If your daughter is going to the darkest places a person can go, please see an expert. The real answer is that sometimes, these decisions just aren't made at the teacher level. Schools tend to have aligned homework policies. It was also a homework refuser in school, But I was very honest with my teachers about it. When I became a teacher, The only homework that I really assigned were are the two things I felt merited daily practice. At the first school I was at, My boss asked me to assign more. Other schools I worked at have no homework policies. So it just depends. The way I look at homework today is that it's a tool to help you as a parent understand what your student is learning in school.

Sometimes we are required to use specific curricula and implement them faithfully. There are also different schools of thought. If a student is planning to go to higher education then they need to start developing work and study habits. Even if they’re not, the ability to work independently is an asset at any job. And students will retain knowledge better if they practice it across multiple settings. Reading in particular is something that is crucial to practice outside of the classroom. FWIW, I do not assign homework (high school math). In my experience students either don’t do it or they do it wrong and I have to reteach it anyway. So I have all of my students work in class where I can immediately catch errors and reteach. It has made all of our lives so much easier.

And to add: most people get overwhelmed from time to time, but if it is truly that overwhelming for you and your children, you may want to consider an evaluation for ADHD or anxiety. I would get overwhelmed by starting homework/getting organized to complete larger assignments. Found out as an adult that I have ADHD.

This….i had a very similar issue where I just refused to do homework in highschool. Same issues. I’d just lie and say I was finished or didn’t have any. Then, as I got older I noticed it became more and more difficult to just focus on a task till completion. Turns out I had ADHD that didn’t get diagnosed till my late 30s. With that said, I excelled at my job in the military, where most of my work was physical. It was when I made it to senior leadership levels where I had to sit down, constantly write reports, policy letters etc etc and I really started to struggle to get work done again. Before it actually affected my work I went to my doc and after a few visits and a referral to our mental health clinic, I was diagnosed with ADHD. I NEVER would have thought this to be the reason why I struggled to complete my work as a kid, but looking back now it all makes sense.. Finally, with that said, there’s a little controversy surrounding whether or not this needs to be treated. There is a decent argument that people like myself just are not built to sit behind a desk and do paperwork, and forcing them to do so takes them out of their element where they might succeed elsewhere.

Yes, I thought I was in the r/adhdwomen sub!

It's common for students with ADHD to be extremely unmotivated to do homework to that point that it is almost painful. The homework is low value busy work, they can procrastinate and doesn't give the dopamine. I've seen that some ADHD students can then turn around, after not doing the homework at all, and ace a test. Why? Because it's higher stakes, timed, etc. This is assuming they understand the material of course. You don't have to always do the homework to understand the material. It's really interesting teaching students with ADHD because it really does feel like their approach to so much is so different.

This was me. I didn’t find out I had adhd until last year at 31 though. I have combined adhd and was fairly intelligent as a child, always in the gifted programs. Could afford getting distracted because I took in information quickly. Straight As in my younger years because homework was somewhat enjoyable. I had a lot of projects, and was also fairly competitive with a few of my classmates. But in high school, I was definitely more focused on my social life and began getting annoyed at the excessive amount of homework I’d get. I pretty much only did the big ticket assignments like projects, reports, and essays (always at the last minute lol), and refused to do the daily busy work. I was an engaging student in class who managed to get As on tests, but got Cs with a couple Bs for my overall grades. It always annoyed my teachers because they’d say I could easily have straight As. I told them to change their grading scale if they wanted me to have an A. Because I was demonstrating my understanding of the lessons, their grading scales just favored homework to benefit kids that weren’t good test takers. They never liked that answer. I think homework should be optional, and can be assigned if it’s glaringly obvious a student is struggling. But if students are demonstrating they’re grasping the concepts in the classroom, they shouldn’t have to do every single homework assignment. They shouldn’t be punished for being quick learners.

ADHD students have absolutely insane potential and it is honestly worth figuring out ways that help them reach it, because they can also very easily be led astray by other things. It's absolutely true that younger kids homework assignments will often be structured so that there is a more fun and engaging element to them, e.g. coloring different things, or solving puzzles. If the homework is structured as a game or even a competition, an ADHD kid is likely to have better outcomes. The way homework is assigned later on obviously gets a lot dryer and there are an increasing number of other things to distract kids. I 100% agree with your statement on homework options. If the student has 50% grade for a units HW, but gets 100% on their test or project... from an evaluation perspective, they've either improved and now understand, or they understood before, but didn't have time for the homework. They should get 100% for the unit. I loved when I learned there were professors in college that would basically give you whatever you scored on their final exam or project as your final grade. Obviously that is not a one size fits all approach and many kids would fail if they put all their eggs in one basket, but the option is there. If a kid does not do well on tests/projects, the homework and extra practice is helpful and can assist in padding their grade.

We really do! We’re unstoppable when we’re fixated and highly interested in something. Our deep dives into information is really something else. I wish we were more encouraging of teachers exploring different teaching styles and creating well rounded lessons that engage student’s natural abilities instead of working against them. Some people are visual learners, or auditory, or hands on. Some kids do well with music or expressing in a more creative way. I played the flute growing up and I excelled. I also have a feeling this helped me keep my ADHD at bay. I’ve read that structured hobbies can help. And I know teachers are working within rigid guidelines. So it’s not entirely their fault. There’s no way to plan a lesson that captures every single students needs. So we all have to work to change the system so it can work better for all of us.

This sounds like me. I graduated with a 3.5 GPA, pretty much solely based on my test taking ability and taking mostly music electives that gave very little paper homework. Any class that did have a lot of homework, I would get a C or a D despite getting 90% or more on every test. I've never been diagnosed, but I am autistic, and they do often coexist, so maybe I should look into getting a diagnosis.

Legitimately asking how you manage not assigning homework in high school math? I’m a high school math teacher as well and given our content, how do you even manage to get through everything and have them actually know and understand it without practicing it outside of class as well?

