The controversy over homework seems to be the same as the
fable about the ant and the grasshopper. Schools countrywide have been warning
that "grasshopper" kids who don't do homework -- which studies show
is up by more than 50 percent in the last 20 years -- may not have the skills
they need to survive a metaphorical winter while the "ant" kids will
be warm, well fed and secure.
Sometimes, it seems a fable can be just plain wrong. Take
the example of the San Ramon Valley Unified School District. For years, parents
went along with the work-hard-to-get-ahead plan: lots of homework at night, on
weekends and even over holiday breaks. Lots of Advanced Placement classes. Good
grades equal a good college and a secure future.
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Then, in 2008, came a snapping point. Within a couple of
months three things happened that forced parents, administrators and the kids
themselves to rethink the whole notion of homework.
A middle schooler, distraught over a poor math score, took
her own life.
Filmmaker Vicki Abeles began work on the film, "Race to
Nowhere," which examines the pressures kids are under.
And Danville mother of two Kerry Dickinson, already
concerned about the amount of after-school work her middle-school aged sons
were doing, read the book, "The Homework Myth."
"I started talking about it," Dickinson said. She
invited 10 parents to her home to discuss what homework was doing to their
lives.
While that led to a broader discussion about what makes a
good parent or a good teacher and the amount of stress that kids are under,
Dickinson said there was a general agreement.
"What we saw most often was a lot of homework, and
homework that seemed to be not of the highest quality -- just busy work,"
she said.
While many parents would have had a good gripe session and
be done with it, that wasn't the case for Dickinson or her friend, Julie Kurtz.
The two approached Kirby Hoy, who was at the time, the district's director of
curriculum and instruction. They came armed with an informal poll of parents,
and, according to Kurtz, an email list of 100 parents; Dickinson said she and
Kurtz played good cop/bad cop. A week later, the district announced it was
forming a task force to look at homework policy, which hadn't been updated
since 1995.
"The old one was pretty vague and open ended. The new
one is a little more detailed in terms of suggestions and guidelines about the
amount of time to be spent in each grade," Dickinson said. "It tries
to take into account the busyness of the modern family."
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Among other things, the policy discourages homework on
weekends and holidays. It lays out the responsibilities of students, parents
and teachers, including collaboration of teachers to prevent homework overload
and test stacking, when two or three tests in different subjects are scheduled
near one another, not giving time enough for students to study for each.
"If every teacher is giving an hour and a half of homework
every night and not talking to each other, that has a detrimental effect,"
said Kurtz, a marriage and family therapist. Kurtz said she believes in group
projects outside the school. She also said she's not opposed to homework in
general, and that it can be useful in subjects like math to reinforce what was
taught in class.
"I just don't think children should be sitting all day,
then coming home at night and sitting," Kurtz said. "You need
balance, you need time to build social skills, experience nature. ... You need
to have free time."
Dickinson, a former teacher herself, said coordination
between teachers isn't a given.
"It's going to be specific to the teacher and the
school. It's a suggestion and that doesn't mean it's going to happen," she
said, adding that parents have the fallback they've always had: direct talks
with the teacher first, and approaching an administrator if that fails.
Dickinson, who writes a Academic homework help blog also
got to know Abeles and became an advisor on "Race to Nowhere."
She said the anti-homework movement that's been gaining
momentum across the country won't apply to everyone.
"Some parents love seeing their kids doing three or
four hours a night," Dickinson said.
For herself and her sons, now both in high school,
Dickinson's new mindset has paid off. The amount of homework they get varies
nightly, but Dickinson said, "I'm a much more hands off parent now."
"Actually, they're a lot more responsible for their own
work and they get better grades now than when I was pushing them," she
added.
While parents and teachers may have taken much of the blame
for the amount of homework, Dickinson said it's often the kids themselves that
get caught up.
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"There's a lot of competition in our district. There's
a lot of comparing that goes on. The fact that kids have instant access to
their grades is distressing," she said. "There's a lot of
pressure."
But neither parents nor kids have to buy into that pressure.
"My son is looking at Cal State schools and I think
that's going to be a great match for him," Dickinson said, pointing out
that acceptance is based on grades or tests, but not both, and they're less
expensive.
After her experiences with "Race to Nowhere" and
what she's learned first hand, Dickinson has some simple advice.
"There is no normal," she said, adding that
parents shouldn't try to fit their kids in a box. "If you do, you're just
setting yourself up for four years of misery."
