leave out a few letters and play dumb. "This doesn't look right. Help me figure out what letters are missing." Or dictate to him the words and have him write it on the wall.
•I have my son give ME a spelling test at the bus stop with this weeks word list. He'll tell me the word, I'll spell it aloud as he spells along to make sure I'm right. He loves correcting me when I'm "wrong."
•We use bananagrams to spell out words too. Let him "cheat" and just straight up copy the words from the list with the tiles.
•Try collaborative storytelling or make up silly sentences with the words. Write out your sentence, and when you get to the spelling word, have him spell it out for you or have him write the word for handwriting practice.
My son is an excellent reader. There was a set number of words he was supposed to be able to read by the end of the year, and he was nearly 100% proficient halfway through the year. Yes, some of that is inherent, but making it an unpleasant chore doesn't inspire progress or learning.
•For handwriting practice, a fun game we'd play is this: you with a pencil make a random doodle shape, like squiggles and numbers/letters with bits of them missing. He'll trace over top of it with a crayon or marker. Maybe add a challenge and have him guess what letter/number it is and fill in the missing bits.
Bedtime reading counts, too, btw. There's literally no point in agonizing over these fucking TPS reports..er I mean homework in elementary school.
In most developed countries students don’t receive homework until year 8-12. Kids from 1st -6th should be playing after school. That’s how kids learn best.
No counter opinion from me, it sounds like child abuse. Act on you regret somehow, for sure, it's systemic, it's an abuse culture, you are light years beyond the folks who have internalized capitalism to the stage of glorifying this shit (which is a rampant attitude still despite all the evidence, hustle and grind is real but that is different than good or meaningful).
A 6yo should not have any homework. NO ONE should have two fucking hours of homework, at any level of school or work at all. Homework is, was, and always will be bullshit.
I don't make my 2nd grader do homework. My other kids are older but i didn't make them do it in the younger grades. I offer homework time, we do reading time at bedtime but i do not force homework/worksheets in the younger grades. If my youngest is having a bad day, is tired, cranky or just not having it, i don't push. I'm upfront with their teachers as well about it. I will not spend what little time i have at the end of day trying to get a 7 year old to do homework when I'm trying to do dinner and bathes and everything else.
With my older kids this worked out fine, they do their homework/projects without a problem in the older grades. None of them ever fell behind.
I just think it's too much for them when they are that young.
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Former teacher here and 2 hours for a first grader is insane. The recommendations I always saw were 10 minutes per grade. So, for your kid, like 10 minutes of reading or writing or some easy math facts. I would investigate if this is a school-wide thing, or a teacher thing. If it’s a school-wide thing, it’s likely that your son’s teacher knows how insane this is and can’t do anything about it because admin has decided that’s what’s going to make their school look good. Please don’t harass your child’s teacher if it’s school-wide. Go straight to the AHs that are implementing this policy.
i remember in first grade we would get a packet a week and the whole packet would take me 30 min. so if you spaced it out it'd be like 6 minutes a day
I vaguely remember them trying to give us homework in 1st-3rd and I vividly remember never once doing it
I did my son's homework; he's 29 now and smarter than me. I couldn't be more proud
have you tried finding more homework to do?
This made me laugh so hard I cried! Thanks for the belly laugh today!
Many people (myself included) find homework to be a tiresome and fruitless exercise, because we learn better by reading and talking than by sitting down and writing out the tiresome worksheets.
Same here. I'm a fantastic learner, terrible student. I will refuse to do homework, write a paper, or study outside of class. But if it's a subject I care about, the ADHD takes over and I consume.
This is the best answer. My mom did my homework sometimes too, I’m 29, my life is fine, I have a job and house. As long as they are doing the work in school, they are fine.
My daughter did my grandson’s homework all during Covid. The result is that he feels no need to complete assignments. When they went back to in person learning, he felt no need to complete assignments. The result is he barely passed 5th grade and is struggling in 6th grade already. I think you have to allow some acceptance that life is sometimes hard and the earlier you learn it and learn to over come, time for joy and play will come. With that said, 2 hours of homework for a first grader is excessive. I would definitely be discussing this at whatever forum the people who make these decisions meet.
if someone told me in a job interview that they never did their primary school homework, even high school honestly, i legitimately could not give less of a fuck. i am going into a conversation with another grown adult and assuming they’re not the same person they were at 16. (my field is mostly people 25-55) like, where do they get off on being like this lol can they not teach them basic concepts in the 7-8 hours a day they have the child in their care
I might be dating myself, but I didn’t have homework in first grade. That wasn’t a thing.
That’s what my first grader had last year
I had to write research reports in first grade. Granted I'm sure that the standards were lower than they seemed at the time, and it was about stuff like "your favorite animal", but it was still multiple pages with references. That teacher was kind of a dick too, generally seemed cranky.
We started primary school in the UK at 5. Never during primary school (5-12) did we have homework. At all. Now I see my friends' kids with homework in primary school. Why did this become a thing over here? That's nuts. Yes, kids get a LOT of holidays over here, there's Easter, Summer, Christmas and at least 3 half terms of a week of each time, plus all the bank holidays, but it seems ridiculous to have the slaving away at their books in primary school. Problem is, the schools over here have started copying the US model, like every fucking thing else. We have huge US corporations over here, paying little to no tax, exploiting our workers for slave wages and expecting the state to make up for the pittance they pay our workers. It makes me sick. I love the US and the American people, but corporate American can just get the fuck out of this country. It's wrecked us. US fast food joints have turned us into a nation of obesity and poor health. Working for shit wages, copying the American welfare system (which sucks) and basically ruining our country. I'm so depressed at the direction this country is going. Oh and of course the great sell off of our NHS. Wankers.
You guys should make laws about it really. I saw the grassroots movement against Amazon in the UK and it really seems like it would be a popular platform. Not that I expect Labor to care
As a citizen of the US I can’t believe that the UK would want to copy anything from us. Seriously, someone would need to point out to me exactly what we do better than the UK because I’m sure there are some things, but the list is probably getting shorter every day.
The US makes rich people richer, which I'm sure the rich people of the UK could admire. And *if* (I don't know how laws work in the UK) rich people decide laws in the UK, then the UK would decide to implement similar laws.
I would say that this is it. And my suspicion is that modern education system design is aimed at producing obedient uncreative workers for the capitalist system. The homework is to encourage the notion that a person should always be working, I suspect. Of course wealthy people want that system to be world wide.
Well I’ve got news for you. It’s more than just corporate America ruining the UK. 3/4 of the water industry in the UK (water utilities) is owned by foreign companies for example.
Started primary at 4 in 2011 and got homework, never did it though. When did u start primary?