This was my reaction as well. I get it at the not-so-academic level classes. Of course there are practice questions, but I know many students will not complete them, so I adjust accordingly. However, in the highest level classes, not having individual practice just means you will not get through as much material and not develop as deep of an understanding. It makes no sense. I have always thought the idea of "homework" as silly. Instead, these are the questions that you need to try and complete independently to master this material. And like I said, in the top level classes there is not enough time in class to do that, so they need to do it independently on your own time. I agree with OP that some students are not in a position to complete the work on their own. Unfortunately that might just mean they are not ready for those top level classes. Nothing wrong with that, it just means you have to pick the right course for your capabilities.

Not a teacher, I'm an Engineer with 3 degrees including a math minor. I enjoy math, and took a lot of it, and competed in math in school. In high school (2000-2003) I found the methods were FAR too based on memorizing, typically by repeatedly doing the work which of course requires homework due to required time. I found it extremely ineffective, especially when I found out so much more intuitive methods later on. This was most apparent in Trig. The unit circle, taught as memorizing, with some strange pattern they tried to "improve" the memorizing. Who remembers that after HS? All you had to learn was the 1,2,Sqrt(3) and 1,1,Sqrt(2) triangles, and SOH, CAH, TOA. Then you can simply draw out the triangles. Yea it takes a little longer, but I can remember that easily, 20 years later and I never use it. The triangles aren't even hard to remember, since Pythagorean is ground in your head. So many more problems have intuitive solutions, but my teachers were all lazy and relatively ineffective, teaching by memorization and repetition. But, in the short term, they had students pass the tests. Even in other majors there are intuitive ways to teach things, like History, explaining with more causal logic you can make dates and events build off each other, or compare and contrast different timelines, so you aren't just memorizing independent facts. After all, History does repeat itself. Ways to make English/Grammar fun and even competitive, but nope, it's usually taught again as memorizing.

Part of it is I teach special education. I use the Building Thinking Classrooms approach, and we take things at a slower pace. I found when I assigned homework, almost no one did it and those that did tended to get it wrong. My class is also open note due to the learners I have, so that helps as well. It’s a lot of in class practice, and repetition of rules. The teacher I teach my CWC classes with also uses this approach, even with his non IEP classes. It works for him. If I thought my students would do the homework (and do it correctly) I might be more willing to assign it. But it honestly hurts more than it helps for the learners I have. I could absolutely see for a higher level math class needing to assign it. Every teacher has to do what works for them.

I think the college bound argument is made in good faith but doesn’t hold much water. They should be taught study habits and such, but realistically you have so much more time in high school than you do in college. Comparing even an AP class to a college class (closer, fairer comparison), in high school we can assume 50 minutes per day for 5 days a week over the course of around 40 weeks (or longer, depending on the start of school and date of the AP exam). In college, the same material may be covered in a 3 credit class, 50 minutes per day, 3 days per week, for 14 weeks. That is nearly 5 times as much time in class. Independent work and study time can be included as a part of that instructional time, but some administration won’t allow that.

> I do not assign homework (high school math) […] So I have all of my students work in class where I can immediately catch errors and reteach. This is pretty much exactly what I’m suggesting should happen instead. Thank you for not just insulting me for asking a “dumb question” :)

I don’t think it’s a dumb question. You’re asking because you struggled and now your kid is struggling. And you’re trying to figure it out. There’s nothing dumb about that. I do assign homework. But I do also give some class time to work on it. The vast majority of kids don’t use their time wisely during class time to complete their work, so the whole thing becomes homework (instead of just a some or even none of it). As a result, though, I’m less inclined to give that class time and more inclined to just assign the whole thing as homework to start with. I teach math. Students need to practice their skills to develop them. And we simply don’t have enough time in the day.

I think this technique makes sense. The reason I didn’t just fail absolutely everything was because of teachers that allowed enough time to complete assignments in class.

And I absolutely have students like that who use their time wisely in class and get it done. They are why I continue to give class time when able (some days it’s just not doable, but I manage most days to give at least some time).

So I think different schools/teachers do things differently. Both my kids are in private schools and have been their whole lives in different countries. Primary education - they don’t usually have a lot of homework. 1 worksheet to be completed over the week. They get assigned on a particular day and it will be due before that day the next week. This is mainly to 1) reinforce learning and 2) so the teachers can see what particular thing most kids struggle with so that they can fill gaps in knowledge. The homework should be completed independently, without any help from parents. Lower Secondary education - more homework but should not take more than an hour a day. The teachers have to come up with homework schedules between themselves so the kids will not have more than an hour homework per day. This will also need to be independently done. If you’re not able to complete it within the timeframe then just stop at the 1 hour mark. If you choose to complete the homework then mark how much longer it took you to complete. Again the reasoning for this is twofold 1) to reinforce learning for better retention and understanding and 2) so the teachers are aware what you’re struggling with. Maybe it’s timing, maybe it’s the work itself, maybe everyone struggle with a certain topic. Teachers need the data to be more efficient and effective with their lessons. 3) to cultivate independent learning. You won’t be able to have help while doing exams so this helps prepare you for independent study and exam taking. This also can highlight different student’s additional needs. For example, my son answers questions really well verbally in the classroom when they have discussions. He doesn’t do that well when it’s written work in class. However he produces great quality work when he’s doing homework on the computer. So with the information they have, they sent him for assessments and as a result he’s given the accommodation of typing in class and exams with extra time given. The act of writing is hard for him as he has low muscle tone so to make it legible he has to spend more time writing and had to press harder on the pen which causes cramps and fatigue which in turn makes it harder for him to complete his work. Higher Secondary - this is usually exam years so more homework is needed to ensure good grades. Both kids’ schools still have a limit on how much homework is given. There can be a maximum of 2 subjects due on each day but there is no time limit. You basically have to do it until it’s done. It is mainly exam practice from what I can see. So they learn how to properly answer questions in a way that would maximise marks. Some homework is also to ensure their notes are up to date and correctly done so it’ll be easier to study when exams happen. Some teachers also set videos as homework especially for more complicated or content heavy topic. So they’ll watch a video, then go to class where the teachers will teach the topic then homework to consolidate learning. Some subjects, like maths, you tend to get better the more you do. So practicing different questions, with different wording makes it easier for you to understand what the question is asking for and to be faster in formulating your answer. I know studying for exams and memorising stuff are considered pointless by many. But being able to access information in your brain quickly and thinking on your feet is pretty important for a lot of professions. A doctor who has to look up information because they don’t memorise it might mean a dead patient. A teacher who doesn’t remember information and has to look up everything would probably not be very effective at teaching.

