Homework is a Free-Range Topic

I’m not sure that all homework is bad. I agree that 4 plus hours is, but…
My son is only in kindergarten and he is struggeling alittle. Mostly because he needs a little more one on one, which I know that when you have a class of 20 the teacher just can’t give him. His teacher has never assigned “homework” but we make sure that he spends a little time every night doing some school work. It was the same when my daughter was in kindergarten.

And when I say we spend some time doing school work I mean like 10 mins and some nights depending on how nice it is outside not at all.

I don’t think homework itself is inherently detrimental for younger children — I think it’s the type of homework. We are all familiar with busy work, homework that our teachers gave us just because. Homework is important. It helps to reinforce concepts that were learned in class. But the vast majority of homework that children are given needs to be reflective and encourage critical thinking. Even at a young age, this can be possible. It’s all about quality over quantity. Homework could take the form of independent study, even for younger children. The most important thing is children are encouraged and taught to enjoy learning. Teach a man to fish …

Leila, that’s exactly what I did!

Now, here’s a topic that makes me truly angry.

I can, largely, control how “free-range” my kids are allowed to be.

When they enter the public school system, I have NO control over their homework.

As the mom of four gifted boys, I can tell you that it absolutely does no good whatsoever. It does turn them off, fast.

My honors student in high school has an average of four hours of homework a night. That’s insane. Add in debate and his other extra curricular activites, and he goes to bed at 2am regularly.

Gifted kids just get it. They get it immediately, or they don’t get it at all. Throwing thousands of pages of practice at them doesn’t make them get it any better–if they need help, they know how to open their mouths and ask.

Homework does, however, make them tired, cranky and resentful. Just exactly what you want for your gifted kids.

I can’t say how grateful we are that we found such a sensible school for our kids. From age 6 onwards, kids have homework assignments. Now, the teachers make sure we understand that the point is only to teach our kids self discipline. That is, they learn to do something they are not crazy about not because someone forces them, but because it is their duty. Sure, you have to insist at first. And sure, you can teach them that assigning them housechores such as washing the dishes, or tidying up their room or whatever. But when they really need to make a mental effort (preparing for an important exam) later on, routine will kick in in that aspect as well.
Parents are warned that we should not allow our kids to sit down more than 30 mins each day, because they will not take in a word anyway, and frustration would be counterproductive for the self-discipline aim. And, we are told, children need to play, rest, find other interests in life and enjoy their family time.
Excellent school.

I’m with Hayley and Jerri. Not all homework is evil. Now, most of it my son had last year in kindergarten was 🙂 but the teacher is doing much better this year, assigning work that reinforces classroom concepts, as opposed to last year’s blatantly busy work – write these words four times each. Ugh.

I also with the notion that because my kids are involved in after-school sports that I’m letting “systems” parent for me. Actually, I’m letting them do something they enjoy. I’m very involved with my kids, but even as active as I am, I can’t be all nine people on a baseball team.

Homework shouldn’t be assigned to younger kids. Instead, it should be assigned to the parents. Give them activities that they can do with their kids to help them reinforce topics being taught in school. It should be optional and not graded or collected.

I’m not comfortable with telling my daughter not to bother with her homework (she’s 7 and in Grade 2), because I think that puts her in an awkward position with her teacher. But if, for example, she brings home a whole math workbook and doesn’t know which pages she’s supposed to do, I’ll tell her, e.g., to do the first 2 pages and call it a day (and then write a note to the teacher explaining why she did those pages). That, and remind her to ask the teacher the next time she’s not sure.

Mostly, thank goodness, her homework is “read out loud to someone for 20 minutes” or “copy your spelling words X times”, either of which can be knocked off easily before dinner or (in the case of reading) at bedtime. Honestly, though, I don’t see the point of giving homework to Grade 2s. Nobody had homework in elementary school when I was a kid, except for maybe the occasional project (and of course the Science Fair!), yet we all coped perfectly well with the homework we started getting in junior high …

Still, at DD’s school (public arts-based JK-8 school, ca. 350 kids), for every parent like me who wishes their kid didn’t get homework at all, there are at least two parents who think their kids don’t get enough homework, and worry that the kids will “get behind” or “won’t take school seriously” or even (!!!!!) that they’re “spending too much time just playing around” (the daughter of the person who said that to me was 6 at the time!), and if the teacher doesn’t assign “serious” homework every night they will sit their kids down with worksheets or send them to Kumon to make up for it. So really I don’t see how the teachers can win 😛

Saying “Forget about it! Go outside! I’ll write you a note!” is a non-starter for most parents, I think.

The public school is assigning too much homework because they spend so much time in the classroom teaching a test, and if your children are not producing, they are labeled “poor performers” or worse.

The private school is assigning too much homework because the school has a scholastic reputation to uphold and if your children do not meet the standards, they will be asked to leave. There is no refund of yr $11,000, of course. Administrative costs, you see.

In the case of the public school, where they *have to* take your children, there is the very serious matter of being subject to the law and its standards & controls (real or imagined, no matter) of parenting as a way to “maintain society.”

Also? A lot of parents *like homework.* It means their kids are learning. I have known people to remove their 4-year-olds from preschools with no homework & put them into schools where — the parents proudly boast on the playground — they have 2 hours of homework every night. Kids who can’t read. I don’t know. Maybe it isn’t like this everywhere, I do not know. I live in a large city on the eastern seaboard.

This is an important issue to me. I see both sides, though. Homework can be useful in some situations: Extra practice before an exam, extra examples to work through if you’re struggling with a concept and need more exposure to it, etc.

However, we have to stop allowing public schools to send home hours of work with each and every student, whether they need it or not.

For one thing, those backpacks are so heavy a grown man can’t lift one!

Let’s make homework *available* for kids who want the extra practice, but not required. This is more like college, where if you need more work on something you study it more.

Two last questions from me and I’ll shut up:

1) What percentage of homeschool teachers cover a subject, make sure the student understands, and then after classes are done for the day make the kid sit somewhere and rehash it all night?

2) In your adult job (other than teaching) how many of us are required to take 3-4 hours of work home each night after we’ve already put in a full day’s work, for no additional pay?

I’m with the “homework is not necessarily evil” crowd. I do think the problem is with what kind of homework we’re getting. The kind of homework most children get now is what one of my college professors, Dr. Thomas Rust, called “busywork”. It’s not there to help the students learn, it’s there to make them work so that it seems like they’re learning.

My Japanese teacher did his best to make the classwork fun. He would tell us to watch Japanese shows to get the feel of the language, look at Japanese books and websites, and other things like that. Yeah, there was a lot of homework due to the three different alphabets you have to learn for Japanese, but even that was not too bad because of the shortcuts we learned (I forever amused one of my Japanese friends by my comparison of the ‘yu’ character to a fish getting stabbed). He did not let us consult the Japanese students with the take-home tests, though, which made things more difficult.

Dr. Rust made homework rather fun simply because it was a lot of reading and visual stuff. He sent the class home one time from the Classical Archaeology class with a sheet we were to use to study the layout of and artifacts in an archaeological site and figure out exactly what it was. Eventually, we all came to the conclusion of it being a temple (as said one of my classmates: “It’s a temple, dammit!”). The readings weren’t busywork, either, since he rarely assigned textbooks and instead gave us real works of literature to read.

And I think that is why homework is so bad in grade school. In college, the teachers have a lot of leeway to use the books they want their students to learn from, and to set their own homework styles (granted, this was more evident with the arts teachers than with the science ones). I have not experienced this as much, but do public school teachers have any kind of leeway in that? I highly doubt it. As regimented as life is in grade school, I don’t think the teachers have a chance to do much more than follow the stated curriculum.

Maybe we should make grade school (especially in the higher grades) a little more like college and give our children a little more freedom. Anyone object?

@Lafe: Question #1 is right on the mark. That was going to be my next comment.

