Dear Teachers,
I used to be one of you.
Overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated.
For ten years, up until I got married, I was an elementary school teacher.
Back in those single days, before I had kids of my own, I felt pretty strongly about homework.
Kids should have it.
They should get used to it.
I’m not really sure why I thought that.
But I did.
Now that I’m a parent and I’m on the other side of the homework equation, things are different.
I still feel pretty strongly about it.
But not in the same way.
Homework sucks.
Kids shouldn’t have it.
Not much of it anyway.
My feelings on this matter aren’t due to laziness.
If you know me, you know that you’d have a difficult time finding someone who works harder than I do.
This aversion to homework is not about not wanting to work.
No.
It’s about the value of time.
My time is valuable.
And so is my kids’.
Just because a human being is only five, or nine, or thirteen years old, it does not make his or her time less valuable than yours.
And I know you can relate.
There is never enough time in the day for a teacher.
And when some asshole sitting in an office in Washington D.C. or Hartford decides to add a useless standard or benchmark or whatever to the list of things you need to accomplish each day, it’s annoying.
Infuriating, even.
Those exams you have to take for your certification?
Imagine if, even after you passed them, you had to continue, for up to three hours nightly, in writing, to demonstrate that you had mastered those skills or memorized that information?
And once you were done with that, then you could get to all the other things you needed to get done?
Insanity.
Speaking of insanity, I’ve had my battles with that.
I’m no stranger to mental illness and depression.
And what I know about those things is that too much work can push you right over the edge.
I don’t want my kid to have to wait until she’s done a couple stints in the nuthouse to figure out that there has to be balance.
That all work and no play is really fucking dangerous.
That sleep and exercise and music and sports and family and friends and quite possibly therapy are all important components to being a healthy and productive and happy adult.
Sure, there are days you will have to spend more time on an assignment or project than others.
Studying for tests takes time.
There are some things that just need to be memorized.
And there are some things you need to practice.
If you don’t know how to read, that’s a problem.
If you can’t multiply three digit numbers because you don’t know your math facts, that’s not good.
If you are not meeting the basic requirements, then there will be a consequence.
That’s how real life is. I get it.
If you want to play varsity basketball but you can’t make a free throw to save your life, well, you’re gonna need to spend some extra time practicing free throws.
But if my kid has demonstrated mastery of all her math facts, why does she need to do multiplication worksheets when she gets home from school?
My eight-year-old’s time is just as important as anyone else’s, no matter what age he or she is.
So I’ll make a deal with you.
You teach my kids to read and write and add and subtract and some important stuff about history and science and some different ways in which they can solve problems because everyone has different ways of learning things and figuring shit out.
I, in turn, will teach my kid to not be an asshole at school, and how to strike a balance with all the other things that we adults realize are important for overall health and productivity out in the real world. Things like exercise, and the pursuit of our passions, and maintaining healthy relationships, and listening to our bodies, and getting rest, and following through, and taking responsibility.
If my kid is really struggling with a subject or concept in school, let me know. I’ll help you out.
But take it easy on the homework.
And before you assign it, think about why you are asking my child to do it, and whether or not it’s even necessary.
Because if I have to spend too much time helping with that, well, then I can’t guarantee I’ll have enough time to work on those other things.
And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather send a healthy, rested, and well-rounded child into school than a tired, cranky and unbalanced asshole with a folder full of completed homework papers.
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I was a Kindergarten/first grade teacher before becoming a stay at home mom and I completely agree with you. Often times the homework is just busy work. I think it’s more important that children have the chance to read books with their parents/guardians and play and socialize (they are pushing play out of the classrooms more and more). When I taught we had a “homework bingo” that families could pick and choose the amount of assignments per week. A lot more schools are actually doing away with homework.
Annabelle is no where near school-age and I completely agree with this!
My kids have homework pretty much every night
on a kinder/1st grade level…sending home homework is more about teaching responsibility than about practicing a skill. Teaching the child to be responsible enough to do it and get back to class with it, and teaching the parents their responsibility of checking the child’s folder every night, going over the work with their child, and signing off on the calendar to show they’ve checked on behavior as well. (I have many parents that never ever ever look at their child’s work, as them about it, or sign the folder to show they are interested in their child’s behavior.) If I could get a guarantee that they would “teach their kid not to be an asshole”, I’d GLADLY loosen up on what I expect from them. But at the early level, it’s more about training the parent to do what is right for their child..b/c many of them just dont know (or don’t care.) #sadbuttrue
Robin Bobo, your job is to teach the children. Your job is not to train or judge the parents. If you are only sending stuff home to fill time with no educational benefit, then I am not going to waist my time or my child’s time. That is the point of the article.