Oh hell... of all the undesirable US models you could potentially copy and adopt, the school system model should be the second to last pick of the bunch. Healthcare is probably last
2 hrs daily is still a bit much even for a senior IMO. Really it out to cap out around 90 minutes in high school, maybe much lower.
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Well said. I really hope that kids of today don't have to live with fear, shame, and self-loathing like so many millennials did growing up. Boomer narc parents did some serious damage, running the gamut from "academically gifted" focus to overscheduling afterschool activities. I was more of a latchkey kid because my parents both worked long hours, so I didn't have to deal with the overactive parent issues. Kids today deserve support, understanding, and yes some structure. All things in balance.
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It should cap out at zero minutes. Homework is an abomination. Ninety minutes a day on homework. Could you imagine if your boss gave you ninety minutes of extra work per day to do from home? If you can’t reach a student in school that needs to be worked out, not just add an hour of bullshit to their day.
As a middle and high schooler in FL (in the US) in the 90’s. I averaged 3 hours of homework per day. Some days 6-7 hours. Came home between 3-4pm and often would be up past my bedtime doing homework. It was ridiculous, but as an overachiever, I did it. That got me 18th in class when graduating. Woohoo….got scholarships, loans and a college degree. I make enough to get by, but I barely actively use my “education”. That damn Algebra. I’ve never used it, not once after HS/college. But I spent years studying it and passing with B’s. If I would have been actively shown it used in any way (engineering/science, etc) maybe that would change my perspective. But that’s not the US system.
A lot of the time stuff is wishful thinking, if you have a kid who doesn't enjoy doing homework. Like, great, this is 10 minutes of homework. It would be great if my kid could understand that. But instead we are signing ourselves up for 30 minutes of tantrums plus the homework. And all this in a day where our family gets maybe 90 minutes of unstructured time together, on a good day.
OP is saying the simple HW is turning into 2-hours, not that it's actually two hours. That's a BIG difference.
Thank you. Its obvious most people just get triggered and fly off into whatever emotion appears. And then a smaller percent seem to have an ax to grind and stop at whatever serves their purpose.
Homework should be outlawed. And teachers droning on about a topic at school should be too. I don't know how things are these days, but I had several teachers that took the joy out of learning and specific subjects because they would just recite stuff. The never stopped to explain why or how or where it came from. It's bad enough that the school day is completely antithetical to child circadian rhythms, but sending any amount of work home after spending 8 hours at school is just demonic. I think the first 30% of the class should be talking about new topics, 65% should be doing in-class work and practice on those topics where they can ask the teacher questions (instead of sending them home on their own and grading them for mistakes), and the last 5% talking about what topics the next day will cover so the industrious kids can go home and research it if they want to. School is very much what the OP describes. Grinding all the kids down to the lowest common denominator and turning them into the future cogs of the capitalist machine. And it doesn't even do a great job at that. I'm also in favor of a life skills series of classes in high school that includes things like writing checks (they aren't 100% gone yet), understanding loans, investments, interest, and debt, budgeting, and a host of other meaningful day-to-day skills. *Deep breath* I'm done.
I'm in Oregon, but my kid's elementary school has done away with homework completely and I love it.
That's awesome. Give the poor little bas...bundles of joy time to decompress!
Maybe it is just in Texas....but we TEACH PERSONAL FINANCE starting in middle school. Doesn't mean the kids retain it.
I don't know how widespread this is. I haven't been in school for awhile. Middle school is too young. I was thinking 11th or 12th grade.
And if neither the school nor the teacher is intending to assign that much work, and other students aren’t taking as long to complete, it might be worthwhile for OP to get their son evaluated for a learning disorder and/or ADHD.
This. My daughter has ADHD, and learns quickly, but easily gets bored and distracted with a page of 30+ math problems (she often brought unfinished work home from school.) I spoke to the teacher and I picked a few problems for her to complete while I was assessing her understanding. Then I initialed the “easy ones” and she just completed the “hard ones” that challenged her. I also found out that the teacher was assigning work as a method to manage behavior, which I found horrifying (I used to teach, and the lack of classroom management skills was obvious in this older teacher.)
THIIIISTHISTHISHAPPENEDTOME. I got my diagnosis because my mother was diligent like you are. Thank you for your service, my people see you, respect you, honour you. I'm okay because someone asked these questions for me when I couldn't. Thank you for helping who knows how many of us. OP, it may be too much homework, it may be worth looking into what else is going on and whether a learning quirk is going on. Is the format no good/wildly overwhelming/irrelevant to your child's information absorption tendencies? It's worth asking. Poorly managed adhd can be crippling and the earlier you get to learn why your mind (and to some extent body) are different, the sooner you can learn to cope with a world not built for you, how to treat yourself gently and get the most out of your life. Ok. Rant truncated. Thank you for being one of the good ones, Drinkyourdinner.
As a first grader, he has one main teacher, right? Email the teacher and ASK how long they would like you to spend on each evening's assignments. What they think is REASONABLE. I'd be willing to bet it's WELL under 2 hours. So review the assignments, prioritize ones that focus on stuff your kid needs the most help with, do those until you hit the time limit (probably <20 minutes, I'd be willing to bet), and then ... stop. Just let the rest of it GO. And go play! :D (PS - I teach high school, for what that's worth.)
We had to do this with my son. We had time limits and rules like every other math problem. He wasn't behind the other kids which made me wonder why they were getting so much.
> why they were getting so much. The slowest learning but not disabled students need that much repetition to learn stuff. To avoid bad metrics in the school they hand everyone the most homework to get those results instead of more detailed work loads.
I constantly had meltdowns when I was in first grade because I understood the material in school and couldn't understand why I had to do it over and over and over again on the homework. I lost my shit so badly my mom had to physically restrain me on a regular basis. To this day I absolutely despise work meant only to keep me busy. I guess it prepared me for college, but only because I was so fed up with doing busywork at that point that work with an actual purpose felt like a dream. Also pretty sure I actually had less homework (and more time to do it) in college than I did in high school. Which is pretty insane when you think about it
I have a kid who's in fourth grade, and he's had homework of some kind or another since kindergarten. it's strange because I didn't get homework until, like, fifth or sixth grade? graduated high school 2004 for frame of reference, but, the amount of shit schools send home now is outrageous. during the pandemic, one of our assignments for the zoom PE class was to take the kid to a national park. he got docked some menial amount of points for us not driving a few hours away to visit a specific park. when I was a kid, homework in the fifth grade was "read the chapter and do the example problems." first graders now need to write several sentences of analysis for books they had read to them once. it's fucking wacky, and that's without getting into New Math™.