As to using homework to build self-discipline and to ensure they can study as they get older – I just don’t buy it. When I taught my children the disciplline of sitting quietly in church I didn’t take them to church every day and make them practice sitting. We worked on it in church and guess what? They figured it out. Besides, don’t they learn self-discipline from sitting in a classroom, being quiet, raising their hands,etc. I think parents and teachers need to give kids more credit. I don’t think a 9th grader who has never had homeowrk before is going to buckle under the pressure. There will be an adjustment period but they’ll survive.

As for studying for tests, my 6th grader has never had homework and never had tests or quizzes. This year her history program gives her a quiz each week and tests each semester. I chose this program because of that. It is a skill she needs to acquire. I sat down with her in the beginning of the year, taught her some study aids and then left her to it. The first time she failed a quiz because she didn’t study taught her that she had to study. She now does just fine. She did not need 5 years of practice to get ready for this.

I don’t feel that my children are assigned enough homework. It seems like they are only given an hour or two a week (not counting reading which is supposed to be a half hour a day, but my children generally like to read).

My kids are 5 and 7 in grades 1 and 2, and I am aghast at the size of backpacks they need for their “agenda” and homework. (yes, they have an “agenda” book from the school)

I agree that excessive homework is unnecessary and unhelpful. Children need free time! But taking school work home provides a good chance for parents to interact with their children. Ten to fifteen minutes is enough. Good education starts at home, whether your child is in public school, private school, or is home schooled. If you don’t like the quantity of work your child is sent home with, don’t tell your child to just forget it, talk with the teacher and express your concerns.

Laura I completely agree with you!

This is an interesting issue for me as one of my good friends just switched her daughter’s school mainly because of this issue. She used to have 2 hours of homework most nights as well as numerous extra projects that often took up large parts of her weekend. And this was in K-3rd grade. Amazingly enough she was totally stressed. They had little to no fun family time and even when it came to vacations their daughter just wanted to stay home.

This year they switched schools and it is totally different. She still has some homework, but not near as much. She has time to play and just be a kid. And was totally excited to go on vacation. She is much less stressed. And although changing schools is always hard, this was a VERY good thing.

I think the main school district here, at least the 3 elementary schools I know, have a reasonable amount of homework. For the younger grades, 4th and down, they get homework packets sent home at the beginning of the week and due at the end. It is basically one page a day plus 20 mins of reading. That is nice because some kids would do it all in one day and be done, others would do a bit each day. Either way, there was still plenty of time left for fun stuff.

@ Neil – I LOVE the idea of giving the parents homework. My understanding is that student achievement (and happiness) is consistently linked to parent involvement.

Of course there will be some parents that cannot or will not do their homework. But that can be addressed separately.

One thing I will say about homework, especially long projects that take more than a day to finish, is that it teaches perseverance and planning. These two skills, more than raw intelligence, will be the primary determining factors for anyone who wants to reach their goals.

The homework should be relevant, but it doesn’t need to be fun.

Count me with the “homework isn’t inherently evil” crowd. As others have pointed out, it does matter what kind of homework is being assigned. I seem to remember getting some fun assignments in kindergarten and grade school, like collecting leaves in the fall to make rubbings to bring to school so we could try to identify the types of trees they came from, or seeing how many objects we had at home that we could identify in French. The teachers definitely made a huge effort to make classwork fun. I wish more schools had the freedom to allow their students a greater degree of creativity because *gasp!* school can actually be fun! (yes, my nerdiness is showing, I know).

Sometimes some drilling homework can be helpful and I remember my reading homework in kindergarten as being a fun way for my mom and me to spend time together, but it does sound as if the amount of “busy work” homework being given in a lot of schools these days is excessive. I can’t ever remember having so much homework that I couldn’t go out to play. I think Blake has a good point that in public schools especially, there is little leeway for teachers to be able adjust their programs to their students, and there’s probably also a lot of pressure to “teach standardized tests” which leads to a lot of busy work and rote factual memorization, rather than teaching kids how to process information and create solutions outside of a given guideline.

I would wonder what the kids are doing all day if 8 hours isn’t enough to teach them the basics in elementary school. Or 6 hours, or whatever it is.

We homeschool. So we either have no homework, or all homework, however you want to look at it. 😉 But for my first grader, it takes maybe 1-2 hours a day, tops, including craft stuff. Then we go play.

My attitude to homework during my own schooling was quite simple: ignore it. Even as a child I couldn’t see the point in repeating the same work with different input data – if I understood the concept once, in class, that was enough. If I didn’t understand the concept then no amount of mindless repetition was going to change that.

Most children aren’t stupid – they can smell the dead rat that is the pointless busywork of homework.

@Hayley – This discussion isn’t about public schools, it’s about homework. I don’t believe that public schools are the root of all evil but I do think most homework is unnecessary.

My children don’t get a free pass from everything they don’t like because we homeschool. My daughter hates math but she has to sit down and do it every day. Both of my children loathe cursive writing but it is still required in one subject. They still have to deal with people they don’t like or get along with. That’s a life thing and not limited to the classroom. Also, our children learn about the real world in the actual world. Not in a classroom of same age peers that does not represent the “real” world.

I would have no problem sending my kids to a public school if I had to. I am fortunate to be able to homeschool but we could make public schools work and my children would be just fine. I would however limit their homework. If they wanted to do it all, that’s great. But if we had tickets to the theater or it was their birthday night I would have no problem with them doing what they could and not completing it.

@MFA Grad – The thing about chores is that the goal is explicit and immediate. Kids see the results of their work as soon as they’re done. They might not like doing it, but they can see the result. Homework is more abstract. They don’t see the purpose to it or the goal they’re trying to achieve. My premise of doing chores is to help bridge this gap. If they do the work, then maybe there really is a point to it all. Of course parents need to interact with their kids to help them see the goals, but if they have nothing with which to associate this work, it makes doing the work even more difficult. And yes, I’m talking about doing homework, not busy work.

As far as the initial purpose of homework, the same skills learned by doing chores at home also help out kids in school too.

Kids already see homework as a chore, albeit with negative connotations. We’re the ones responsible for teaching our kids how to think, how to handle situations such as chores and homework.

Okay, I’m ranting now and stop.

This is what bothers me about my kid’s Kindergarten “homework” — it’s basically a list of the kinds of stuff we’d be doing ANYWAY (draw a picture, tell a story, list the names of your family, collect some leaves, identify shapes around the house, etc.), more or less, but now I have to check it off that she did it in order to prove to the school system that I actually bother to have 10 minutes of involvement with my child’s life each day. Parents, after all, can’t be trusted with their own children. Without a state representative making us spend enriching time with them, we’d probably just leave them sitting glassy eyed in front of the tube all day.

I believe my parents read to me every day in elementary school (until I could read well), but they never had to fill out a reading log to prove it to the school. I never filled out a reading log to record the 27 Nancy Drew books I read in 5th grade either. We just read, often under our desks, when we were bored in class, and, if we weren’t disruptive, and we did decently on tests, our teacher generally ignored it. Homework consisted primarily of written reports on assigned books or historical figures and studying for tests. We weren’t told specifically HOW to study. We were just told what we needed to know, and we could do the “homework” of preparation any way we wanted — any way that worked for us — whether that was doing 5 practice math problems or 50, writing our spelling words 50 times or 5.

The only busy work homework we had were projects — the dread dioramas, making posters, etc. — most of which favored the artistic and taught us nothing specific. That I could have done without. The number of projects seemed to increase as I went through school, and I have always though projects in general a waste of time and wished there were fewer of them.

Generally, I think children should not be given homework, but study materials (practice math exercises, vocabulary lists, reading comprehension questions, alphabet tracing sheets, sample essay questions, etc.). They can then use as many or as few of the study materials as they desire to prepare for quizzes and tests, and put in as little or as much time as they want, and see the results, and then adjust accordingly for the future. It is far better to teach study habits than homework habits.

I don’t recall much homework in elementary school, but I recall that in 7-9th grade, I generally completed most of my homework in school, during the 10 minutes per class teachers usually gave us to “get started on your homework,” during my lunch break, and sometimes during boring moments of lectures in other classes. From 10th grade up, I did have to spend more time studying at home, but I doubt I spent more than an hour a day. The only thing that sucked time and joy away from me were the projects – the horrid, horrid projects – the science fair projects, the posters, the play performances, the stuff that took hours and taught little except that, in the work world, as in school, you will be expected to waste great gobs of unproductive time, learn to do all the work while someone else takes partial credit, and tolerate it.