My job is to teach the whole child. Respect and responsibility is the biggest part of that, especially since the majority of today’s children get no training or instruction on it at home. It is not modeled for them so we have to teach it. They have to learn that aide them in becoming good academians as well.
Glad that you are not my child’s teacher. I teach my children to be good and moral citizens. I send them to school to get instruction in academics. Teachers like you, even though with good intention, make my job harder.
I wish I taught in a school district that had more parents like you. Sadly, your style of parenting is not the norm in a lot of areas. For a lot of our students, school is the only safe place they know and school personnel are the only adults that show them love and treat them respectfully. Your children are blessed.
And it’s not judging…its equipping the parents to best help their child. Establishing routines of having a set time each night to go over what the child did in school that day, review work, work together on a homework assignment, get it back into the folder/backpack and returned to school…this is learning to be responsible and accountable. I send home nothing that is not educational as well. There is more to being educational than solving math problems or writing a report. I have high school children of my own doing homework as well, and believe me..I think a lot of it is baloney. Especially when they have to do 50 problems when 5 or 10 would show whether they have understanding of the concept. But helping parents learn how to help their children succeed IS part of my job. And it IS in the best interest of the child.
For kindergarten it seems to be okey with very moderate level of monthly assignment just as a token of taking responsibility from the sides of both the student and the parent.But what does it mean if in middle school and high school students are getting homework in such a volume each day that ultimately they are leaving aside even a mere reading of the text and only copying the answers from the text like machine in the school at periods when there is no teacher in the classroom,in their break time and also till midnight at home till before 15 days of exam to submit the copies in time.
Not the teacher’s fault. Common Core. It’s unreal.
Thanks for the follow on Twitter! And I see we are neighbors…well the towns we live in are neighboring. 🙂
The homework thing gets me too. My kids are older, all teenagers. One is in private high school, one public, and one the middle school. The amount of homework that my public high school student gets is crazy…we’re talking all hours of the night crazy. She does varsity sports, she works part time, and tries to have a social life, but there just isn’t much time. And she has a mastery of the subjects…she’s a great student. But I wish she wasn’t up till 1 every night or falling asleep with her head in a book or on the computer. Seems like there should be a happy medium here.
As an elementary teacher I give very little homework. I expect students to read nightly but not to record anything in writing – I do check-ins with them weekly to see what they’re reading. Any other homework is assigned Tuesday and due Tuesday. For Grades 1 – 2 it’s usually a math game to play. Grades 3-5 it’s a few math problems or something related to sci. / soc. studies. Students work hard all day, they don’t need to put in “overtime”.
Homework was a way to learn and to fix concepts that we done at class, but…as my brother said: You’re all the bloody time doing homework…may be I was the only one who loved it.
Things have changed and the way to teach has to do the same. Is still useful do such a big amount of homework? I don’t think so.
I have to say I have been lucky with the teachers my oldest daughter has had, she gets homework daily but it’s usually just re-reading a few pages they read in school and a worksheet to practice her spelling words it takes us about 10-15 mins a day to get hers done, which compared to what I use to have when I was her age I’m not complaining. I also let her play for awhile before we sit down to do it, gives her a break to free her mind and be a kid for awhile.
Parents arent going to do anything with their kids. Its a small minority that do. School is supposed to do everything-they figure why not give them something to do at home besides watch another rerun of Spongebob or Family Guy?
Wow! I disagree. We don’t do technology or TV during the week. Thanks for the vote of confidence, though.
I couldn’t agree more with all of the above ????
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I second the I would rather send in a healthy, rested, and well-rounded child into school than a tired, cranky and unbalanced asshole with a folder full of completed homework papers.
#choosewisely #lovethispost
Thanks, Erica!
Yes. I’m the same, before teaching I thought “of course you need homework”, but it really is a pain in the butt for student and teacher and rarely makes a difference to the ongoing progress of the student. The only thing it’s good for is practice papers for older kids getting ready to pass big exams. Other than that it sucks.