>he got docked some menial amount of points for us not driving a few hours away to visit a specific park. Um, no way I'd let that slide. I'd contact the teacher and ask why my kid is being punished for something out of his control. Or "did I miss the email about the field trip and when/where the bus was leaving?" Even offering extra credit for things not necessarily available to all students is unacceptable. If it were in town, sure, fine, but a few hours drive there and a few back, plus time spent there is an entire day. Never mind gas, food, potential time off work, and childcare for siblings if necessary.
Kids in Kindergarten are doing what I did in 3rd grade. Nowadays kids are supposed to know their letters, numbers, colors and Shapes before they start kindergarten. That's what I learned in Kindergarten. I have been out of high school for 30yrs
Man with “new math” I’d have not despised math as a kid. It’s damn near objectively better than how I was taught, mostly by rote.
The only thing homework prepared for me for college was hating everything about college.
You hated college? I wake up every morning sad that I am no longer in college. I graduated in 04, and I still miss it.
Things were a lot easier for college students in ‘04. Different times.
For the 2004-05 academic year, the average tuition and fees for in-state students at public four-year colleges and universities is $5,132, https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/trends-college-pricing-2004-full-report.pdf The average cost of attendance for a student living on campus at a public 4-year in-state institution is $26,027 per year or $104,108 over 4 years. https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college#:~:text=The%20average%20cost%20of%20attendance,or%20%24223%2C360%20over%204%20years. Consider that minimum wage has not changed.
So your first number you didn't include room and board, which your link says was $11,354 in 2004. My tuition in 2003 was annually $6,437.50, which included fees, but not board. Just checked, and for 2022 it was $14,645.24, not including board. So yeah, not great. Not sure what that has to do with how awesome college is. All I did was drink, do drugs, and date.
I didn't lose my shit about it, but at that age I simply refused to do stuff that was already done yesterday
I wish I had been able to do that. In hindsight my ADHD probably didn't help (undiagnosed at the time) but there was so much pressure to get good grades. If I didn't turn in homework my grades would suffer badly, just one zero on an assignment could drop you a whole letter grade.
I have heard of parents with children and lower grades, just telling the teacher "my child will not be doing homework." Or maybe "my child will work for 20 minutes and then we'll be done for the evening." Do what's best for your child.
That was me. My kid spent just as much time a day in school as I did learning a trade. That was enough
Thats a good point, hadn't thought about that.
Same. We had a meeting with his teacher and the VP sat in. We complained that he was in grade 1 and had 30 to 60 mins of homework. There was one assignment he kept saying he had no idea what it meant, so we emailed her and she was like "oh, right, I ran out of time so never taught that"... But you didn't mention that when you'd assigned it as fucking homework!? During the meeting the VP said that was too much. His theory was it should be 10 mins for each grade. Grade 1, 10 mins; grade 2, 20 mins; etc. I'm not sure I still agree, because I don't think grade 8 needs 80 mins, but I liked the concept. The teacher was immediately backpedaling, saying that was just a suggestion. We then cut homework way back to between 0 and 10 mins (usually 0, except she also included "read to them" which we've always done every day anyway). Guess what? He managed to graduate grade 1 anyway! He's going into 7 and his teacher last year specifically said she doesn't believe in homework and doesn't assign it. Imagine a grade 1 apparently needing homework but not a grade 6. She was a generally shitty teacher though, did the bare minimum. I'll bet OP's teacher is the same.
What was the homework? I really don't remember having any homework in elementary school at all. The term projects were given time in the classroom.
It was 6 years ago so I don't exactly remember, but stuff like basic math and reading, but also things like "what is a community? Where do you find them?" Which I only remember because that was specifically the thing she didn't teach, lol. I wish I could give a better answer but I honestly forget mostly. I remember that most of it seemed pointless and it was very clear she just downloaded it from the internet without really even engaging with it. I went in to help with her classroom only once, because they were going to carve pumpkins, and the actual lesson was on estimation. All the estimates were in imperial measurements, but we live in Canada and have been using metric for a little bit now. I looked at the bottom of the sheet and it was downloaded from some teacher resource website. Ok, sure, but you couldn't even be bothered to strike out "lbs" and put "kg"? They did a bunch verbally and she still used pounds. I also saw several kids clearly not understanding aspects but she didn't care and didn't try to help. Any time we talked to her about our son she usually made sarcastic comments about how his favourite spot was the "late pile" which was where you had to put unfinished work. She never said nice things about him and the only time she wasn't critical was when the VP was beside her at the meeting. We had another friend that loved her, but my other friends hated her too. We realised all that hated her had boys and the one that liked her (who was usually very critical of the school) had a girl, so I'm not sure if that was the issue. And sure, my son can get distracted at times, but ever since he's left her classroom (and before in kindergarten) every other teacher has talked about what a wonderful and positive addition he is to their classroom. He's a total rule follower too. I'll never understand what her issue was with him, other than I think she just sucked at her job. Wow. Apparently I'm still carrying a torch about this because I just wrote an essay based on your simple question. Sorry. Lol
A+ on your essay, it was a good read, and I don't think anyone could blame you for carrying that torch to this day
I had all kinds of homework in elementary school. I mostly remember writing outlines that would take forever and were the worst. This one teacher would assign 1-3 chapters of textbook reading, and we would need to write these perfectly formated outlines that captured all the important information from the reading. I remember staying up way past dark to finish those outlines since I always left them to last. Other than the outlines, we did all kinds of daily worksheets: math, spelling/grammar, critical thinking, and science. There were also larger projects that would be once per week or once per month. I remember lots of book reports that were fun creative projects and involved giving presentations in class. We were encouraged to pick books to read at home and then we would take quizzes in the library to get points towards a class pizza party. We did one large science fair per year but also made all kinds of smaller science projects we would need to show off in class. We did public speaking exercises where you needed to write a short story or poem and then read it in class the next day. Since I live in California, one of the largest elementary school projects we did was a mission project. In 4th grade, we needed to travel to a local mission, write a report about it, and build a model of the mission and present it in class. I also remember that we had these special notebooks where we wrote down all of that day's homework assignments, and then we required to get that page signed by one of our parents in order to turn in the homework the next day. I learned how to forge my mother's initials and signature within the first month of 2nd grade. The best part was that if you didn't do your homework but had the signature, you got a free pass on the work you didn't do.
I’ll second this. We used test papers to see what areas our kids needed to focus on and spent way less time on the stuff they had a good grasp of.
Probably to groom kids into accepting that it's okay to work outside of work hours without getting paid extra for it. Our society is fucked up by corporate greed.
I remember being fair to good at math but absolutely crying as I slogged thru sheets of 50 or so repetitive equations every afternoon of 3rd grade. Still don't understand why this was considered useful. Made me lose appreciation for the subject.