Regarding the first response, Jerri, have you ever considered that it’s unreasonable to demand 5 yr olds to be doing homework at all? Pushing kids that age to do something they aren’t ready for is like trying to force a flower to bloom when it’s still a bud.

Kindergarten has become like a hothouse, trying to ripen all the little tomatoes before they’re ready. Hothouse plants aren’t very hardy, though, and can’t survive well without that controlled environment.

@ Q – I tend to agree. I read like an addict (still do), but getting my kid brother to read? Assigned book reports were the only thing that did it, and with him getting him to do homework rather than run off to his friend’s place to play Nintendo was a struggle of Herculean proportions. I’d like to say that he would have rather been fishing down at the creek with the rest of us, but no, he was opted for video games every time.

Oh yeah–our school allows a lot of “homework passes” for optional afterschool events–so if you show up for family fun night in the cafeteria, or attend a musical at the high school, or whatever, you can get a printed homework pass for the next day.

Jan S I’m not talking about drilling him for hours or making him I don’t know. I just mean pointing out a letter and asking him if he knows what it is.

What Mae Mae said. Goodness, the situation I referred to with my son was a PRIVATE school. This has nothing to do with public school. Private schools can be just as bad, and some public schools don’t create meaningless homework for seven year olds (though my impression that schools of any kind that do not are few and far between.)

If I were convinced that most of the homework my son had in second grade was worth the time and imposition on my family that it cost, I wouldn’t be complaining about it. But not being able to do this or that in the evening because a second grader had “homework” that was not essentially different or more meaningful or more independence-building (I was expected to help him with every bit of it and it was of a nature that demanded parental involvement) than what he did in school, was annoying to me.

So I chose the greater, but more meaningful and more flexible imposition of homeschooling him the next year and all subsequent years until high school.

Those “homework passes” sound like a great idea, assuming the range of events that qualify isn’t too narrow. There are a lot of non-school-sponsored things that are also at least occasionally more worthwhile than homework.

Ha ha, Elle Case! In my family it was the trips to the zoo and the park and the beach that brought them around. They would always ask to invite their friends and I had to inform them that their friends were in school. After a month of that, they were glad to be homeschooled and now have no desire to go to school.

I don’t have a problem with it with my children’s school. It doesn’t take up much of their time, at most 30 minutes for the seven year old. Most of the time it bringing a book/spelling home so they can review for a test. We just read it together, that’s all. Her report card was fine.

The school does of reading over the summer, which I don’t like at all. Parents were drilling their kids with questions.
How do you get children to enjoy literature when presented in such a manner?

@ Renee – Geez, are they actually requiring parents to grill their kids about their summer reading list, now? That’s a quick way to squelch a burgeoning love of reading! I loved doing the summer reading assignments, but if my parents were on me all the time about it, it would have killed the fun for sure.

I think homework is a must. I would say that no more than 30-45 minutes a night until 7th grade. A little bit of work in the evening is a good thing. If it is required reading then good, it forces children to read a little, remember books = good.

My girlfriend is a 4th grade teacher, she says that pretty much the only homework she gives is to finish incomplete class assignments.

I think that a modicum of homework in elementary school may help to teach the kids a bit of responsibility. Homework means that kids are responsible for something during their “free time.”

I feel that one of the tenets of free-range parenting is to teach kids to be responsible for themselves so that when they are faced with a situation they can deal with it. I think that education is one of those important responsibilities and homework helps teach that.

Certainly some kinds of homework teach some kinds of kids about responsibility. But, unfortunately, evidence strongly suggests most homework is a waste of most kids’ time.

This is such a complicated topic. I, too, am anti homework in theory, yet my kids have been receiving it almost nightly (in private schools) since kindergarten. I have always tried to help them keep it in perspective and get through it as quickly as possible so they could go and play.

Currently, my son’s 2nd grade teacher has a terrific attitude about homework…do it if you can. No tears allowed. No questions asked if you don’t turn it in.

She nightly assigns reading, math facts review, spelling review…all of that is actually quite helpful to my son, so I’ve decided to just make it a very fun time for the two of us. I set the timer. Challenge him. Offer incentives. He actually likes it.

My very gifted 5th grade daughter has figured out how to get all her homework done in school.

Sandy

Homework is a less regarded instrument for learning in Australian schools. However there are important encouragements around reading and projects that require research. Parental involvement is helpful in both areas, especially reading.
I have come to understand that life is learning, but learning is a many dimensional thing whose outcomes are: 1.ability to build strong relationships, 2. build a strong body and mind; 3. ability to assist the learning of the needy, younger, peers etc, 4. ability to learn useful skills (by useful I mean that you can eventually trade / share the resource of with others as your participation in the well-being and progress of society). Mostly schooling is hung up on a small window of nos.4. No 3. is the least well understood and, if incorporated into the learning process of each child, would ensure that the thing we call the ‘teenage problem’ would disappear. In otherwords that every child should learn practical service / community participation as part of normative culture.

@Lafe – Thanks for acknowledging that teachers take home 3-4 hours of work. However, in my case, it’s two hours per night and then at least 10 on the weekend.

@Blake – Yes, you are correct. Public school teachers do not have any leeway with their curriculum. We are required to assess and individualize everything, but only within the “programs” purchased by the district, even if we know it isn’t working for a child. All the while, trying to teach and keep 25 kids safe from the one (or more) child/children who is violent/aggressive in the class. I honestly don’t know how they can learn in that environment. I’m planning on HSing also. Hubby’s not on board though. Should I feel guilty that today I let them design scarecrows for the bulletin board instead of doing reading and writing?

And yes, lots of wasted time waiting, especially for the kids who are behaving and are ready to learn.

As a professor of Educational Psychology, I’d say this issue is more complex than many make it. To simply debate “homework vs. no homework” is, I think, a bit simplistic.

First, we should look at purpose or outcomes. Alfie Kohn wrote a book a few years ago called The Homework Myth, which I suspect is what these newest authors are rehashing. He presents evidence that strongly suggests that homework doesn’t do much to improve academic scores. Good point. However, one could argue (as some have here) that there are other skills homework can teach, some of which are self-sufficiency and time management. I don’t know if there has been any research done on these outcomes, but I think it is a suggestion worthy of consideration.

Second, we should discuss type of homework. Repetitive busywork has been found to be completely useless because (as others have stated here), either you already get it or you don’t. Neither should homework be something the parents need to teach their children. However, arguments have been made that very effective homework would be extensions of projects begun in class, where time has run out. In this scenario, homework is less planned and more a function of a continuation of learning on a project that hopefully has gained momentum (and thus sparked motivation) in the classroom. This sort of impromptu homework, however, would be difficult for teachers to implement – can’t just run to the copy room at the last second, for example. But I think homework that leans toward this end of the continuum would be the better stuff to send home.

Third, there’s the issue of parent-child interactions over homework. Some see it as a bonding/involvement opportunity, others as causing contention. I’m rusty on what the data say about this, but I do think there are some answers. Check out the book by John Rosemond, Ending the Homework Hassle. Sure, this guy makes some debatable claims from time to time, but I would argue he’s overall a “free ranger” in that he continually argues that parents should do less for kids and kids should do more for themselves. He consistently advises (in many sources) for children to be off doing something on their own. In this particular book, he says that’s the way homework should go. Give them a space, don’t help unless it’s requested, and most importantly, set a time when it must be finished or packed up. The trick is that you just have to let the child suffer the grade consequences (and subsequent home consequences) until they wise up about how to manage their work. Not savory, but I suspect effective. (Oh – for all you K/1 parents, he has suggestions on how to build this independence so they’re not on their own right from the start.)

Then there is the issue of quantity. Rosemond also makes suggestions that are reasonable by age (e.g., 15-30 minutes for the younger set), and then discusses how to approach your child’s teacher when the demands really are just unreasonable (in which case you wouldn’t levy the consequences mentioned above). Homework may be mandated by school policy, but the amount of homework probably isn’t. If it is, then it’s time to start a movement in the district – granted, not an easy thing, but sometimes necessary.