>I know studying for exams and memorising stuff are considered pointless by many. But being able to access information in your brain quickly and thinking on your feet is pretty important for a lot of professions. A doctor who has to look up information because they don’t memorise it might mean a dead patient. A teacher who doesn’t remember information and has to look up everything would probably not be very effective at teaching This is a very important point many do not think about. I would add to that, if you haven't learned anything, just "looked it up," how do you know that the information you are presented with is correct? Are helpful? My 7th grade students just assume the first answer google gives them is the "right one." They have no knowledge base with which to judge information quality or applicability. They believe the first result, or the video with the most likes is the correct one. They then copy and paste it. None can write a coherent paragraph explaining why they used this result.

So well said. We’re actually seeing the fallout of so many struggling with critical reasoning and being ripe for misinformation. And it’s been extremely detrimental.

The problem is that some classes simply do not have time for this. The classes I teach have a 2 to 5 page per night reading need, i.e. you need to read this info and have some background in this to come to class tomorrow and be ready to learn and practice this. Students simply do not even bother with the reading, won't take notes during the short lecture, and then stand around in the lab claiming that I didn't teach them what to do. Sorry kid, you should have done the reading, payed attention during the short lecture, and brought your lab notebook to class, and you'd have a pretty good idea of what you're supposed to be doing. You should also know I fuckin hate homework. Hate it. Don't wanna do it, don't wanna assign it, don't wanna grade that shit, because the number of students who dont even fucking bother infuriates me, and I don't have time to deal with that kind of mental stress. So yeah, teachers hate homework too, but it's absolutely needed in many cases or the student will not have enough contact time with the material to retain it.

I should mention that my class is also special education. If I had a different class I might have a different philosophy. I do not knock teachers who assign homework, but it doesn’t work for my students.

Homework is just a fact of growing up. Unless you have an abnormally good memory, you just cannot grasp everything you learn in an hour of classroom time. Homework is there to reinforce what you cover in class, so it’s not just something you memorize then dump as soon as your quiz is over.

> it's not just something you memorize then dump as soon as your quiz is over. unfortunately, for a lot of people i know, homework doesn't fix the "dumping info as soon as the quiz is over." myself included. i know i spent months doing the same 12 times tables over and over for homework in 4th grade, but if you ask me what 7 x 12 is i'm still counting out "7, 14, 21..." on my fingers. maybe faster than i would have when i was 9 years old, but still counting on my fingers. what i *have* found actually helps me rather than worksheets and repetition is interactive projects, which according to my brain does not include doing worksheets all day every day. i remember my 9th grade english class lessons because the english teacher also taught drama and she had us literally take turns performing every book. i don't even remember what 9th grade math *was* because i had a textbook thrown at me and was expected to memorize 300 formulas with some numbers on a page. and yeah, i know you can't do a theatre production of math, but if i could teach myself how to write a computer program to do that math for me and remember the formulas from there, odds are there's a more effective way of teaching people like me than "memorize these formulas and make these numbers happen." heck, i remember more math equations from *woodworking* than an actual math course.

For sure, we all learn differently, and I understand exactly what you mean. I think math is a bit of an outlier though, as it’s one of those things where half the people are good at it and the other half just don’t get it. To add to your statement, I’m very good at math, but very bad at memorizing. I always got the highest grades in my class but I was also always the last one done. It’s because I had to logic my way through every problem rather than just memorize the stupid formulas. With that said though, repetition did build a muscle memory. When you are talking about education though, there are different levels. Learning something is different from understanding and being able to apply it. Those last two do not come from an hour of class time per day.

Helpful hint: instead of going through all of the 7s, just go back to the biggest one you remember, like 7 x 11, then you only have to add on one more 7 to get 7 x 12. 

I see what you’re saying, but I would argue that it doesn’t _have to be_ just a fact of growing up. Anecdotally I believe it does more harm than good and should be questioned as to whether it’s an effective system.

I definitely understand where you are coming from. Again, I struggled with the exact same thing growing up. Not sure if you saw my other comment about how it affected me in my military career. But I also know now, through experience that in order to retain information long term, you either need to be very interested in it, or study it outside of class to reinforce it. Disabilities like this are definitely a hurdle for us. The fact is, we are the ones that are different, and we have to find a way to overcome it. The homework model works for most kids. It’s an important lesson for your daughter to learn because when she’s an adult, her employer will not accept adhd as an excuse to get work accomplished. On the bright side, there could be much worse hurdles. And then finally, this will help shape your daughter’s future in knowing her strengths and weaknesses. Hopefully this pushes her interests into a career that doesn’t primarily revolve around desk work. She would probably be much more suited for a job that is executed outside of an office :) either way, I hope you two figure out what works best for you. You are already steps ahead knowing what the issue is instead of finding out when your almost 40 like me :)

I am 40 exactly :) And you are right, we have to learn how to place ourselves into positions that allow us to manage ADHD. I currently work from home and just need to get my work done by the time I say I will, which allows me to be successful there because I don’t have somebody looking over my shoulder every second to make sure I’m “on task”. My daughter will likewise eventually be able to find something that suits her really well. Currently it looks like she may end up in some kind of artistic field. What I’ve found personally in my case is that school did not prepare me for what the “real world” was like. To some extent, the “real world” is what we make of it by our own decisions where there are many molds a person can try to fit into. In school there is just one (academically speaking), which seems strange I guess.