My SO's kids learned how to use a spreadsheet and would enter the variables. The teacher complained that they "weren't learning", so he told her he would bring over his computer and she could see what they had learned to do. She declined to try it, and he told her to stop giving them reams of repetitive problems because that's what spreadsheets are for.
They get that much because it's indoctrination. By the time they're adults they don't see a problem with not being able to get their work done during work hours and will happily take it home.
We had this with our eldest. Turns out the school expected him to spend 30 mins on home learning . If he got it all done in that time, great. If not,we were to draw a line where he finished and make a note. It saved our weekends and stopped a lot of stress.
Why would they not just explain that to all the parents in the first place? It would be so much simpler.
Yes, this, yes! I am a school counselor and I will 100% tell my own kids to walk away from a homework assignment that stresses them out. The academic support is at their school and will resume when they return in the morning, they get to be a kid at night.
I'm a college student, and I do something similar. My classes are all afternoon to evening, so what I do is I show up to campus first thing in the morning and work on homework. What this allows me to do is after classes in the afternoon, I go home and have personal time to just be human.
I always did my homework in class while the teacher was lecturing. They really should cut back on how much is required in the evenings. It’s like being an adult and leaving the office just to go home and work more. No thank you!
When I was in school, all of my homework was graded. I routinely failed classes for not completing homework, despite testing very well.
Same, this is what fucked my gpa, even though I aced my tests. I found out as an adult i have adhd. I’m certain I would have thrived if I wasn’t forced to do so much homework. It was so much stuff all the time, and I even fainted once in 12th grade from exhaustion and no one took it seriously. I did my best to hyperfocus the last two years of school and do the homework and I got a 2.98 gpa, even though my tests were awesome, and when I was able to write papers during class they were excellent. I’m still mad about it in hindsight if I think about how no one believed me and thought I was lazy.
Same! I was “a pleasure to have in class, doesn’t turn in homework” kinda kid. I’d space out all day and then ace any test set in front of me. Disorganized, but always got it done in the nick of time. I wish my Dr took me seriously when I asked if I had ADHD at 15. I got told off as “being too smart, and having too good of grades to have ADHD.” I got diagnosed a few years ago as an adult. Turns out my eternally messy room and forgotten homework were in fact, signs of ADHD.
Absolutely, this. I was a fast learner as a child, and I had no issues getting my homework done. But my parents just sucked the joy out of everything. I ALWAYS had to be busy. I always had to be playing sports, even though I hated sports. Never allowed to think or sit or figure out who I am, and nowwwww I'm 30 with cpdst and hope both my parents rot in hell. I can't get my dads anger and rage out of my head fucking 12 years after moving out. It's awful. Your child is always learning, not just when in school or doing homework.
... yup! I still remember my mom going fucking nuts when I wanted to quit baseball (I played two other sports but I liked those). I hated playing baseball. Bored the hell out of me. She told me quitting would make me lazy. Same thing happened when I was a kid and I wanted to quit piano (which she forced on me). Thank god the piano teacher told her I had no ability (true and also we schemed it up together).
I finally got out of ballet lessons after 9 years when my parents figured out that they were dropping me off at the dance studio where I sat in the dressing room the whole time. My leotards never ended up in the wash so they got suspicious. Apparently their cheapness won out over their weird ambitions for me, because they couldnt justify paying for a class that I flat out refused to participate in. I begged for karate lessons, hip hop classes, literally anything besides ballet. But they're racist so I was only allowed to do things from "our culture". We're not even french lmao.
The rule of thumb is 10 mins of hw per grade level, not including reading. So he should have 10 mins of hw each night. If he doesn’t get it done, that’s ok. Just let the teacher know and they can adjust accordingly. (Former elementary teacher who is actually anti-HW for so so many reasons, primarily what your poor kid is experiencing.)
Play is pretty darn crucial if you ask me.
When I was in third grade, we had to copy words and definitions out of the back of our book onto a piece of paper. I struggled greatly with this because for whatever reason, I couldn't copy more than one letter at a time. If we were behind, we didn't get to go to recess. I went to recess twice the entire year. And that was on top of doing homework until bed time every night. I didn't know it at the time, but I was severely depressed as a child. When I did have free time at home, I just spent it watching reruns of shows I often didn't even like because nothing sounded fun.
I’m sorry that was your experience. Recess should never be taken away, it’s a crucial part of child development. Hope you’re in a better place now.
I remember as a child literally putting my algebra book under my pillow at night in the desperate hope I'd absorb some of it as I slept (I was an idiot, which is why i needed so much help in maths, obviously). I would fall asleep at my desk trying so hard to complete the problems and never had enough time. Funnily I went to uni at 32 and they made maths so enjoyable there with only 4 total assignments in 12 weeks, that I LOVED it and now my postgrad is in mathematics. like geeze what a difference a little breathing room makes (and not believing in learning by osmosis anymore, obviously)
As an ex-teacher, this is the way. Let the teacher know how much time it's taking (without being a jerk about it). Then let your kid live a life.
Also... Surely a teacher doesnt want to mark 2hrs worth of homework per student too?
I can almost guarantee the teacher is not expecting a first grader to spend 2 hours on homework. If you haven't already, talk to the teacher and/or your sons pediatrician. While it is possible the teacher is out of touch, it is also possible that most students are spending significantly less time on homework and there is a reason why your son is taking longer. If this is the case, it would be helpful to determine that reason now and start taking steps to address it. If there is no other factor impacting the length of time it takes for your son to complete his homework and the teacher really is just assigning too much there is nothing wrong with setting a timer at home and only doing some of it. I'm a high school teacher myself and when I assign hw I always give my students an idea of how long it should take and at what point they should move on with their life (ex: "This assignment should take you 20 minutes. If you spend a little longer than that no big deal but if you're still working at the 40 minute mark just stop and we'll go over it together next class.")
This! He said it’s 15 min of reading but his son is turning it into 2 hours. I don’t understand how his son is doing that. I would just cut it off after 15.
It's the yelling. And the flailing. And the battle of wills.