I helped my son become an independent “homeworker” in the 1st grade, even though the teacher wanted parental supervision. I gradually weaned off my supervision (especially once I noticed what a micromanager I was becoming) and just signed the form once I glanced at the work to see if it was done. Do I like having to “deal” with homework, especially on karate and choir nights? No. But it’s manageable and I see some self-regulation skills that have been built through the process.

I am for homework. Small kids can’t take class notes, so they need more practice. Also it’s a disciplinary thing. And a responsibility.

Actually what outlawed should be multiple choice tests: in all school grades and in college. We all know it’s a *trickery*, not a real learning. You don’t have to master the subject, to get at least half of it right. By doing multiple choice test, checking the dots student’s don’t have to show any of their work/reasoning. No original problem solving is encouraged -“just check the dot”.
Then don’t practice writing a coherent answer to a question, and their incorrect answers are not corrected on paper by the teacher. So students get a no feedback on their answers.

Lola – you have control over your child’s recess time. We have a similar teacher that keeps kids in at recess if they miss one piece of the homework. Our “notification” that my son would miss recess was received on the first week of school – in the signature I printed a large “NOPE” and had it returned. Shortly – days – after I was in the office of the principal with the teacher. After some heated comments, some quotes from the California Education Code, and suggestions that lawyers would be consulted (from both sides) an agreement was made that his wouldn’t continue for my son. Let’s face it folks – you are the only advocate that your child has at public school. If you don’t support and protect them you can’t seriously believe that the teacher/school will, can you?

I have 2 perspectives… and both are anti-homework.

I taught 7th grade social studies in a struggling urban school district for 4 years. We were mandated to assign homework at least 2x per week, yet we were not allowed for that homework to count for more than 10% of the grade… so what did I have to assign- busy work. It was so frustrating. The kids knew it ws busy work, they knew I was mandated to assign it, and they knew it didn’t count against their grade in the class. It was a total waste of everyone’s time and energy.

Now I’m the parent of a first grader. We chose to not put him in a public school because we knew he would be bringing home a backpack full of busy work every night. We chose to send him to a Montessori school. He does still have homework. He has one math sheet and several spelling sheets per week. These are not “graded”, but are practice for his weekly quizes, which re-inforce basic spelling and math “rules”. BUT he does have one nightly assignment I have serious qualms with- he is supposed to read aloud 15 minutes a day, and we are supposed to sign a calendar each day he reads aloud. I understand the reason for encouraging reading aloud at this age, but to mandate it be done for a set amount of time every day and then require the parents to sign a calendar rubs me the wrong way. We own a bookstore. Our child has been in love with books since we opened the store when he was 2. Now he has learned thanks to this assignment that reading is a chore. We don’t make him read aloud unless he wants to. WE don’t want him think that reading is work, we want him to enjoy reading… and he does, on his own time. His monthly calendar with our signatures is due back Monday, and I’m not sure what we’ll do. I don’t want h im to “get in trouble” with the teacher, but I also need to make this stand against reading becoming a chore.

As others have stated, it shouldn’t necessarily be a question of homework or no homework – yet the more I read the more I think there is a giant difference between good homework and bad homework. Pointless work, given on a compulsory, one size fits all basis is totally worthless in my opinion (and there is probably a good argument that it is detrimental to people’s lives – never mind this exclusive focus on educational outcomes that seems to be the norm. I have a life, and I want the children I look after to have a life too – and that’s *way* more important than hours-logged-doing-paperwork).

Getting penalised for failure to submit your grind work certainly does teach kids a lesson – just not necessarily the one that is intended. I know that when I was a child, homework was my first exposure to pointless drudgery (if you don’t count schooling as a whole. Not everyone who is born smart is born with the finances to pay for an education appropriate to that fact) – it was also the beginning of my education in social conformance in the workplace. I *knew* these teachers didn’t give a damn about the work they were setting – the work was irrelevant – it was *doing* the pointless task that mattered. So, I didn’t (even though I didn’t consciously understand why I made that choice at the time). That taught me a lot about human (in this case supposedly *adult*) behaviour, about the possibility and value of saying “no” (especially to authority figures that I been told I couldn’t say no to), than any intentional lesson ever did.

I understand why teachers are compelled to set homework, many of them simply don’t have any choice about the bureaucracies in which they work (and many more of them simply haven’t figured out how to achieve their own outcomes within those rules. Blind adherence to the rules *is* the rule in society, not the exception). I wish that teachers and schools wouldn’t be so quick to embark on homework death marches (and I especially wish that the no-life-but-my-child’s parents would get off their backs about it, terrified that their precious little snowflake might have a few unprogrammed and unstructured seconds. God forgive the thought that their children might be able to take a breath or have a thought, heaven forbid they might even figure out you can have a life instead of a non-stop competition). I see the level of anxiety and frustration this meaningless homework causes in both children and their parents – how is it beneficial to anyone to be locked in this more-hours-is-better mindset that is the homework arms race?

I want to thank every teacher that says no to this pointless work.

¹ There really needs to be a word (preferably a pejorative) for an academic stage parent. We all know parents who are so dead focused on little timmy being a doctor or lawyer (because he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up from prior to his own conception) that they insist that he have 10 hours of homework from day one, and then constantly want more – because more is better. It’s these kind of abusers (because it *is* abuse. Everyone who knows the parents today *also* went to school with the child of that kind of parent. They weren’t happy or confident or anything else, these children were *terrified* of their parents – of what would happen if they didn’t get the best marks in the class, of not getting the perfect score) that lead the charge into homework hell. I blame them for turning learning into an ordeal for all the children – their hyper competitive attitudes have turned homework into an uphill slope, because it only takes the thought that someone else’ child might have some advantage to cause them to run to the teacher, to the school, baying for more work (because more is better). I really *hate* those parents.

Homework can be a useful tool to help keep the parents connected with what the kids are learning in school. My 3rd grader completes her homework in less than 20 minutes per night. I can see what they are working on and make sure she gets it. I am hearing from other parents that their kids, in the same class, are working on the same assignment for hours at a time. If the kids aren’t getting it at school, then talk to the teacher and develop a plan to help them learn the material. I haven’t encountered a public school teacher yet who actually thought an 8 year old should be spending hours a night on school work.

I thought I’d share this website/song with you all- It’s by the fabulous Tom Chapin.

http://www.notonthetest.com/

I think it fits in nicely with this discussion!

I am a little confused by all those homeschoolers here. I never liked homeschooling and I do not agree that homeschooling provides a better education. I think homeschooling is another trait of overprotective parents to remove their children from uncomfortable situations. Yes, there might be circumstances where homeschooling is necessary. However, I disagree that this should be a real alternative to official, public or conventional schools. I would rather have parents shape the current school systems and do something to really change education. Instead of avoiding the system altogether… I doubt this helps kids and society.

Ines,

As a parent of public school children, each year I begin to ponder more and more whether or not I should homeschool. My motivations are not as an overprotective parent, quite the contrary. My motivations are because I want a different and more well-rounded, tangible educational experience than what they are getting.

To think that parents can shape the current school system is completely naive. There are many, many parents who are trying desperately to do such and it is like throwing a deck chair off the titanic. It is a HUGE task that requires tremendous efforts, resources, time, ability, and massive endurance. Considering most parents work FT jobs, it is simply not realistic.

I applaud the homeschooling families out there. I think the movement is going to grow rapidly here.

Ines, that’s a common misconception. The majority of homeschoolers don’t “shelter” their kids. If anything, our kids get out in public with a wider range of people of all ages and backgrounds than kids stuck in a room all day with people segregated by age and zip code.

