The New York Times
Motherlode | when ‘help’ with homework is too much, when ‘help’ with homework is too much.
I’d always thought that being a parent is, in part, a teaching job.
When my children were little and we tramped through the woods, planted flowers in our garden, or poured water into successively smaller bath cups, I spoke to them constantly and shared what I knew, putting in what I hoped would be a strong foundation for language and understanding.
When my children grew to be school-aged, with homework in the afternoons, I was “on call” to clarify or think through their assignments with them. Sometimes, the teachable moment was one that my children needed to figure out on their own – a process crucial for learning and for confidence-building. Other times, I identified a need for more substantive support and provided it. I didn’t consider this help cheating in any way – but one of my daughter’s teachers did.
My sixth grader came home with an assignment that was out of her grasp: compare the theories of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes in their understanding of human nature and government. (“Locke and Hobbes? Are you sure the teacher didn’t mean Calvin and Hobbes, honey?” No. No, he didn’t.) I am pretty certain that this assignment was out of the grasp of my daughter’s classmates, too, and perhaps the parental support I ought to have provided was a phone call to the teacher to complain. But I didn’t do this. The teacher had a record of being quite thoughtful in his assignments, creating projects that were appropriate for the level of the class. And under the circumstances, I was uniquely positioned to run interference: I got my Ph.D. in philosophy. I am well versed in the theories of Locke and Hobbes on human nature and government, so I set to teaching my daughter some of the basics of Enlightenment thought. Her grasp on the assignment tightened.
As we delved into the material, both my daughter and I had separate concerns about my “teach-in.” My daughter wanted my help but felt anxious. Her teachers have routinely emphasized the importance of doing one’s own work. She felt clear that she could employ research and reference sources, but she was much less clear about whether I – an in-house philosopher – could serve as an appropriate resource.
I felt that topical background conversations were permissible, but saw the boundaries sharpen at the writing phase – the ideas, the phrasing, the word choice had to be all hers. Was it improper for me to direct my child to greater precision in the understanding of concepts that she herself identified as relevant? How much parental help was appropriate for a child in sixth grade?
The teacher told my daughter that her paper read like a Ph.D. thesis. (I have to assure you, this is false.) In a conference with me, he expressed his hesitancy to even grade the paper. I understood that he thought that I’d done the work of the paper, not my daughter. While I saw myself as sharing what I knew with my child (and she was working from her newly acquired base of knowledge), he felt unable to separate (and evaluate) my daughter’s knowledge from mine.
Sitting at the dining room table with my daughter at the time, I recognized the slipperiness inherent in the notion of “helping.” The more I worked with my daughter to help her gain greater clarity about the difficult concepts at issue, the less secure she felt in her own thinking, and the more I stepped in.
As a former professor myself, I’d seen all manners of cheating, and I did not feel we were in that domain – we discussed the topic in detail, but she wrote her paper herself. Yet, when I ask myself now, “would I do the same thing again?” I have to admit I would not. It blurred the lines of evaluation for her teacher, but more important, my help hampered my daughter’s ability to recognize her own capacity to succeed.
Perhaps after years of raising a small child, planting flowers in the garden and pouring water into successively smaller cups, a parent’s teaching job morphs into a skittish run in and out of the yard with safety nets. It is the parent’s learning curve, not the child’s, that guides the parent to eventually fold up the nets and pack them into the garage – careful, one hopes, not to squash the flowers along the way.
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More than two hours of homework may be counterproductive, research suggests.
A Stanford education researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter. "Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good," wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education . The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students' views on homework. Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year. Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night. "The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students' advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being," Pope wrote. Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school. Their study found that too much homework is associated with: • Greater stress : 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor. • Reductions in health : In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems. • Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits : Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were "not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills," according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy. A balancing act The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills. Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as "pointless" or "mindless" in order to keep their grades up. "This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points," said Pope, who is also a co-founder of Challenge Success , a nonprofit organization affiliated with the GSE that conducts research and works with schools and parents to improve students' educational experiences.. Pope said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said. "Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development," wrote Pope. High-performing paradox In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. "Young people are spending more time alone," they wrote, "which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities." Student perspectives The researchers say that while their open-ended or "self-reporting" methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for "typical adolescent complaining" – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe. The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.
Clifton B. Parker is a writer at the Stanford News Service .
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Are students getting too much homework.
Are students getting too much homework for teachers?
According to Bruce Feiler, writer for The New York Times , homework has "a branding problem." In his article, "The Homework Squabbles," Feiler suggested that having a lot of homework can cause stress in families, as well as for students.
"But truth be told, my struggles with homework are far less grand. In my house, it’s not homework wars as much as homework squabbles, little questions and doubts that build up and start to nag," he said. "Do my children need dedicated space for their homework, or is it O.K. to do it in the kitchen? What about listening to music, is that smart? Should I correct my children’s errors or let their teachers discover where they need help? Can I do anything to encourage self-reliance?"
Feiler asked "homework experts" these questions, such as the best spot for children to do their homework. His questions were answered by Eva Pomerantz, psychology professor at the University of Illinois and a specialist in parent involvement in children's learning. Feiler said Pomerantz is a believer in the kitchen table.
“I think it depends on your house,” she said. “If you have a crazy, noisy kitchen, that’s probably not the place for your kids to be doing homework unless they have amazing concentration. But if the kitchen is a place where there’s some activity but it’s generally quiet, it can have advantages. The thing about the kitchen is the parent is usually in there doing something, like making dinner, and they’re there if the child needs them, but they’re not sitting next to the child the whole time, which discourages self-reliance.”
Read the full story.
Article by Kassondra Granata, EducationWorld Contributor
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