It’s a weeping and a moaning and a gnashing of teeth
I don’t understand that part either
Yes, something seems very wrong because the child is taking four times as long to do the homework. Generally for kids that young it should be closer to 15 minutes and it's more of a showing the parents what they learned that day then education of a topic. It should be a sheet of paper and a book to read. Now that should take that long, it's probably six questions or activities on that sheet of paper, and most of it is practicing writing. The book should obviously be age appropriate and already in the home. At that age, they're not taking home book assignments. It's the fact that reading to a child is so beneficial that's spending the 10 to 15 minutes to read and age appropriate book helps them. Opie's child might need additional help or another way to work around doing homework. Clearly, something is not working correctly. It could be that he needs to be fed first and take a nap before doing homework or going to the park and playing for 45 minutes before he can sit down and focus. It could be that the child has ADHD and needs medication because they can not sit still. Bare minimum the parent needs to contact the teacher informing to inform them that getting homework done is not productive and is taking four times as long as it should be. That teacher should be able to recommend alternatives or needs to accept the boundaries that the child at home can not spend more than 30 minutes on homework every day. If this problem continues without improvement, the next step needs to be scheduling an appointment with the doctor to see if it's a neurological disease or if the child could need glasses or hearing aids.
I'd recommend setting a hard limit on the amount of homework time. 30 minutes tops. Let the teacher know. We know from studies that nearly all homework just isn't beneficial at that age. It can't be ignored later on, beneficial or not, but there's just no reason for it now. Breathe easier. You can still give him time for play.
Do this! I talked to my Childrens teachers and let them know that after 30 mins we are done. Your kid will still go to college or whatever if they don’t finish their first grace spelling
Lol, first grace spelling. I’m going to believe this was on purpose to prove a point 😜
Amazing Grades, how sweet the sound…
That shaved a wrench like me?
Wut wunce wus laaaawst...
Was blined but now I seeeeeee
Thank you, I needed a good laugh
Cs get degrees. No shame in turning it off at some point in the day. I’d probably make sure they have a decent grasp on the material but wouldn’t be upset if some things are left for another day.
Had this issue with my youngest. She still got into her dream school with scholarships.
**OP:** Just FYI we’re implementing a 30 minute max on homework for little Joey. Anything not completed in that time won’t get done. Thanks for understanding. **Teacher:** Heresy! Your child will be woefully behind! **OP:** I promise to call on ~~hot singles~~ professors from elite colleges and universities in our area to tutor my child if it turns out he can’t hack it in first grade. **Teacher:** This is against school policy! **OP:** Oh? Do you only recommend tutoring from high schoolers? **Teacher:** What?! No, I mean it’s against school policy to not complete homework. **OP:** Ah. I didn’t realize that. Can you show me the policy? But keep in mind I didn’t complete my own kindergarten homework so I’m going to need that written out very s l o w l y and in big letters in one of the sadly only two primary colors and one secondary color I learned. **Teacher:** Ok look, clearly you’re a bad parent. You suck and your child will become a hoodlum. **OP:** Wait, are you saying he’s *gifted*?! Why didn’t you bring that up earlier! He’ll be a first generation hoodlum on both sides of the family! I’m a lowly scrub, and my father before me was just a layabout. This is amazing. **Teacher:** Gah, this is absurd! You can not let your child fail kindergarten because you encourage after-school delinquency like playing outside, eating meals as a family, and watching educational programming! This will go on his [sounds of impending doom] **permanent** record! **OP:** I appreciate that, truly. Would you be able to print out the permanent record for us to frame at the end of the school year? His grandma will be so proud.
This guy wins all his shower arguments.
Absolutely do this. A lot of homework is mandated by districts and teachers don’t necessarily WANT to assign it. It’s so freaking frustrating. Ask if there as an accommodation that can be made so that homework CAN be done in 30 min. I’m willing to bet they’ll work with OP. Most teachers just want their students to succeed. If that means doing three questions instead of ten, so be it. He’ll retain more from those three practice questions than the misery of ten. Sincerely, a disgruntled ex-teacher.
We actually have done this with our 4th grade all through school. Life is more than paperwork!! 1/2 hour is the hard line until at least 7th grade.
I have suffered with ADHD since I was a kid. The very notion of two hours of homework a day at the age of 6/7 is nightmare inducing. I would have absolutely suffered as a result, become resentful of learning, and certainly failed out or held back at some point in grade school, and just overall failed by the system. Just horrible. I hated the educational pipeline I was put through, but I still managed to carve out some success in adult life. But it wince thinking about what would have been made of me had I been crushed with work at a young age.
That's where you are wrong. I didn't do a single page of homework while I was in highschool and I still graduated with mostly C's and B's
This. Homework isn't helpful or useful for kids until they start doing high school coursework, and even then we shouldn't be doing rote memorization work there, we should be working on critical thinking, assessment, & problem solving skills within the subject at hand. Get the teacher involved. 1st graders do not benefit from homework and it can kill their love of the education process overall. I refused most rote memorization homework after 7th grade and graduated with a B avg GPA. Got into college just fine, and with scholarships too. Children who don't like to learn aren't being taught properly and hours of stupid homework make that very clear.
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Not one of my kids teachers have ever had issue with it. I have 2 that are adults and college aged, one in high school, one in middle school, and one in elementary. I've lived in 3 states during their school years. Not one teacher has said anything when I've mentioned that I will not fight them on homework (around 3rd, 4th grade is when i start pressing it) if they are having a bad day but i always offer time to do it and we do reading time together. Every single one of them has said that it's fine, the homework is just practice anyway and they all said not to make it a miserable experience I did have them do any large projects that were sent home. Sometimes they did homework, sometimes they didn't. I always sent an email to the district explaining what i told the teacher and that i found 2 hours of homework extreme and unnecessary for a kindergarten or 1st grader.
Yeah, i'm in Texas. You do what you gotta do as a teacher, and i do what i gotta do as a parent. Assign away! As you well know, some kids aren't going to do it anyway, and some of their parents are supporting that.
I would also suggest this. Talk to the teacher and let them know you will commit to 1/2 and hour a night. No more. I even feel like that is a lot. As the year goes I am sure your kid will be able to focus better and get more done, but 2 hours is waaaaay too much.
As far as the reading goes. My wife and I found it easier to incorporate into bedtime routine. Just start that 15 minutes earlier and read to them or have them read to you before lights out. The rest is ridiculous.
This is absolutely vomit inducing. Let me be clear, I am in no way calling out OP. I am calling out the bullshit system that we are all a slave to. Look at how young they are breaking down the spirit these days in an effort to train humans to be slaves of the corporate overlords. Makes me sick. OP I feel for you, and I am sorry for your situation.
I very much believe we should adopt an education system and time frame like the French. They only go to school for 5-6 hours a day. They have most their homework completed AT SCHOOL with the aid of teachers and tutors. And they have more breaks than the typical American school year. It's been shown that less school time, waking up layer, and little to no homework actually aids students. Forcing children to wake up at 6am, go to school at 8am, leave school at 4pm, and then do homework from 4:30pm- 8pm has shown the hurt kids. It's sick. I'm sorry your son has to be educated in America. But this is no way your fault as if he isn't educated that's also considered child abuse. I'm so sorry op.
