This is the box that contained the pizza we had for dinner tonight.
Those holes and that big gash in the box?
That is the result of a homework meltdown tonight.
It’s not the first meltdown we’ve had here.
It’s not the second.
It’s not the third.
Between my second, third, and fourth grader, it’s conservatively the twentieth homework freak out of the school year.
Today was our 31st day of school.
Three of those thirty-one days were the first three days of school. There wasn’t any homework on those days.
So that brings us down to twenty-eight days of school.
Of those twenty-eight days, five were Fridays. There is no homework on Fridays.
One Friday we had no school. So there was no homework that Thursday.
So that’s five Fridays and one Thursday without homework.
That brings the total down to twenty-two days of school where homework came home.
We have had homework meltdowns on twenty out of the twenty-two days that homework has been assigned.
That’s 91% of the nights there has been homework.
Statistically speaking, 91% of my afternoon and evenings will include an episode of crying.
I’m not talking about a few tears.
I’m talking about hysterical crying/rage inducing/pizza box demolishing fucking freakouts.
Episodes that take anywhere from thirty to sixty minutes of our afternoon and/or evening.
They are frustrating, they are exhausting, and they not fun.
For any of us.
It’s not always the same kid having the meltdown. So this is not specific to one grade or one class.
And I know that having three kids at that age increases the frequency that I’ll have to deal with them.
But 91% is a lot.
TOO MUCH.
Before I go any further, let me make a couple things very clear.
I love all the kids’ teachers this year.
I do not believe this is the teachers’ fault. I do not believe it is originating from them.
Also, I have my masters in elementary education, and I was an elementary school teacher for ten years until I got married and had kids. I taught fourth grade — the same grade Number 5 is in right now — for six years in Wilton, CT, which is one of the best school districts in the state. Like consistently in the top 10.
I know what it’s like to teach in a super competitive (and wealthy) district where the expectations for both students and teachers are very, very high.
I have some experience in this department.
At the risk of sounding like a jerk, my kids are pretty smart.
They have limited screen time, they have responsibilities at home, they are (usually) well-mannered, they are kind, and their teachers would tell you that they are good kids.
At least most of the time.
My point is that my kids are not poor students. They have support at home. They have early bedtimes, get plenty of sleep, eat well, are physically active and super healthy, and are the kind of kids most teachers want to have in their classrooms.
And they are very often struggling with their homework.
Math homework in particular.
I can only imagine what a kid who really struggles in school is going through with the homework.
And I can only imagine what a kid who has a less than ideal home life goes through.
The homework that is coming home is too hard.
IT IS TOO HARD.
I am not a fan of homework to begin with.
That’s no secret.
And when the kids were in kindergarten and first grade, I told their teachers that if any homework came home, I was not going to force my kids to do it.
And I didn’t.
I am not opposed to having the kids do something when they come home so that they get used to the concept of homework.
Like reading.
I’d love to sit down and read every night with my kids. Separately. For enjoyment.
How nice it would be to sit down with each kid for fifteen minutes and simply read.
But that does not happen on meltdown nights.
Because once we enter meltdown mode, the party is over.
I know the teachers tell all us parents that if your kid is stuck on something let it go after ten minutes.
But after a long day at school, after a day at school where the demands placed on the kids are WAY TOO HIGH ALREADY, it doesn’t take ten minutes of frustration to get to a Level 10 Freakout.
It takes about one.
And once you are going down that road, there is no coming back for quite some time.
This is not about the “new math” or Common Core or whatever it’s called now.
I was a teacher when the new math was just starting. I understand why and how it is taught.
In fact, I got filleted a couple times myself by parents who had no understanding of why math was being taught the way it was. I was a fan then.
I’m a fan now.
I have even come around with Common Core.
But what I am not on board with is the pace at which this stuff is being forced — yes, forced — on the kids.
It is too much.
And when my kids get home from school they are shot.
SHOT.
And I know all the things I need to do to help them.
They have nice, clear, uncluttered places to work.
They come home and eat before they do anything, because they are usually famished upon walking in the door.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, they have no activities after school.
NONE.
Number 5 and 7 have swim practice three times a week. That’s it.
Number 6 is doing cub scouts. That meets two-three times per month.
They are not over scheduled.
I give them time to just chill out before the h-word is even mentioned. They do not use electronics on weeknights at home. I encourage them to unwind and blow off some steam and decompress for as long as they need to before they think about anything else.
And then I clench my teeth and brace myself for the meltdown.
Because chances are one is coming.
And so do you know what I do when the meltdown comes?
I DO THEIR HOMEWORK FOR THEM.
I give them the answers and I sometimes I even write them down myself.
Which totally defeats the purpose of the homework anyway.
But telling them that it’s okay for them to not know what to do, and that their teacher will understand and that she (or he) wants to know what students are struggling with so they can help them only leads to one thing.
More hysterics.
My kids have four hours from the time they get off the bus until the time they go to bed.
Four hours.
That’s their down time. Their recharge time. Their fun time.
I refuse to fill any of it with unnecessary meltdowns and freak outs and stress and hysterics.
I’m not going to do it any more.
I do not know how to make change in our public school systems.
Other than, at this point, to make it clear that the expectations placed on the kids are way too high.
The pace and the focus of what is important in elementary school is way off.
It’s too much.
I love my kids’ teachers.
My kids love their teachers.
But my elementary schoolers also tell me every day that they don’t want to go to school the next day.