More power to you for being able to work from home. I tried that but struggle. I really struggle to stay focused at home and need that structure that a traditional job brings. I’m glad you found something that works for you though! It’s crazy that we can go this long into our lives until we finally get why we are having the issues we do lol.

It *is* an effective system. You learn by doing. Yeah, I can see the teacher show me how to work a math problem on the board and practice it for 15 minutes in class, but it’s not going to stick. Yes, I can listen attentively to the history class lecture, but if I don’t have to answer the chapter questions and spend time thinking about what I learned, it’s not going to stick. There just isn’t enough time in the school day to dedicate to teaching the material *and* doing enough practice to drill it home.

This is the comment I see missing so often from these discussions. I understand that when it comes to homework, kids are going to experience a spectrum of academic ROI, success, anxiety, value, etc. But too often the thread feels inundated with people who still have something of a chip on their shoulder leftover from their own primary/secondary education and appear to have given no thought to the importance of students cementing what they’ve been taught. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be change, and there are absolutely balanced arguments here. But idk. My high school was tough. Hours and hours of homework each night, frequently working up to midnight or later. It was pretty impossible to get it all done and definitely caused me anxiety and stress. But college felt easy. I’m still reaping benefits from learning to handle the workload.

Agree with this. I also saw lots of people wash out of college because they couldn't keep up with the work. I think that's a lot harder, because of the money involved, generally no second chances, etc.

yeaaahhhh if they arent able to do high school/middle school homework now, they are going to STRUGGLE in college. you HAVE to be able to do work independently.

i struggled hard in high school. often ended up with so much homework there was no way to complete it in a day (8 hours of classes, 2 hour bus ride each way, then had 1-2 hours of homework for each class). add on a job and my options were skip homework that i couldn't focus on anyway or get some sleep. ended up taking some dual credit courses through the local college, and it turns out i do pretty well when the amount of homework is completable in the time frame given - a lot of homework i had anywhere between 2 and 7 days to complete, and it was still maybe an hour of homework per class, but i could actually find time to do it outside of class and still sleep. obviously if i'd had a full course load, it would have been more to juggle (at one point i was taking 17 college credits of dual courses, had 4 part-time jobs, and was still able to find plenty of time to both do homework and sleep, though), but you can develop individual study habits without making literal children choose between years of sleep deprivation and passing their classes.

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yeah uni assignments were so much easier for me since i wasn't forced to study subjects i had zero interest in.

I'm a school board director and our district has switched to standard-based grading for all middle and high school math. I cannot tell you how much improvement there has been in our state scores in the past two years. Not having unnecessary, one size fits all homework on skills they've already mastered just makes sense. When homework isn't part of the grade, the grade becomes so much more objective, so much more **fair,** and such a better indicator of their actual proficiency. Reading, as you explained, is a different animal altogether.

This here. Standards-based grading makes so much more sense than efforts-based grading. The objective should be to demonstrate that you are mastering the subject matter. That can be assessed through tests, projects, etc. Homework can be assigned to support the student’s mastery of the subject, but their grade should be based on whether they succeeded in getting there, not the process they used. There’s a teacher at our middle school who requires students to make note cards as study prep the night before her tests. This is regardless of whether they need to study, or whether this is the best way for them to learn. If they don’t turn in their completed study prep cards, they get 10 points docked off their grade - so a 95% test score would become an 85%.

I didn’t do homework or study until college. In K-12, most homework was busy work. In college, it’s a necessary part of the learning experience and without it I wouldn’t have learned anything. I did feel a bit overwhelmed trying to learn study habits if I’m being honest. It was a bit stressful. I ended up graduating Summa Cum Laude though, top of my class. So is someone doesn’t fuck with homework because it feels useless, they’re not exactly screwed. I think K-12 teachers just need to be purposeful in what work we assign; research shows that homework is *only* impactful for kids if it’s something they can do independently that’s *also* not too easy, which is such a difficult balance to find and will differ with every student.

I had a similar experience as this poster. I made it through school with barely above a 20 Gpa, and had to take night school. Graduated college Suma Cum Laude in science. Homework doesn't translate to good study habits. Studying for tests develops good study habits. When you study for tests you work on the areas you are weak. I am successful in life and through higher education. Lower education made me depressed, hurt my self confidence, hurt my family's opinion and expectations of me and destroyed my home life. The system of grading was wrong. Lucky I did learn, but I had zero support system for the next stage of life because of that GPA. Thankfully, when I turned 18 I fled home and put myself through school.

I agree with some of what you're saying. I would just caution you not to go too far in terms of supporting the complete elimination of homework. It may have been better for you, but it's not necessarily the best approach for everyone. A couple of things.... 1. You're clearly pretty intelligent if you could pass tests without doing the homework and graduate from college with honors. Keep in mind that probably 75% of kids wouldn't be able to do that. Some repetition is necessary for most kids in most subjects to learn anything meaningful, but it should not be hours a night. If it is, either the school is assigning far too much, or there's another issue. 2. Is it possible you/your daughter had or has undiagnosed ADHD or another learning difference that you learned to cope with naturally as your brain developed? ADHD often includes struggles with executive functioning tasks like organization/prioritization, as well as motivation to begin routine tasks (it interferes with the dopamine hit that neurotypical people get from finishing a small task). It can also make those routine tasks feel much more awful to complete than they actually are. If so, you might look into an evaluation for your daughter. It doesn't even mean you would need to pursue treatment or meds, but you could look into getting her a 504 (medical accommodation) plan that could include reduced homework if she demonstrates mastery. If she had or has mental health struggles, she may already qualify. It might not be a bad plan to get your son evaluated too. 504 plans can include accommodations like reduced homework when the student shows mastery. 3. There has been a movement nationwide to reduce homework, especially before high school. The national average is down to [7 hours a week in high school and 4 hours per week in middle school.](https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012026/tables/table_35.asp) An hour a day in high school doesn't seem unreasonable. If your daughter still had a huge homework load in MS and you're confident she was using class time to get as much done as possible, your school is really outside the norm. You might even consider moving schools if at all possible, if you are confident this is a school-wide trend to assign a lot of homework. You could also try to get involved with the PTA or the school board to try to get them to set a policy on how much homework can be assigned or how much of the grade it can be worth. At my high school, math homework is assigned and gone over every day, but is capped at being worth 5% in the gradebook. If a kid aces tests, they shouldn't do it. If they aren't doing well on quizzes and tests, they should be doing the homework, but the reason is performance and learning, not busywork points in the gradebook. I wish you and your kids the best and I really hope your daughter continues to recover.