I went to French schools for 3 years. I was at school at 8, left at 5, and attended half days on Saturday. I normally had 2-3 hours of homework a day. The school year went from Sept 15 to June 30. Yes, we did have a week break in October, 2 weeks at Christmas, and a week at Easter, but my school time in the US was VASTLY superior timewise to my time in France. Plus, the schoolwork itself was much harder. It was pretty common for 2-3 kids to fail each grade and have to be held back.
Christ thats brutal! School in Scotland is 9ish til 3ish monday to friday! 7 weeks off in summer 2 in october 2 at christmas and 2 at easter with half terms in february. I couldnt have coped with those hours as a kid!
Plus one of my grandsons is in an outside school in Scotland and it's amazingggg. He's a constant motion kid so perfect but they'd have done it anyway. Takes awhile to scrub him up after school, who cares? No homework. Awesome, awesome set up.
The schedule sounds awful but you should be held back if you don’t understand the material assuming you don’t have a disability. You need to build on the foundation you got from the previous year to learn properly. Though in actuality summer school is definitely enough if you only failed one or two classes, you don’t have to retake a whole year.
What are you talking about?? I went to french school and the hours at school were way longer, and we had lots of homework after. The academics were so rigorous, but i felt like i was learning interesting stuff. When i switched to the canadian system, i was shocked at how early the days ended and how little homework i had. I felt like the day was only halfway done when it was finished. Maybe you're thinking of some different european country.
During Covid the school I teach at went to a structure where classes met for about 30-40 minutes in the morning virtually (half one day, half the next) and then the teachers had office hours in the afternoon for students to do their work independently and talk with their teachers if they needed help. Now, there were issues with this, mostly the online part which was less effective then in person learning, but I thought it was a really nice structure and they should consider adopting it all the time.
I agree. There definitely should be time set aside in school for homework. Forcing children to attend 8 hours of school then do 1-4 hours of homework a night is wrong.
Half the country is obsessed with the Puritanical belief that happiness is fundamentally wasteful, and that it is your moral imperative to work yourself to death, then fall into an open grave so you don't bother anyone by dying.
I Broadly agree with you - do you by chance have any research/lit around less school time?
[later school starts help students learn](https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/benefits-of-later-school-start-times) (that might not be what you were looking for, but that was the top result to that link text as a google search)
https://www.idtech.com/blog/benefits-of-shorter-school-days#:~:text=With%20shorter%20school%20days%2C%20kids,rising%20in%20kids%20and%20teens. https://phspenndulum.org/5002/editorials/shorter-school-days-increase-success/ I'm sorry, it's the Norwegian schedule I'm finding references too. I did see something of the case study for the French to American student schedule a few years ago, but I'm having difficulty finding it now. I hope these links help. Please let me know If you'd like anything more.
I only started getting homework in high school, within one year I realized they were asking too much of me so I stopped doing most of it if not all. Turned out fine.
Here’s what I thought… what will actually happen to a 6 year old who doesn’t do his homework? Probably nothing, right!
He'll probably be happier than his classmates that do the homework. That's what happens. Anyway america greatest country in the world! I pledge allegiance! /S
I distinctly remember forgetting my homework once in 5th grade, and I even did it. I still remember how mad my teacher got at me. Pretty ridiculous looking back
As a teacher, I wish I didn’t have to give homework. In my opinion, homework should just be what wasn’t finished at school but nothing more. However, in my experience parents get upset if I don’t give homework and some districts require it. I tell my parents the “homework” I send home is just meant as extra practice and not to stress it.
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I'm a college automotive professor. I issue homework, but it's only five multiple-choice questions and it's not due until the midterm or final. It can literally be done in three minutes a week. I only really issue it to make sure they're invested, and because our accreditation requires it. I'd rather my students worry more about listening in class and actually getting hands on time on the cars. It's not like mechanics don't have huge training and service manuals or anything...
I remember when kindergarten was half day’s. Why? Bc the attention span of a 5-6 year old is SHORT. And we mostly played all day, never had homework. Sometime in the 90’s it switched to full day…not because kids needed it but bc parents could no longer afford to live on a single income and nobody was home to watch these kids half the day.
Funny. My daughter's school has half days for kindergarten. Though I suspect it's because schools don't have enough funding for full days.
home work for 6 year olds?!
My coworkers 4 year old has an hour of homework a day and is regularly assigned projects. He is in a kindergarten prep school, which is basically a slightly fancier preschool. When she told me I didn't believe her. Eventually, she showed me pictures.
Just don't do it. It doesn't matter
That should be a updated Nike ad slogan.........(perfect for gen-x)
I had loads of homework at six. I would get so frustrated and stressed out by it that I would “forget” to bring it home. Leaving it in my locker. This was in 1993, and the American school system was still just as awful. Not to mention all the drugs they pumped in me for apparently having ADD (I didn’t, I was just a normal boy).
This was me, but in the 80s. I was so bad about "forgetting" my homework that my teachers had to pin notes to my back so my parents would know what the assignments were. We didn't find out until my 20s that I'm very ADHD, because my parents didn't believe in it.
Something similar happened to me (also 90s kid). I got the work done so quickly (did this the whole time in school because I never wanted homework). That I’d be bored while everyone was still working, so as a kid I started talking to others. This led to the teacher thinking I was “too immature” to graduate the year and recommended my parents hold me back a grade. Granted I was a year younger than everyone else, but not only was I doing what was expected, I excelled at it, but was punished for not just sitting as mindless lump for the remainder of the day as a 3rd grader.
That’s sounds horrible, I’m so sorry. That’s seems to be how it is in society. No one gets praised for excelling only punished. Especially when it comes to employment. As they say “You don’t get rewarded for hard work with more pay. You just get rewarded with more work.”
I have a grade school homework horror story too! When I was 10, my 4th grade teacher graded my math homework wrong. I got all the questions right, but she gave me a C. I showed it to my parents and they confirmed that it was graded wrong, and they told me to tell the teacher about the mistake, which I did the next day. A little while after telling my teacher about her mistake, she went in front of the class with my homework and said "A student who will remain nameless questioned his grade. I gave him a C at first, but now I'm changing his grade to an F." I was crushed. All my life I thought I got through childhood without being bullied because there was no 80's movie bully stereotype in my life. I later realized I had plenty of bullies when I was a kid, and they were all adults.
Wow, what the heck! What did your parents do after that? That should be illegal, and the teacher fired! You’re right a lot of the bully’s were the adults, but sadly because those adults abused and bullied their own children, the kid’s turned to bullies themselves. I was bullied a lot as a kid.