Do they still get that all-important chance to be bullied and to be part of/excluded from cliques? Sure, if they are let out to play or participate in actvities of any kind. My son, out of the 6 years he played baseball, was one year targeted by the coach’s son and a couple of his friends. With ADHD, he needed to be a baseman or shortstop, but the coach stuck him in the outfield, where he was quickly bored (but turned around fast once he was playing in the infield). We didn’t intervene as his drinks were knocked out of his hands; his bat hidden; he was tripped, etc. He and a couple of others tried to tell the coach but he wouldn’t believe it until his son and the friends were actually holding my son down and punching him (and yes, we did step in at that point–it was 3 older, stronger kids on one DURING a game–no surprise they came in last, when my son was on the championship team the year before).

Since then, he’s been threatened when he goes to neighborhood school’s dances (because he was invited by friends) but managed to have fun without getting into a fight. He never picks fights and has only been in a couple. He also has good groups of friends in several areas of his life and geographically.

My older daughter has had to go from being one of the top students at her old, not-too-good ballet school, to being in the middle of the pack at her new one, which is one of the best in the country. Several of the girls in her class, whose moms are either employed by the school or volunteer heavily, and who get more attention from the teacher, are a clique who’ve treated her pretty badly sometimes (along with everyone else). She sees them as the jerks they are, and has developed her own set of friends. When the divas tried to dictate who was going to be in their choreography for a student contest, half the girls walked out and went to my daughter instead, which really put the collective noses of the divas in a twist.

My kids have also done things like start their own small businesses. Older homeschooled kids I know have volunteered heavily–our library, several area museums, hospitals, a horse rehab therapy center–all have special programs for homeschooled volunteers, meaning they need young people to help during the daytime.

We actually have more opportunities to let our kids fly on their own, not less.

To Ines: I have met a lot of homeschoolers — at certain “homeschool-oriented” events who parent as you are describing. It bowls me over, because I can not believe they would elect to have children who would be so very helpless *and* under their feet *all the time.* At least with clinger/manager parents of the “usual” variety, I figure the kid gets *some* time away and *some* latitude & autonomy in the world.

So, yes. Those parents are out there. Mind-boggling.

That said, we are not two of them. Ever since I pulled my son from his preschool because the teacher called me to complain that he barked like a puppy during free play (“Um, ok,” I said. “You don’t have any tools for that? Are you calling me to tattle on a 3-year-old? Aren’t you the teacher?”), I have been convinced that not tying up the kids’ days in brick-school all day every day gives them more, not less. As someone wrote above, there is so much time in school spent on necessary administrative tasks + crowd control, and that is the way that it is, but I mean … my husband telecommutes most of his days, too, because his office thinks having personnel exert resources on working and not so much on commuting and chitter-chattering by the water-cooler is time, money, & morale better spent.

This is all getting away from the point of homework, but I want to address your surprise at the alliance of homeschool + free-range. So, 1. I have an opportunity, because my children have more time, to show them & teach them how to do *real things* right in the *real world.* An example is my daughter’s ballet class: she has been since 5 free to take her time & fumble her way through dressing in tights on her own since we are not in a mad dash from the pickup line to the school, running late, trying to feed her a snack in between, etc. In her class there are girls 8 & 9 years old, literally being dressed by their mommies, not because they are invalids or their moms are nuts, but because of a lack of time. Kids doing chores or anything on their own mandates time, which to many families with children is a great luxury, one for which I am grateful all the time.

2. Because my children have the leisure of time to practice competence (and effing it up), they tend to be more competent & in a deeper way than their peers. I mean, whatever, it doesn’t mean they are better — they will be horrible drivers at 15 like everyone else, lol — but it does mean their leash can be longer, that I can be more confident in letting them take things on themselves. So, my daughter gets herself to her ballet class from the center of town, my son gets himself to the library, I wait for them in an assigned location & blah, blah, blah, so do we all, this is not the point.

The point is that this rarefied privilege of this kind of time means that my children are frequently the only ones doing this kind of thing of which they (and any child in similar circumstances) would be more than capable. But because of a prevailing culture of smothering lunacy, I am not in the way I would like to all the time able to take fullest advantage of the benefits of having the kind of time afforded by homeschooling, in large part one of the major reasons I chose (and choose) to educate them here at home.

I hope that helps. All best.

@Ines

Homeschooling can be used to shield children from uncomfortable realities – the religious nutters do it all the time. Education *is* indoctrination, and you can just as easily teach someone how not to think as how to. However, most people don’t live in a compound, armed to the teeth, praying for the end times, and most people who do homeschool their children aren’t that different to those who don’t.

Most people simply don’t have a choice about homeschooling, they haven’t the time, money or ability to do it.

Conventional education caters to the average – doing anything else would be a waste of resources. If your children are gifted or if they are impaired they won’t be properly catered for in a conventional setting (although how underserviced they are can vary wildly). If you don’t fit the middle of the road then conventional schooling is very likely to be sheer torture. I speak from bitter experience (If I had the resources, no child of mine would ever set foot in a conventional school – not because of any of their needs, but because of my experiences in them. Not every decision needs to be a solely rational one). That doesn’t make conventional education universally inferior – it just means education isn’t a single elastic bag that everyone fits into. Those lucky enough to have a choice can make up their own minds about what constitutes a better education for their children.

As a homeschooling dad, I just want to be clear that it’s not for everyone. My dearest friends have had their two kids, 16 and 13, in public school and will continue to do so. They both thrive because of a solid, trusting relationship with their parents. As long as there’s that, everything’s fine, no matter what choices are made.

You know, I think it’d be better for kids all-around if more people could/would homeschool. If you have more people able to homeschool, that means you have fewer kids in the classrooms, which would result in smaller class sizes, which would open up more opportunities for more personalized education.

Of course, the governments probably wouldn’t see it that way and just find ways to cram the kids into fewer schools so they’d still be sardines…

Mmh. I have probably to just meet homeschooling parents that I would trust. Most people I know that are homeschooling live too far of reality. I have met 5 parents that homeschooled that I consider too extreme left or too religious. I have met three kids that were homeschooled while I was in college all of hem were awkward and not up to competition and task.

And I am yet thinking about homeschooling kids myself. Just because I do not believe in the American school system anymore. So I sympathize with those parents that choose this path.

However, my experience shows me that these kids turn out strange. And the parents are nut-jobs. In most cases. That makes me not want to be part of that movement. And honestly, I do not believe a parent can give the same good education a well trained and well motivated teacher can. Unfortunately, I do not know a lot of those either.

I went to a public school. And I have always been an A student. Have been to three Universities on three different continents. I earn 6 figures. I like working and I like teaching my kids the same values I learned. I could and would not be able to do so, if I was homeschooling. That said. I am still skeptical. In particular because my experience tells me that homeschooling is not the solution to this societal problem.

@elle case …I feel blissfully naive, here, but what on earth is wrong with a 3 year old barking like a puppy??? My three year old is not in preschool because I figured it would be counterproductive for her, but I hadn’t guessed at how absurd it really could get.

@Ines

If you’ve got the money and you are concerned how socially acceptable your children are/will be, then my advice to you is to buy the most expensive private education you can afford for them. That kind of education is generally better than public, it’s still conventional and run by teachers, and you get the added bonus of buying them (and generally yourself) higher social status. They’ll learn how to fit in there and they’ll get A’s – those two things seem important to you (and let’s be clear: that’s not a problem).

@Renee

This is America is it? That’s funny, ’cause from where I’m sitting this is the global internet (ie. I’m in Australia – and yes, the cultural differences between Australia and America are *huge*).

Whilst you (as a self confessed religious nutter) have every right to raise your children with whatever beliefs you want, you have *no right* (not even in America) to be free from criticism (both positive and negative). I don’t know you, or your beliefs, but I certainly hope you aren’t one of those people who uses their right of freedom of speech to complain about other’s being able to exercise that same right. That kind of cognitive dissonance is disappointingly common.

Homeschooling is about complete control over the educational process. With that kind of power comes the possibility of abuse of power. Most people don’t abuse that power, but *some* do. Enough people do this to give people cause for pause when thinking of homeschooling – some of the prejudice directed towards some who homeschool is anything but misplaced.

Ines, there’s not as much research on homeschooling as I wish there was. But the research that has been done, has clearly demonstrated that there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that homeschooled kids fare worse, academically or socially, than kids who go to private school.

