We get "The Atlantic" magazine. Well, I should say B-real gets it. Historically I have found it horribly boring although he claims there are really interesting articles. This month two of the cover articles really struck me and I grabbed the magazine before B-real could slide it into his work bag.
The first is an article written by a dad of an eighth grade student (Esme) in NYC. For one week he tries to do the same homework he daughter does. His point being that kids have too much homework these days. On an average night his daughter is spending 3-4 hours on homework. She is averaging 6.5 hours of sleep. My favorite line is when Esme tells her dad the homework is about "memorization not rationalization". That reminds me so much of my school experience. Memorize material for a test, do well, and then forget the information because it has no meaning whatsoever to me.
Get this, one night for math homework Esme has to determine the distance from Sacremento to every other state capital in both miles and kilometers. When the dad questions the value of the homework to the teacher, the teacher suggests that maybe Esme needs to be moved down to a remedial math class.
The author ponders how it would be for an employee to work at his/her job for eight hours per day and then come home and be expected to do three or four additional hours of office work. As a student there is homework on the weekends too. So add some extra office time into your weekend. Now your job is more equivalent to being a student. How happy would you be?
This is what we are expecting of our children? In some of my circles the children's amount of homework is seen as a bragging right. Like somehow the amount of homework equates to a quality education. I see it the other way around. What sort of school keeps your kids for eight hours a day and can't get it done? What sort of school requires your child to spend even an extra couple hours per night on school work? Personally, this would not make me proud, more like embarrassed.
Here's a link to the article:
My Daughter's Homework is Killing Me
We struggle with this daily. Gone to school by 7:10 am, home after football by 5:30, eat, several hours of homework, bed. It's no life for a child. We try to play hard on the weekends, but yes, there is homework then, too. It's a hard system to fight against.
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