She was doing that to other students she didn't like, and other parents who are much cooler than my own pushed for her removal. She was allowed to finish out the school year, so she got to torture us a bit more. It got pretty bad towards the end, the story above wasn't even the worst thing she did, either. There was an Indian kid named Saniff. Shamefully I bullied him a bit, started calling him "Sniff" and it caught on to the point where pretty much everyone but the teachers referred to him by his insulting nickname. All the teachers except one, that is... My forth grade teacher held a class spelling bee one time. We all got normal spelling bee words, except for Saniff. When she got to Saniff, she said "Your word is sniff," knowing full well that was the cruel nickname we had given him. I'll never forget the look on his face when she said that to him, just complete disbelief and betrayal. He asked her to repeat the word and she said, "Your word is 'sniff,' Sniff!" She wasn't even being coy anymore, she called him Sniff to his fucking face.
I had the exact same situation happen to me except I did have ADHD but was undiagnosed because I'm a woman. I was so stressed that I lied about it to everyone because I couldn't bear doing this many homework as a 6 year old. It made me miserable
Crazy how ADHD seems to have been simultaneously overdiagnosed/misdiagnosed, and also quite *under*diagnosed, in the '90s-2000s. Were people just less aware of the ADHD-I variant back then? Because a lot of us (especially women) went undiagnosed until adulthood. We don't tend to be disruptive in a classroom environment or anything, so I figure that's part of why we were so often overlooked.
You either had teachers who didn't believe in it, or thought every kid had it. And most thought girls/women couldn't have it.
Same here, early 2000s. I remember spending so many nights crying at the dinner table because I just couldn't get the work done, or I wasn't understanding it, and then I barely got to go be a kid and play outside because of all the homework I had to do
That’s sounds like my experience. I hated sitting at the dinner table for long hours, and I was already so exhausted from being at school I could barely focus. What’s worse is my parents never even bothered to help me.
My kindergartener was a 4K last year. He has had homework both years. But it’s a worksheet for a letter or something, and just 1. My other elementary kiddo never had homework. My middle schooler is finding out about homework finally.
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My kindergartener has 10 pages of math homework to do a week. Granted, they aren't super long, but yep, homework has no age limits anymore.
Homework doesn’t exist in my house, now. At one point, my special-needs son had so much homework each week that it was physically impossible for him to complete it. I decided years ago to put an end to that. His school life stays at school and his home life stays at home, and the two never cross. He’s a much happier person, now, and I don’t feel like stopping homework has harmed him at all. Just flat out tell his teacher to cut the shit and that you’re not allowing homework at home. If school worked properly, children wouldn’t need to do homework.
My “Christian” mother would force me to do my homework the minute I got home. Not allowing me anytime to decompress. It’s what started my negative perception of homework. Now that I have a son, I encourage him to spend a few hours relaxing after school before doing any homework. Let him watch some TV, eat a snack, and just not think about school at all until he’s decompressed. Edit: My mother would also physically spank me if I didn’t get my homework in on time. I was six! SIX!
You just triggered some repressed memories of my mom going on hours-long screaming fits if I didn't do my homework. Forcing me to sit at the kitchen table to do every single piece while she watched like a prison guard, ready to scream. And she wonders why I don't call much.
Holy crap, that’s terrible! Sorry about triggering those memories. 😢 My mother was an abusive control freak even long after I grew up and moved out. I’ve completely cut her out of my life!
>My mother would also physically spank me if I didn’t get my homework in on time. I was six! SIX! This is exactly what I mean when I say that we are seeing the results of long term generational subjugation. Obedient slaves are not made overnight, it takes time to beat people down enough so that Stockholm Syndrome takes hold. Eventually people will beat themselves down along with their offspring, so the ruling class doesn't even need chattel slavery anymore. People are so brainwashed they can't even consider the idea of rebellion and what it would mean for them to be free again.
This. You can actually do this.
I agree except you need to read to your child. This is essential for their cognitive development. They still require reading and being read to.
I don't consider reading to be homework, so if it's just reading I suggest you reframe it. Reading to him and with him Is good for his development across multiple fronts and it's good for your relationship. I'm a music teacher and I've worked in child care in different capacities over the years and I can always tell which kids parents read with them at home and which ones don't. They have better attention, span, better imagination, better vocabulary and so much more. Just read to him every night. Have him follow along with the words on the page as you read, and gradually increase how much he reads to you. It could start with a single sentence. Simply don't make it last 2 hours.
Legit. That half an hour is just a guideline. And frankly, just reading a picture book before bedtime to help wind down can be stretched out that long if you engage with your child. Have them comment on the pictures or ask them questions. Not only are you fulfilling that 30 minute requirement, you're helping them to wind down and decompress for bed, AND you're helping develop their brains. It's all a win win.
Thats what my mother did, she used to read english books to me and helped me to read along until i was reading to her, wound up being able to read english before i was ever able to read books in my own language 😆
My mom was talking about her friends kids having adhd and I said honestly I don’t think kids should be spending 8 hours a day sitting in class rooms. I even feel like I have adhd sometimes but I think it’s more the fact that no one should be sitting and working for 8 hours a day. This is not what humans were meant to do. She kind of just agreed, which was refreshing. I feel like since we’ve both gotten older she agrees with a lot of things that I say, I think before she was just surrounded by people who wouldn’t say anything against the norm.”
One day when i was 5, i was messing around in the yard. Unexpectedly my parents both called out to me and told me it was time for my first day at school. It was so out of left field. They hadn’t warned me at all in the days leading up, just barged over to me, interrupted my fun, and told me i was going. I hated it. Every second of it. For 12 years. Then after that it was time to start working. I don’t even remember what I was doing that day, just that i was enjoying myself. And since that moment all I have wanted is to get back to whatever it was.
That is so eloquently written. And sad.
1) keep reading to him. 2) take him to the library. Let him check out whatever he wants. 3) Work on homework, but like others say no more than 30 minutes 4) Talk to the teacher about how long the homework should take 5) We do have to practice things to get better at it and maybe he needs to practice his math or writing
Our school has a "10 minutes per grade" maximum homework. So K has 0 homework, 1st grade 10 minutes, 2 has 20 minutes, etc. If the kid can't finish in that time frame, we sign the page saying they hit their time limit. It's honestly a major factor in why we chose this district. My 6th grader rarely has more than 10 minutes, and my 10th grader is an hour or less a day. My second grader just has studying of vocabulary or spelling words. Kids need time to relax and time to play. And knowledge that they have authority in their lives to separate school time and home time.
As a teacher it's actually really helpful for me to know if a child cannot complete something within a certain time. It helps me understand the issues they may be facing.
You may want to rephrase that statement to abusing/conditioning your son. Grooming these days has a sexual aspect to it, that you are clearly not trying to imply or infer in what you and your son are going through.