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/29/e6/28.pdf

@Stuart

Because one has the right to criticism, isn’t an argument to itself. You’re a perfect example of individuals having no sense of philosophy, you know you have the right to speak one’s mind, but you really don’t have any thoughts, instead you simply repeat a concept to defend a non-thought. You have no capacity of thought process, instead your initial post recites insults.

Back to homework, homeschooling, and parenting. The primary caregivers of a child are his/her parents. As a society we should respect their decisions on how to raise their children, because it is their obligation. Here in the states even where the definition is redefined as family, even non-traditional families are acknowledged and respected for this obligation to children within their home. The more we promote healthy parenting, the less of a burden a child is on state. Even children who go to public school, if family is stable at home, the easier to help educate.

We know a just civilized society promotes and obligates a mother and father to care for their children, to ensure they are not neglected or abused, and that children are accepted, nurtured and loved. No state can provide that, but a state can protect that obligation. With that obligation, the state also gives rights and a rather broad ability to parent as he or she wishes.
—-
Stuart, the only thing you proved to me is that you are unjust prejudicial towards those who have a religious faith. You’re demeaning and uncharitable, as a way to feel smart and superior towards others. Yes you use really big and educated words, but I think it may be you that is suffering from ‘That kind of cognitive dissonance is disappointingly common’.

If you ever choose to have another conversation, lay off the personal attacks. i.e. ‘religious nutters’ Just say, I’m not religious, but I respect others who are. Just as one can simply be an atheist or non-religious, one could just as easily be an ‘atheist nutter’ taking so much pride in their stance they’ll take a quick swipe at the first moment to put someone down.

@Renee

You are wonderful at putting words into other’s mouths, I’m sure that it isn’t new to you.

You want a pat on the back from me for you making a decision about parenting your own children? Really? Respecting your decisions (which, for the record, I do) is hardly the same as heaping you with undeserved praise for what is, by your own admission, is your obligation as a parent. Where I come from you don’t get unconditional fawning praise for just doing your job.

How many of the words you’ve used to describe me also describe you perfectly? Try all of them. You are so puffed up with self righteousness, indignation and entitlement that you cannot bother to consider how the rules you are so pissed off about me breaking don’t seem to apply to you at all.

This is a world where not everyone has to agree with you 100% all the time, and where it’s not the end of the universe when they don’t. Figure it out. Your thin skin isn’t serving you well at all, grow a tougher hide.

As with my reply to LJM, I doubt there is much value in my continuing further discussion with you. The only particular advice I can offer you is to pick up a dictionary rather than taking smug comfort in your own ignorance – being a fool is neither an achievement or the moral high ground you seem to assume it is. If you wish to keep using religious persecution as an excuse not to address your feelings of inferiority that is your choice – it is obvious that you are of the belief that your faith is somehow a detriment to your thinking (why else the sheer contempt for the mind if not fear of that?) – but in that you are wrong. Faith and an open questioning mind needn’t be in opposition, God doesn’t just go away the minute you look at him critically. Have some faith in yourself and the validity and strength your own beliefs, and stop hiding behind ignorance.

I’m not against homeschooling and am considering it for my kids (though I think it fits less well with the free-range philosophy espoused on this blog and in Lenore’s book than many homeschoolers here seem to). But (you knew there was a but coming didn’t you?) much of commentry (that touch on homeschooling-not just homework) on this thread by homeschoolers frankly verges on smugness and advocacy. That does not seem appropriate given the fact it is not the focus of the blog. Surely there are plenty of other places you can go to pat yourselves on the back?

Five sets of parents, Ines, is not “most homeschoolers” As for the three kids you met, let’s not go putting the cart before the horse here. There’s every possibility that they were homeschooled BECAUSE they were socially awkward, not the other way around. Many parents choose to homeschool their aspie kids (whether or not those children have an official diagnosis) because school is not a safe or stimulating environment for them. (And by safe I mean *safe*. Autistics are bullied at a very high rate. Unsurprisingly, the suicide rate of adult autistics is excessively high.)

“Surely there are plenty of other places you can go to pat yourselves on the back?”

I believe we were responding to blanket criticisms that we believe to be false, based both on our personal experience and the research that’s been done on the subject. I’m sorry if you find that correcting misconceptions frequently held by intelligent people in the hope that they will be better informed constitutes “smugness and advocacy” and “patting ourselves on the back.” I thought that correcting misconceptions about parenting was one of the main thrusts of this blog, even if homeschooling is rather tangential to it.

Now I had to laugh, Uly, that was a cute reponse, so emotional and biased. I am with Stuart on this one. Criticism is perfectly fine and I am speaking of my own anecdotal experience. And that should be acceptable here, shouldn’t it?

The question about free ranging is to allow your children free range. That to me includes letting them learn from other people including teachers. There are excellent teachers and public schools out there. I cannot teach Physics well or Spanish. I might be a good French or Chemistry teacher. And I am excellent at Math. How can any parent assume they can do, know and teach all?

I am still a skeptic when it comes to homeschooling. And the more reading these comments the more I am convinced that homeschooling is not for me (I had my doubts earlier this week). There might be good homeschoolers out there… who knows. I am not generalizing.

I am just said that this free range movement seems to be hijacked by parents that do exactly the opposite to what it is supposed to be. It makes me sad to see close mindedness and the unwillingness to change society and rather draw back and remove yourself from it and ignore the diversity that is life. Sigh.

Why is the answer to one extreme always another extreme?

@ Mae Mae – thanks! I’ll definitely check them out. I’m thinking about getting my nieces a few books for Christmas (Mouse & the Motorcycle, Phantom Tollbooth & The Secret Garden) and was stumped over what to get to encourage the not-so-enthusiastic niece. If she’s really not that much of a reader, that’s ok, but I think it’s worth giving the GNs a try.

Ina,

I’ll second what Mae Mae says, and also, just for informational purposes. One of the most-often heard and least true arguments against homeschooling is that kids don’t get exposed to other teachers, and parents can’t possibly know enough to teach different subjects, as if we had to make everything up out of our own heads.

There are literally hundreds of curricula out there written specifically for homeschoolers of all different learning styles. There are co-ops; there are tutors; there are distance classes. There are homechooling moms who are scientists and mathematicians; who are native speakers of Mandarin Chinese or German; who are professional musicians and who are willing to co-teach others’ children.

And then, take a look at the percentage of jr. high and high school teachers who are teaching a subject for which they don’t even have a college minor. It’s shockingly high, hovering around 50%. Do you really want your child trying to learn physics from someone who didn’t even have it at the college level? Wouldn’t it be better to have a distance learning course or have him take it at a co-op being taught by an actual working physicist?

Finally, ask yourself about why it is that products of the government education system don’t feel able to teach subjects they supposedly mastered to a child they know extremely well, as opposed to scores of kids whom they don’t know and whose abilities are all over the board. Is it that people aren’t able, or they don’t *feel* able? If the system works, they should *be* able. So then we need to ask, what is it about the system that has convinced us we can’t teach what we supposedly know?

It would not work for me just because I honestly like to work fulltime. I would go crazy giving up the opportunity and possibility to work and advance. And in my job it is impossible to work and homeschool if I want to have some kind of me-time, too. I am fully satisfied with teaching my kids a second language for now.

As I said before there might be parents that use the homeschooling approach to the best, others might not.

I am just highly critical towards parents that claim to be able to teach their children without having the proper knowledge and experience. And those that are too religiously centered for my taste.
But… I doubt that the American school system is that great. I do not like the teaching towards standardized tests approach and the hours filled with unbenefitial busy work.

We’ll see what happens.

Ines, I’ve heard the “I don’t know enough about…” argument before, and I gotta say it makes little sense to me.

If 12+ years of schooling left you so uneducated that you can’t teach your kid reading and math (much less physics and chemistry, although many people seem to choose to homeschool only for a set period of time and not the kid’s entire educational career), how can you possibly manage to do *worse* than that?

Besides, other people covered what I’ve already been told by other homeschoolers – many of them have help and don’t, in fact, try to do it all themselves.