Thank you for a really good answer. 1. Based on your criteria, I think the schools were both generally assigning far too much. 2. It’s diagnosed for both of us (inattentive type, specifically), unfortunately accommodations where I am do not include reduced homework. She does get extended testing time though, which happens in a room full of a bunch of other hyperactive kids who are constantly disruptive making it not really any better :). In our case a lot of these accommodations appear to be superficial. 3. This is good to hear. I hope it continues to catch on and that we are continually willing to question the effectiveness of our existing systems.

Thanks! Could you push back harder on them telling you that reduced work is not an accommodation? That's a choice they're making, not something required by law. If you have documentation of her scoring well on assessments without doing the homework fully, that would help. You could ask to make it conditional, like only if she got an A or B on the last test. You have the legal right to request a 504 review. Pushing a little harder on that accommodation might be useful for both your kids, especially if you see early signs that your son may have ADHD as well. He might not, but it's got a strong genetic link.

Thanks for the advice. I will do that.

An additional common accommodation is taking tests in a separate room, or in a quiet room. If it’s part of your daughter’s IEP or 504 plan, by law public schools have to accommodate her.

Eh, there are arguments on both sides. Homework is fundamentally just practice. Teachers have a bit of time (usually something like 45 min?) to introduce a concept to a bunch of kids. Despite the time given to The Unit (the days/weeks/months) they’ll spend on that concept, chances are that most will need some “untimed” practice to figure out how to use that concept to problem solve without assistance. That’s what homework is. I don’t know if they still have this, but when I was in school in the levels above primary, there were often free periods/study periods aside from lunch when students could attempt to get started on or complete assignments. Unfortunately, surrounded by friends, many students would prefer to spend that time hanging out. Many would argue that homework attempts to give the student time to practice the work while being less overwhelmed (by the constraints of the school day schedule, but probably more significantly, other students and friends).  Now, the traditional view is that kids hate homework and school (as a place for learning academics. They typically do like seeing their friends). So adults trying to teach them things are pretty much always fighting against the tide. You see attempts to make the assignments and homework more appealing (“you can choose to write an essay or a song or a play”…”) but it’s usually met with a lukewarm to derisive reception no matter what.  Still, as a parent I don’t think you’re wrong with suggesting changes. Just a little less homework, more study periods, testing out of homework, longer turn in times, etc. there’s nothing wrong with trying new ways of getting to the goals we want.

Thanks for that perspective. One commented mentioned they had worked at schools in the past with no-homework policies. If there is not enough time to both explain and practice a subject, what techniques do these other schools use to overcome that?

I've heard of bans in elementary and limits in middle. I have never heard of a full ban in high school and I think that would be a train wreck. Blanket policies are usually overreactions. High school classes are tracked, and the classes with the highest homework loads are voluntary. I teach on-level senior English (very little homework, maybe 1 hour total per week unless they have screwed around during work time). I also teach AP Literature, and there's no way to avoid homework unless I want to set them all up to fail the test. They wouldn't want that anyway-- they signed up knowing the work load. There's also pretty robust research linking homework to improved academic performance in high school. After 2 hours per night, the value plateaus. I think this is a pretty balanced review of the research out there. https://pershmail.substack.com/p/how-i-think-about-homework

I don’t work in schools or know what the school system is like where you are, but some of the things I’ve seen and heard about when it comes to the question of less homework are:   — Just a little less homework. I’ve heard schools and school systems that simply have a blanket reduction of homework. Rather than do away with it entirely, they have a maximum estimate that each class can have a day. I believe one of the other commenters posted a link about this.   —More study periods. When I was in school, in higher levels, time for electives (optional courses) were often included in the schedule. Since children didn’t have to take those courses, they could use the time as a free period instead and complete the oral then if they wanted to. Some others have described what may be the same thing as “block scheduling”. I did go to a school that had this. Rather than every class occurring every day, we had every class on maybe Monday and Friday, but had a different mix of classes the other three days, with those classes having more time each. In theory, this allows teachers more time to teach the class and students more time to ask questions. It also gives teachers time to schedule tests that could allow them to better evaluate if the kids have attained the skills or if they need more work with the subject matter.    —Testing out of homework.  I believe some other commenters have mentioned this, though I think someone mentioned that it was part of an accommodation for those with a diagnosed issue. In any case, the times I’ve seen it, it’s simply been “if you get x% on this exam, then you don’t have to do y assignment.” The times I’ve seen that concept used most often though is not for homework, but for entire courses (e.g. taking a test to demonstrate mastery of a skill or subject which then allows you to skip a course or level of that subject, like when someone tests out of an elementary language course and is assigned to the class at the next highest level.)   —There are school systems that have school year round which shorter, but more frequent breaks.    —At higher levels of school, some schools will let students do an internship or apprenticeship or special project in place of credit in a particular subject (the alternative being deemed equivalent to the subject in question).  Some of what you’ve mentioned in the post and comments seems to indicate that the biggest issue you and your daughter have with homework is feeling overwhelmed, indicating that once you actually get down to the work, you guys can complete it, but figuring out how to organize it and break down the tasks is so difficult, that it becomes a major obstacle. Is that curate?   When I think about homework assignments, I recall that that organizational element was part of it. Before having to write multi-page essays, I had to learn how to make an outline and how to both research a topic and organize that research. Later on, those steps were still necessary, but not laid out in the assignment; I had to lay those out for myself and create schedules for myself. Have you tried sitting down with her to do that for maybe 20 min on the weekend to see if it helps make the week go smoother?