All three of them.
Every. Single. Day.
This is not what a seven, eight, and nine-year-old should be feeling 182 days a year.
Nope.
Sorry.
I get that kids have to do stuff they don’t want to do. That life isn’t one big party. That you have to learn to do the stuff you don’t like so you can do the stuff you do like.
But the balance is out of whack.
When you are beating the shit out of your dinner in response to homework stress, then something has to change.
I want to reiterate that I do not believe this is not coming from the teachers.
We have put teachers in nearly impossible positions. Catch-22’s. Between a rock and a hard place.
This problem is coming from the administration, the school boards, and ultimately,
from parents.
We have somehow gotten to this place where testing and test scores are the most important measures of success for our kids.
No matter what the cost.
And I’m not okay with it.
I may just be one person, but that’s a start.
What am I going to do?
I honestly don’t know.
But one thing I do know is that a kid’s time is just as valuable as an adult’s.
And just as I don’t think any adult should tolerate a job that pushes them to the point of tears on a regular basis,
parents shouldn’t tolerate that for their kids, either.
And I’m not going to do it anymore.
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I taught middle school math for 5 years and assigned homework maybe twice a week. I transferred to fourth grade two years ago and the only question I remember asking during my interview was “Do I HAVE to assign homework?” Luckily the answer was no; this year, the rest of my team has joined me on the no homework train. I’ve only had one parent that wasn’t grateful for having more free time/less stress for their kid. I do emphasize reading at home, but my kids don’t have to do a reading log or anything; it’s totally an honor system. Everyone is so busy, so taking homework off the agenda allows everyone – students, parents, and teachers – to relax. Since we focus on concepts more than procedures (especially in math), it also reduces the frequency of hearing “my parents showed me this way but I didn’t get the right answer.” Hooray for no homework!!!
At my kid’s school…starting in 4th grade, anything not completed in the class comes home for homework. The teachers do not specifically assign homework (other than maybe reading a book for a book report). My 2nd grader has math facts and a math page to do Mon, Tues and Thursday. It takes her between 5 and 10 minutes to do those pages. My son is now in 7th grade and (again) the things not completed in class come home for him to finish. He has a study hall and finishes them there and brings them home for me to check (I bought the answer manual to the math book because it’s just easier for me to use to check it. I will check anything he asks me to check or proof for him but he has to ask me to check it) He has to study for tests and quizzes at home…but he generally has no homework. I like that. I have to have my daughter do her 5-10 minutes of math right after school because doing it any later causes her to have a meltdown. I figured that one out early.
I agree with you wholeheartedly!!!! As a high school teacher in an affluent district with high expectations/performers/tuition/stress, I struggle with I do give versus what I want to give. I see my own child, a first grader, and would rather have her relax and decompress than worry about doing schoolwork at home.
So we’ll said. I have one as you know who also , beginning this year has said to me everyday, “ why do I have to go to school mom everyday” . He is also pulled out, more demands put on him, then returns to class , has missed stuff and activities and that makes him so frustrated! He is good so far about his homework, so far, but as it gets harder , yikes! Thanks for Sharing and I am sure lots of people will agree. Not the teachers fault, like you said, and he loves his teachers!
I teach 2nd grade. The thing that kills me the most is that policy is made by people who have never set foot in a classroom as a teacher. Many of the concepts that I am expected to teach to my 7 year olds are not developmentally appropriate. Curriculum should be meaningful and age appropriate. Play should not be removed from the day because kids learn through play. Asking these kids to be engaged in a language arts unit on government is asking for kids to hate school and then the assessment piece on the EPA and DDT pesticide just seals the deal. I need these kids to love reading and love learning. Instead, they are disengaged and hate school. But I know my students better than any policy maker and I will give them what they need and what they deserve to have. That does NOT include homework that makes them cry, curriculum that is inappropriate, or anything else that does not directly benefit them as a student.
I am pretty vocal about not agreeing with the educational system these days (I actually have a post/rant coming out about it this week). However, one of my issues is that everything is “optional” for kids these days. I completely understand that they’ve changed the system since I was in elementary school 20 years ago. Part of my problem is that my kids’ teachers don’t seem to be doing much to encourage good study habits in the students. Now to be clear… I am NOT asking that my child be constantly buried in homework that they don’t understand. I am VERY thankful that my kids are assigned homework relevant to what they’ve been learning in class and it’s more of a practice type of thing. They come home knowing what they need to do on their homework and not having a whole lot of difficulty with it. I definitely think that the curriculum has changed drastically and the amount of information kids are expected to understand and retain is ridiculous. What I don’t understand is how teaching kids to read has become teaching them to look at pictures and “guess” what the words say. Maybe it’s just me but as my kids get older I keep finding things that I think would be okay if they were still the same as when I was growing up, education is one of them. It’s really shitty to feel like you’re giving your kids the opposite of what they need by sending them to school.
Thank goodness my daughter goes to a no homework school, what you describe sounds miserable. They are supposed to read for 20 minutes a day and do one of their online programs for 10 minutes a day. It is also a language immersion school so half of her day has been spent in Spanish since first grade (she is currently in fourth). The school tests well as a whole and my daughter is above average on all testing. All of that tells me that homework is completely unnecessary and that all elementary schools should be no homework. We spend our afternoons relaxing, playing, some extracurricular activities, and reading before bed in the evening. I am so grateful and it sounds like you need to begin creating a petition for your elementary school to move to no homework!