Just throwing in my 2 cents re: homeschooling:

It’s a sad fact that there are many school systems in which the teaching/administrative philosophy has turned toward “teach the test/memorize facts” and that teaching kids “what to think” as opposed “how to think” has taken precedence. This is a dangerous and highly detrimental plan because in the long run, those systems are either going to turn kids off of learning and/or churn out adults who have little ability to think for themselves or process information without strict guidelines (there’s been a disturbing rise in stories of college students complaining about exam questions because they use material that wasn’t expressly mentioned in the class syllabus).

There are a lot of factors tangled together causing this situation: strict guidelines for teachers that leave them little room to maneuver, teachers being thrown into schools w/o having adequate training, administrations more interested in CYA than taking risks for their students, over-involved parents, under-involved parents, socio-economic differences between districts, too-large class sizes, etc. I think we can agree that the system, as it currently stands, is in desperate need of fixing in many areas of this country.

I commend the parents who have obviously put a lot of time and effort into creating homeschooling programs for their kids. It sounds to me as if many of you put a lot of thought into what you are doing and made what you think was the best decision for you kids. I personally don’t have much exposure to or as much enthusiasm for homeschooling, but I’m perfectly willing to admit that it’s a product of my own experiences in school, which were mostly positive, so I find it difficult to relate and am somewhat put off by the hostility I’ve sometimes seen exhibited towards schools and teachers. I went to the same school K-8 – many of the teachers there were lifers (I’m in my 30s and a good 1/2 doz of my original teachers are still there!) – that place was my 2nd home and I would not have a fraction of the work ethic, love of learning, creativity and confidence I have as an adult if it hadn’t been for those experiences and teachers (yes, I do credit my parents for a lot, but as my mother was too sick to take as much of a role as she would have liked, my father worked hard & often, and both of them passed away before I hit 14, those teachers & even some administrators really stepped up to the plate for me). Again, however, those are just my opinions and experiences, they can’t speak or apply to everyone, nor would I expect them to, and from much of what I’ve read here, I can’t blame anyone for seeing homeschooling as the best viable alternative to give their kids the best education possible – which really, I think, is what parents want for their kids.

I would just hope that as enthusiastic as many of you are about homeschooling and committed to spreading awareness/correcting misconceptions about homeschooling, please remember that although you made the choice for homeschooling because you found something lacking or unacceptable or cost-prohibitive about the “conventional” school options available to you, that there ARE “conventional” schools and teachers out there who are doing tremendously wonderful jobs and offering inspiring education programs that encourage kids to learn HOW to think for themselves, be creative and love learning, often under less than ideal conditions. Making blanket statements & assumptions about how “conventional” schools and teachers just teach kids group think and squelch creativity is just as bad as blanket statements about how homeschoolers just want to control what their kids are learning and keep them isolated.

Wow, I was going to say something about excess homework being one (of many) reasons we are happy to be homeschooling–then I peeked at all the comments and kind of got scared! 😉 Children who have 2-4 hours of homework at night ARE schooling at home–it is a shame they had to sit still and quiet in classes for 7-8 hours beforehand. We love that our preschool and kindergarten classes are done in about 45 minutes a day–though the children are learning constantly–they see things outside and have more questions than I can count, so we answer what we can, and grab a book to read more. As the kids get older, their lessons will take longer, but I do not anticipate any one day taking longer than 4 hours for lessons–until maybe high school. The rest of the day, they roam, they play, they work, they “read” stories–or make them up, they get to be kids. We like this–instead of hours of my squiggly boy being told to be still, or my daughter getting bored to tears. It makes all of us pretty happy.

Stuart,

If you’re still reading, I’m not saying I was offended, I was saying you have to try to see how people could be offended. Perhaps I should have chosen a religious example instead of a sexual one to illustrate the personal nature of homeschooling and why baseless questions can be offensive. And certainly, no thinking person would suggest that no homeschooling parent could abuse their powers.

Bottom line is, you suggested that it’s not misguided to have a prejudice towards homeschool. But since there’s no evidence that homeschool is worse than public school, it very obviously is misguided.

Ina

For what it’s worth, before I decided to have kids I intended to become a professor. My field was Medieval and Renaissance Inter-Arts.

Reading this thread, you’ll see that the homeschoolers here do not see themselves as having removed themselves from society. I didn’t answer earlier because we were at a homeschooling Renaissance Faire, with reenactors who’d traveled from a couple of states away. Towards the end of the meeting we talked about the food drive we’re partnering with a restaurant to put on next week. We also raise money for charity by putting on a Christmas show for donations, as well as plan field trips and have some days where kids just play games and hang out together.

My son has three friends he considers “best” friends, and many more he considers good friends. He sees one of his best friends daily, unless schedules don’t mesh; he sees one of them weekly; and another 3-4 times a month (lives an hour away now because they moved). He sees two of his good friends nearly daily. My daughter sees her best friend daily and a couple of good friends daily as well. And I don’t mean they wave “hi” as our cars pass: I’m talking at least 1-3 hours with them, every day. And those hours are not hours where they’re being told to “stop talking and sit still, because school time is not social time.” It’s their own time. Matter of fact, she’s at her best friend’s house right now, getting ready for a Halloween party they’re headed to tonight.

I sent her to Manhattan to an international ballet competition for a week last spring without me (with another mom in her ballet school). She’d just turned 10. I really wanted to go with her to share the experience, but she called me when they first drove onto the island and told me everything she was seeing. Then she was so busy she only called a couple of times the rest of the week. She earned almost all of the money for the trip herself, between wrapping gifts for donations last Christmas at an upscale mall as part of a group fundraiser, and selling flower bulbs door-to-door.

Are we unusual as far as homeschoolers go? No (except maybe the international competition part, although half the girls in her level are homeschooled). I’m on one the biggest local e-lists in the country, and one of the main reasons for its existence is to help homeschoolers organize for group events, tours, and friendships.

The grading thing is a whole other topic. Some people use distance learning that assign grades, or have to report grades by state law. In my case, I want nothing less than 100% mastery. I see no point in assigning a child a number and then moving on without having him finish learning what he didn’t know. Grades are useful to measure the progress of large numbers of children whom the teacher really doesn’t know that well and only spends a minute or so, if that, of individual time with each one. And of course, you have to get your child used to the idea before college.

I should also tell you that my kids are considered “cool” just about everywhere they go. Even when they were young elementary age playing in public park playgrounds, I’d overhear other kids saying “Let’s go play with him, he’s cool!” And now the typical reaction we get, if they’re becoming friends with someone, have gotten together a few times, and it comes up in conversation that they’re homeschooled is “You’re kidding. YOU? No way. You’re so normal!”

Honestly, we’ve met a few homeschoolers that aren’t “normal”, but in almost every case, there is something going on like Aspergers, bipolar, etc. and is the very reason the child was brought home in the first place.

In my state, there is a large and active homeschooling population, even in rural areas. Our state’s e-list is huge (and I’m on the board). I’m also my county’s homeschooling contact–a volunteer position in an all-volunteer network. So I’ve met and worked with literally hundreds of new and experienced homeschoolers, and they’re anything but homogeneous, except perhaps in their gutsiness to be able to think past societal conventions to do what’s best for their own kids.

For some kids, government school might be just fine. But there is always the crowd mentality that is fostered by it, and conformity for conformity’s sake. My kids are bonding with others just fine; they’re both proud of the ballet school with very good reasons that the school has fully earned by virtue of competition results, and they’re proud of themselves for helping earn that result.

There’s also the excellent essay “It Might Be a Cheetah”: http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm This does a good job explaining why some have felt the need to seek different educational options for their kids. Some kids just don’t fit into the one-size-fits-all mold.

Sorry if I’ve seemed condescending. I don’t mean to be. But there are books, articles, entire magazines with enough reading material on this subject to keep a person occupied for years.

Ines (sorry on getting your name wrong):

For about 10 years I’ve sold educational books for kids (working with a publishing company, not the author). More recently, I’ve starting writing and have set up a menu service for families with special dietary needs. Not what I was educated to do (long story as to why not) but I’m pretty happy with it, even if I do have less prestige having dropped out from the tenure track.