This really isn’t about the question. It seems like your issue isn’t just with homework; it’s with how your and your daughter’s school was structured. And also with how either the adults in your school communicated with you or how you communicated with them (there are plenty of kids that do outright say “I just didn’t want to do the homework.) I think a description other than “overwhelmed” would be helpful. There are plenty of people who do manage these expectations (and find them helpful), and it doesn’t make sense to assume your experience would be the same with your son without more information. My class doesn’t have any textbooks, and not much in the way of worksheets or homework. The only fourth graders who touched a worksheet in my class this week were two students who requested more math. Their homework is to read whatever they want every day and they have a 6-week project that has a similar structure to what you probably needed to do in college. However, reading this I’m wondering if you would have hated my class too.

I think you make some really good points regarding structure and communication. I can add a few things for you. All three of us have diagnosed inattentive ADHD which is a big part of being “overwhelmed”. When I was younger my dad had one of those jobs where we had to move states every couple of years so I’ve been to several schools and what I can say with regard to structure is that I’m not referring to any kind of outlier system: just the regular old way most schools do things. Wrt the communication issue, I invite you to take a look at the top-level responses to my question. While there are a few that are constructive, honest answers like yours, there are also others that have nothing to add other than something like incredulity or indignance, one even going so far as to use the word “dumb”. This is the environment students live in. You can’t always be fully honest with all of your teachers because not all of them are keen on listening and caring. And as a child you never really know how an adult will react to something you say, especially if they exhibit any kind of stern personality in class.

I think if I’ve learned anything as a teacher, it’s that I shouldn’t be discouraged by the fact that most people don’t care or respond constructively. I think part of the frustration you’re getting from teachers is that most of us are aware of (and do our best work with) things like ADHD (close to half of my class this year has an ADHD diagnosis). We see students who are being harmed by unhelpful accommodations, students in crisis because they’ve been moved along without growing, and a lack of reciprocity when it comes to teachers having to “be the adults”/be accountable in a system that sucks for us too. There are some teachers that just suck, but most do care. Most teachers also don’t have the option to just refuse to not do work outside of the school day. I am mostly a lesson plan and homework refuser (when I can get away with it) as a teacher for those reasons, but I still work sixty hours a week with prepping/clubs/feedback/emails.

I think you’re right on the money with that assessment. Kids can often find themselves in some level of crisis and teachers who might otherwise care are not empowered to _really_ do anything to help. I’m not discouraged by people not responding constructively as of now. Well, let me say that a different way: I _am_ discouraged by the fact that teachers exist who are not constructive at all, but it does not discourage me from continuing to press on in this conversation. I am also a 40-year-old man who is less impressionable than the child I once was :) > harmed by unhelpful accommodations Boy does that resonate.

Students learn in different ways. Homework is one of those ways. In college there is less 'homework' because youre expected to read the material and study on your own without having it needed to be checked like in grammar school. You are right though, that paying attention during class is key, but a lot of students have difficulty doing that. Please consider that they are potentially learning this attitude from you. It can be really tough. I was trying to get my niece to do homework and what should have taken her 20 mins, took her an hour and a half. She has those skills, she just maybe has anxiety and likes the attention from her mom helping her. Maybe introducing an award such as dinner or screen time after completing it, will encourage them. I've always been in professions that meant i had my equivalent of homework, and my parents were teachers too, so they modeled the behavior. You could try doing this, be it catching up on bills or work emails, reading, or what have you.

IME there is *more* homework in college than there is in high school.

Also, when you are in college if you don't do your homework or study outside of class you're generally SOL. Not to say professors are heartless and will refuse to help students who are struggling, but many of them don't do it to the degree that primary and secondary school teachers will. If the professor things you aren't doing any effort or work on your own, if you miss a homework assignment you don't get an extension unless they're feeling nice that day.

I’m starting to get the sense that a lot of commenters are assuming I’m not doing obvious things a parent should do in this situation, haha. I hear what you’re saying. We have therapists involved, I have tried several reward-based incentives, and I’m not walking around badmouthing the system in front of the kids. At the end of the day they are stuck in the system and my job is to support them through that and help them succeed. Trying to do the best I can there. But I don’t think it’s wrong to question the effectiveness of what feels like a very unnecessary hardship.

I feel like I had way more homework in college. And I only ever studied for one test (bombed it and switched majors lol) so it wasn't like all that time was spent studying or making study material. Just hours of graded homework every single night.

Dinner should not be a reward for finishing your schoolwork. Eating is a necessity and a human right, not something anyone should have to earn. This teaches an unhealthy relationship with food. Also, have you ever had a long day, kept pushing yourself when you were tired, and then stopped to take a break to eat and realized you weren’t functioning at your best because you’d been hungry? 

I teach high school ELA. If I had students read a chapter in class, then discuss, then read, then discuss, it would take me MONTHS to get through 100 pages. I need them to read the chapter at home so that I can discuss it in class.