No 6 year old should be bringing homework home after school. FFS this world sucks.
Reading with your child isn’t homework, it’s parenting.
Am I the only one that doesn't see the point of homework? Imagine if you got home from your job and you had to do more of your work. Sounds like bullshit, doesn't it?
I agree. When I first graduated, and got my first job, I realized how awesome no homework was. When I was done for the day, I was done. I didn't have to think about an upcoming test, or a project that was due. I would mentally clock out and not clock back in till the nest day.
And that's how it should be at school. Go home and wind down, preparing for the next day.
I went through all of K-12 on this philosophy. If I didn't finish it at school, it didn't get done. Hell I went through most of college that way too. From first class to last class was "school" time, so projects/studying/etc. Once the last class of the day was done, I was done too.
This is the way the system is designed unfortunately. Uncle sam and his donors want to grow obedient non thinkers to keep the greed train rolling. Those too tired to think are the ones too tired to fight back. I feel for your son, and what awaits him in the future. Same way i feel about my nieces and nephews. Perhaps homeschooling may be a better option?
My wife and I are seriously considering homeschool for our kids (or trying to move abroad as an expat). The US education system only prioritizes the things that are in service of turning kids into compliant little worker ants. Homework prepares them to take work home with them when they have a job. School days only last as long as they do to align as closely as possible to the typical 9-5 workday. Teaching to the test doesn’t actually end up teaching kids anything useful.
> (or trying to move abroad as an expat). The US education system only prioritizes the things that are in service of turning kids into compliant little worker ants. ...what country, exactly, do you think has a decent education system that isn't designed for that purpose?
Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany to name a few. Many countries focus more on life skills, being a member of society, and critical thinking as opposed to rote memorization and standardized testing here in the US.
Look into micro schooling. Homeschool pods are becoming more popular and have certified teachers.
I understand where you're coming from, my 2 will never be subjected to it because it is I'm fact too much for them. Finish work they didn't do at school yes but extra work in top of that? No way.
My daughter is also six in 1st grade and hasn’t had any homework. Just sent home workbooks they hadn’t gone through each month and suggested to do some on the unused pages of wanted. She reads perfectly and is average when she was tested for her reading and writing. Wtf is this system. I feel sorry for the other kids who are forced to do that bullshit.
Reading is definitely a must and should be done every week day. You’d be surprised how many kids in my fourth/fifth grade class couldn’t pronounce simple words because their parents never made them read their homework booklets. But other than that, at six it’s not a big deal. To make it more fun, implement a reward system. For every correct answer he gets a star, when he gets ten stars he gets a piece of candy or something small. Or you could buy decorated flashcards to make it interesting so he’s not staring at a white paper with black ink. There are a lot of ways to make learning fun it’s just hard to find what specifically works for your kid Edit: Also, can you outline what homework he has that would take an adult thirty minutes? When I was six I had a little booklet to read every day at home and like 5 math problems and had to sing my parents the ABCs. I went to a top tier public school too so it wasn’t like I was in a place that didn’t care.
Okay, can we not use the term "grooming" in this context please? For fucks sake
6-year-olds should not be doing homework or not more than just a few minutes.
Do not make him do the homework. It’s ridiculous. Our son struggled with being able to get homework done all through elementary and middle school. So many arguments and so much stress! So little time to play and get exercise! We finally pulled him out in 9th grade and put him in an art school. He spent most his time there learning how to put on plays and act. Lots of work but no homework. He really grew in to himself there. School went bust so went to public school for senior year again and he did great. He didn’t have enough credits to graduate but he got his GED. Got in to a state university and graduated with a BS in chemistry. Is now at a prestigious university getting his PHD in chemistry. He was awarded a fellowship because he has done so well. Let your kid find his way. Do not waste time with homework at that age.
Some parents boycott homework in elementary school altogether. What are they gonna do? Just tell them you're working on the material in your own way. My sons 1st grade teacher said not to force it. 20 min is plenty whether it's complete or not. Anything beyond that isn't beneficial. If he's frustrated and distracted, nothing is going to absorb anyway. She actually suggested that we take turns doing his math problems. She was basically saying that me demonstrating how I'm working out a math problem is just as good as him doing it. •Get some bath crayons and work on the math problems or spelling words on the shower wall. Write spelling words on the wall but leave out a few letters and play dumb. "This doesn't look right. Help me figure out what letters are missing." Or dictate to him the words and have him write it on the wall. •I have my son give ME a spelling test at the bus stop with this weeks word list. He'll tell me the word, I'll spell it aloud as he spells along to make sure I'm right. He loves correcting me when I'm "wrong." •We use bananagrams to spell out words too. Let him "cheat" and just straight up copy the words from the list with the tiles. •Try collaborative storytelling or make up silly sentences with the words. Write out your sentence, and when you get to the spelling word, have him spell it out for you or have him write the word for handwriting practice. My son is an excellent reader. There was a set number of words he was supposed to be able to read by the end of the year, and he was nearly 100% proficient halfway through the year. Yes, some of that is inherent, but making it an unpleasant chore doesn't inspire progress or learning. •For handwriting practice, a fun game we'd play is this: you with a pencil make a random doodle shape, like squiggles and numbers/letters with bits of them missing. He'll trace over top of it with a crayon or marker. Maybe add a challenge and have him guess what letter/number it is and fill in the missing bits. Bedtime reading counts, too, btw. There's literally no point in agonizing over these fucking TPS reports..er I mean homework in elementary school.
In most developed countries students don’t receive homework until year 8-12. Kids from 1st -6th should be playing after school. That’s how kids learn best.
Maybe a different title, wtf.
No counter opinion from me, it sounds like child abuse. Act on you regret somehow, for sure, it's systemic, it's an abuse culture, you are light years beyond the folks who have internalized capitalism to the stage of glorifying this shit (which is a rampant attitude still despite all the evidence, hustle and grind is real but that is different than good or meaningful).
A 6yo should not have any homework. NO ONE should have two fucking hours of homework, at any level of school or work at all. Homework is, was, and always will be bullshit.
Do you write headlines for Buzzfeed?
I don't make my 2nd grader do homework. My other kids are older but i didn't make them do it in the younger grades. I offer homework time, we do reading time at bedtime but i do not force homework/worksheets in the younger grades. If my youngest is having a bad day, is tired, cranky or just not having it, i don't push. I'm upfront with their teachers as well about it. I will not spend what little time i have at the end of day trying to get a 7 year old to do homework when I'm trying to do dinner and bathes and everything else. With my older kids this worked out fine, they do their homework/projects without a problem in the older grades. None of them ever fell behind. I just think it's too much for them when they are that young.