To the couple people who mentioned that they don’t agree with/like homeschooling because the people they’ve seen that homeschool/are homeschooled are “weird” or “socially awkward”, etc. I’m curious about something — Barring an actual disorder (such as the aforementioned Asperger’s), did you ever consider that it was because of the parents that the homeschooled kids were awkward, and not the fact that they were homeschooled?

Ines, I’m not defensive. I don’t even homeschool, so how could I be “defensive”? I just don’t like people who start out making nasty rude comments about other people that aren’t even correct.

Just say No!

I was such a bad public school mom. After 6 years (kindergarten through 5th grade) of struggling with multiple hours of homework for my oldest I went on strike. I made it clear to teachers and kids alike that I was no longer in the homework business. It was the most foolish waste of educational time I could possible conceive of.

Thank goodness they’re all in a school with no homework now because I was rapidly using up my allotment of bad mommy points on that one issue alone.

I know this thread has long since died, but did anyone else ever have the “10 minutes per year of school” standard my elementary school’s district did? (I was in ES from 92-97)

By district policy, unless remedial work was needed on a case-by-case basis, the teachers were not to assign more than, say, 10 minutes of work to a first grade class, 20 to second grade, etc.

Additionally, homeschooling is fantastic, if you can afford a Montessori or Independant school, that is all well and good. However, both my parents worked more than full-time jobs and it would have been fiscally impossible. I was one of those kids who railed against homework from day one of first grade right up to high school graduation, but there was simply nothing my family could reasonably do about it other than encourage me to complete it as quickly and accurately as possible.

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Президент России Дмитрий Медведев поручил правительству подготовить предложения по сокращению численности российских чиновников на 20 процентов. Об этом сообщает ИТАР-ТАСС со ссылкой на заявление главы государства, сделанное во время совещания по вопросу формирования перечня Федеральных целевых программ.
Медведев отметил, что этот вопрос уже обсуждался в правительстве страны. Однако, по мнению главы государства, “нужно видеть финальный результат и только после этого принимать решение”. Ранее с предложением уволить каждого пятого федерального чиновника выступило Министерство финансов России. Об этом писала газета “Ведомости”.
Согласно расчетам Минфина, сокращение более 120 тысяч человек в течение ближайших трех лет позволит ежегодно экономить для бюджета 43,4 миллиарда рублей. При этом министерство предлагает повысить зарплату чиновников, чтобы стимулировать министерства и ведомства сокращать штат. На эти цели планируется выделить половину сэкономленных денег.
Премьер-министр РФ Владимир Путин заявил, что решение по вопросу сокращения чиновничьего аппарата будет принято позже. В то же время сообщается, что Следственный комитет при прокуратуре, Федеральная служба судебных приставов, Федеральная миграционная служба, Министерство по чрезвычайным ситуациям и Генпрокуратура уже обратились в правительство с просьбой увеличить им штаты в общей сложности почти на 24 тысячи сотрудников.

Firstly,the cell phone’s design . The principal concern of scores of testers and researchers are both the aspect and feeling of brand phones. They give too much effort to provide perfect looks to the phones subjected to a specific price range decided on by the director. China mobile phonesdon’t achieve this step. They frequently will obtain a pre-existing phone case molding and then use their own electronics and components inside. These moldings can be according to internationally famous brands such as iPhone or a BlackBerry, and doing so makes a big proportion of the Chinese manufactured phones seem like fakes. Why do they do this? It’s because it costs less to repeat the moldings of famous brands than to research and make their own.

Then it’s the chip.
Branded Mobile phones use a selection of chips. High spead contained by chips are invaluable when a phone is running some of the faster functions, so are the rest in relation to the latest smart phones. Phones marketed to a lower end base can use chip sets that enclose a processing rate that is much slower, making the purchase price much lower in comparison.
Chinese cell phones are almost certain to be running off only the MTK chip set. Run of The MEDIATEK (MediaTek Inc) chip sets include two generations at this time carried out in most of the phones.
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And,the cell phone’s OS. Blackberry and iPhone have distinctive operating systems from other cell phones. When a company cut corners,they get the right to utilize and alter other mobiles. Most China cell phones producers use up the nucleus OS. They use this OS because it happens to be easy with light weight structure, not much processing speed, abundant supply and durability.

Finally it’s the phone’s UI . famus Branded Mobile phones will use a user interface that is custom-tailored to their platform built off their OS. This allows it to be incomparable from other phones.With nucleus OS, China cell phones can have a multiplicity of designs. Many times however, they use this ability not to create innovative interfaces to separate themselves from rivals, while mainly to merely restructure better known ones from brand name phones. The Chinese do this equally to equal the phone mold case, or to emulate a trendy one. A copied covering might be unlike the known iPhone.
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Начну с того, что когда-то, уже давно купить кухню задумал мой глубоко “уважаемый” сосед, с которым мы живём рядом. Чуть позже, мне перепала возможность абсолютно случайно попасть к нему в гости. То, что я увидел, меня восхитило — такой кухни в москве я никогда не видел. Она была не громоздкая , просторная , стильная , очень удобная — в общем, обладала всеми теми особенностями, которые я никак не мог найти в сочетании ни в одной другой кухне. Ну я начинаю выпытывать — где купил, какова цена и Ñ‚.д.. Кстати, хоть Артурчик (мой сосед) и был порядочным мужиком, но его ЭГОистическое чувство жадности и зависти знали все, кто хотя бы раз с ним общался. О том, где он взял такую прелесть, само собой, сообщать он мне и не думал. Я ему говорю: вот не пойму я твои выходки, сосед. Что произойдёт, если Ñ‚Ñ‹ мне поведаешь — где Ñ‚Ñ‹ это нашёл? Мне же просто интересно А он тупо слушает и молчит, козёл. Я так понял, что этому коню его кухня дороже матери родной, когда он сказал, что желает иметь хоть что-то, чего не будет у остальных.

Сам я завистливым никогда не был. Мы с женой уже давным-давно планировали разыскать мебель для кухни, но всё никак не могли отыскать ничего подходящего. Я думаю, многие люди меня поймут — ведь ни у одного меня такие напряги с площадью квартиры. Особо развернуться в нашей кухне нельзя. Но одновременно с этим, хочется красоты, уюта и удобства. Я своей намекнул, что был у соседа нашего и видел там то, что надо, но он сцуко молчит и не хочет рассказывать, где взял.

Но вот один раз, бродя по сети в поисках счастья, я наткнулся на фото такого же кухонного гарнитура. Порадовался я конкретно. Звоню в эту компанию, изготавливающую чудо кухни на заказ. И в нашей квартире новинка появилась спустя пару недель. Зову соседа-педа. Он когда зашёл, то от завести чуть не сдох. На его роже был гнев всех нацистов и горечь всех евреев на земле. Наверное, он немножко расстроился, помолчал и свалил.

“Холодная” война между нами не прекратилась и сегодня, хоть с тех пор прошло уже много времени. И блин, стыдно признаться — из-за кухни. Хотя между нами идёт односторонняя война, которая идёт в сторону меня. Он меня едва видит, то просто зарыть готов, в то время, когда я к нему совсем никаких предъяв не имею. Так как он пожизни невменяем, то я даже свою тачку не паркую под его окном.

Я уже новую кухню сегодня подыскиваю. Я уже побаиваюсь — вдруг опять у нас окажутся аналогичные кухонные наборы! Тогда, выходя из наших квартир в одно и то же время, вместо рукопожатия мы будем бить друг другу в табло. Поэтому, хочу что-то такое, что позволит обновить мой старый набор для кухни, который послужил на славу. Вот когда нужно не спешить и хорошенько мозг забить — на кону жизнь всего нашего дома.)) Самое главное, чтобы у этого чудилы не оказалось такой же.

Приветствую форумчан ! Я захотела расширить свой кругозор в мире интернета. Сейчас столько всяких сайтов где авторы рассказывают про всякие интересности своих занятий, приводят советы чем можно заниматься в интернете.Поделитесь пожалуйста примерами ресурсов какие читаете. Большое спасибо за помощь.

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