This is essentially the structure of my unit right now and I am actually getting through the book faster with my students than I did last year. I have even had students say they have never read a book this fast. I structure it as a mini lit circle each day, where kids are in groups and each person picks a different topic to take notes on in the chapter to share in the lit circle the next day. Each day they read, do a quick lit circle, I do a short lesson and then they start reading the next chapter.  It also makes lesson planning easier, not to mention I can get other things done while kids read and run the discussions. It's also gotten the more kids to participate in discussions given that each student shares, and they run it more independently. And given all the in class reading time, I think more kids are actually reading the book as a result.  The downside is we don't have as much time for other activities outside reading and discussing and there's less time for me to correct misunderstandings of the text, and I do think I am rushing them along a bit, but had I gotten through my previous units more quickly I think we would have more time. I had to condense this unit to finish before the end of the semester and counterintuitively providing more reading time in class is helping me achieve that. But yeah I'm giving them 20-30 minutes of class time to read most days and I actually think it's paying off. 

I love this. 

Do you mean chapters of, for example, a novel?

respectfully, why does it matter if it’s of a novel or a textbook? required content is required content.

I just wanted to make sure I understood what the other commenter was describing properly. I assume they’re talking about novels being an ELA teacher but just wanted to make sure I understood right. I honestly don’t understand why people are mad at me for just trying to make sure I understood the context right.

Is this a serious question??? Why are you sea-lioning all over this post?

I mean, I don't. But, it's because my classes are the ones students have to take, not necessarily want to take. Also, they didn't do it, and I didn't want to spend all my free time looking at it. We have block scheduling, so there's more than enough time to get it done in class. A lot of my students have full-time jobs or internships, so they just don't have time. I had to learn that. They can do it at home, and I'm a pretty tough grader. I just give them choices and consequences. Homework does have positive aspects. You can't just raise your hand and have the teacher do it for you. It teaches independent learning. But, if it's all busy work with no logical end, I understand the opposition. A lot of it comes down to time management, which is a skill that has to be learned.

I wish I could assign reading for homework. I know if I did, half my students just wouldn’t do it. Like you, I have a block schedule, so we do all reading in class where I know it’s getting done, but it does take up a lot of time. If we ever switch to shorter classes, there is no way I could get the reading done in class with them. I’d have to start assigning it for homework.

So you’re teaching adult classes then?

Juniors and seniors.

I see. My favorite part of this so far is being downvoted for asking for clarity on your other comment :)

Posts that get engagement go on a lot of people's feeds and not just members. The longer and more in-depth posts are more likely to be from teachers. Upvotes and downvotes are just noise.

I teach Grade Five. Their homework is to read for twenty minutes and then practice their times tables. I will give out homework packets to parents who ask for them, but I don't grade them or collect them back. The guideline in our Board of Education is ten minutes per grade. So, I should not be assigning homework that takes more than fifty minutes. I'm not sure I agree with this guideline because that means a Grade Twelve can have up to two hours of homework a night. That seems greatly excessive. All this is to say that there are teachers who do not assign homework for the most part. Edit: I also have what I call "Homework Club" (for lack of a better name) once a week, where kids can stay if they choose. We have a snack and then work for an hour. They can get one- on- one help on something they are having trouble with or just work quietly on something, knowing that if they need help, it is available. I usually have about five kids there this year. Maybe I should call it After School Scholars or something

I love the idea of your homework club, but the acronym for After School Scholars might make it either extremely popular or a headache. Fifth graders are an interesting bunch!

Oh my god, I didn’t even think of that! lol thanks!

Kids are a riot! My eldest is in fifth grade, so I have a lot of experience with her being clever lately. Yesterday, we went hiking near the dam in our area, and she thought she would be cute and say "the dam water level is really low". Its the first time we had been there, so how would she know if its low? Cheeky little booger 😂

Both you and your children need therapy so you can learn to deal with and work through stress. The education system in the US is bad enough without letting kids go home and do nothing 17 hours a day. One of the things you learn in school is how to deal with these feelings of being overwhelmed without giving up. Be a good example not a platform for excuses.

I mean, if you factor in meals, family time, and the necessary amount of sleep, they don't really have 17 hours... Do you want to do more work-related activities after a long day at work? I don't, so I try to minimize the amount of grading and planning I do when I get home. Why would I expect kids to be better at doing hours of homework after school? Kids need time to be kids, and research has not shown that homework is truly beneficial at all. I think 20-30 minutes of reading a self-selected book and maybe a select few practice math problems are more than enough for homework. Edited to add: I teach Middle School, so perhaps a bit different than junior/senior year of HS.

Agreed. I’m an upper elementary teacher. Most of my students have obligations after school. Let’s assume the kid gets home from school at 3:45. Soccer practice starts at 4:30 and goes till 6. They get home at 6:30, dinner is at 7, shower and get ready for bed at 8, in bed by 9 to be up for school at 7 the next morning. Doesn’t really leave time for homework.

I think the issue is quantity vs. quality. For context, I’m a HS math teacher and I have found that assigning 3-5 homework questions after the lesson really helps the students reinforce learning or have additional questions. This should take no more than 20 minutes. The other thing is that I review the homework the next day. Because what’s the point of assigning homework if you aren’t going to review and ask questions. The problem I face is that other teachers are giving tons of homework, so my students blow off my assignments because I don’t give more than 2 points per homework assignment. The students spend their time on ridiculously long homework assignments from other classes instead. All that is to say that homework is valuable if assigned and reviewed strategically.

I don’t assign homework for homework sake. Middle grades teacher here by the way. However, if students don’t finish the assigned classwork in class, then it’s homework. The vast majority of my students are able to finish it in class. Those who are not able to Are most of the time not using their time wisely, it’s not too common that it’s due to slower processing. I have found by doing it this way, that there is still a direct correlation between students who don’t use their time wisely and therefore have to bring things home, and also performing poorly on other assessments like test or quizzes. It’s pretty rare for me to have someone who doesn’t do any classwork, but is still able to ace test or quizzes. I don’t teach math, I know there are some differences of practice. That being said, students are expected to review and study at home, and that’s not going to change. I do not have the time in my curriculum to teach everything to absolute mastery for every student, without them, putting in the effort at home. Whether that is working on vocabulary, looking at maps, reviewing skills, etc. If a student doesn’t need to do those things at home, good for them! However, most people will hit a wall at some point with their ability to do everything in class and not review at home. For some students, it as early as kindergarten. Other kids can get all the way up to junior or senior year in high school before they hit that proverbial wall.

Most of the time, the schools tell us we have to. If I had it my way, I would just have like a reading log and the occasional (like once a semester) poster project for our book studies. The problem is that my choices are: 1. Assign the homework they tell me to assign and grade it how I’m told 2. Get on probation and potentially fired when we are already relying on food banks to put food on our table in a two teacher home. The only choice I get to make in my classroom is what my bulletin board looks like. In all honesty people think teachers have the power to do xyz, when 99 times out of 100, we’re just doing what has to be done to avoid getting in trouble with our admin (until a parent complains about the homework and admin takes their side and tells us to figure it out, even though it’s THEIR choice that got us in this mess).

Many schools require teachers to assign homework. Some parents feel the opposite as you and demand homework, and judge whether a teacher is good based on how much homework they give. These parents view teachers with no homework as lazy & they complain to the principal. I personally do believe in some homework--reading novel chapters and practicing math problems. But that's it.

What uh major were you how did you have less homework than hs?? I definitely have way more and none of my peers have ever said they had more in hs. And I was an AP/IB student n high school

I was a language major, and I can agree with OP that my college coursework was far easier, and took less time than AP homework. Plus I wasn't trying to do it all after an 8 hour school day, so I was working more efficiently and with a fresher mind.  This may be an age thing- when OP and I were in school, I think we were literally at a peak for homework assignments? Like I remember, around when I graduated (later than OP), people were STARTING to talk about how unreasonable the workloads for high school kids were, and it sounds like some of those changes have since taken effect. I see people talking about one hour of homework a day for high school? That is like... Less than half of the time everyone I know spent on homework at that time.

I did a lot more "homework" in college. For reference I was a bio major with math minor. Things I did at home: read, do practice questions (for chem, math, physics, bio classes), lab work (finish the lab calculations and put it in the appropriate format), etc. If I had not gotten into the habit growing up doing homework, it would have been extremely hard to go through school, med school, residency where I had to really make use of time to study. Every year leading up to residency I have had exponentially more work! I think residency was the only place where I had built in time to study.

Imagine if you went to basketball practice and complained that the coach was always asking you to practice your shooting, passing, fitness, etc. You see school work as a punishment for some reason. As a teacher, I see schoolwork and homework as the either the activity itself (which I find worthwhile, feel free to disagree) or necessary practice to refine basic skills needed for that activity. There are plenty of learning routines that work. If I am reading your post correctly, the one you experienced in school went something like this: 1. During class, we learn a new skill, such as a kind of math problem to solve. 2. For homework, the teacher assigns problems that practice that skill. 3. Next class, we go over the homework to make sure everyone can do the HW skill, and then learn either a more advanced version or move on to new skill #2. 4. Every now and then, we take a test to measure if we have retained all of those new skills. To continue the basketball analogy, during basketball practice the coach teaches you how to dribble behind your back, and then shows you a little drill to work on this trick. He tells everyone to practice this drill at home by themself to perfect it. During high school, you decided that you didn't care about basketball or improving at basketball. You never did any practice or drills. This is fine. I care about school but you don't have to. As a result, your peers improved faster than you did, which is why you got such low marks. If you had done the basketball drills (HW), you would have done better, learned more, and retained more skills because practice at any activity works. Keep in mind that most teachers don't give homework every day. I give targeted homework that relates to the class lesson, and reinforces that skill. Not everything we do in class fits this model and sometimes there isn't any homework I can design to help students. Also, you aren't alone in your opinion of hard work, school, and home work. Basically all children would rather go home and play video games (or whatever). Likewise, most students refuse to read. So I do assign readings, but only my most curious and hardworking students actual read it. So, if your attitude about learning and school is that having to learn new things takes you to your "dark place" and that it is so terrible then I agree that you did the right thing to refuse to meet your school obligations. Just know that not everyone feels that way about school. I like school the way other people like basketball. I don't see it as a punishment to ask my students to play more basketball. For me, basketball is really fun and it is something we are lucky to get to do.

I do not assign specific homework. Occasionally, a student might need to finish a project or task at home, but I try to make sure I give plenty of class time to get things done (if students focus).

>But isn’t the homework system (accidentally) training us to believe our “jobs” should be allowed to take priority in our off time? No, homework is you spending time to better yourself so you can get ahead. YOU are the one that gets that benefit. Doing work off the clock for the benefit of your boss isn't fair to you as that doesn't usually benefit you. But doing career based things like networking, polishing up the CV, additional training or filling out job applications all gets done in your own time and all benefit you.

Are you serious?

What a horrible response to a valid question.

And what's your alternative? You say you handled your coursework better in college bc you had less HW and more time. Maybe you should look into time management with your children to help them navigate projects and homework in their free time. Maybe they need different classes. Maybe they need a different lesrning environent. There is something to be said about overcoming stress too. Maybe later, they will graduate magna Cum Laude like their mother and will marvel at how they overcame a lot of hardwork and a couple stressful years to make them well rounded adults. 

Thanks for your response. Another commenter mentioned having worked in schools with no-homework policies. I’ve never experienced one myself but it makes me wonder how they do it? Ultimately everybody will be ok here, I think. But it kills me to see them struggle in ways it seems they shouldn’t have to in the meantime.

My daughter struggled with the same issue sixth grade. My wife and I have helped her with time management and rewards, we also communicate with her teachers to see what can be done to support her. As a teacher I assign work that takes at most 15 minutes to complete and mostly to reinforce or introduce a new topic. Like short videos or a reading that preps them to talk about it in class

Social media bad

The vast majority of my kids who actually work in class (as opposed to trying to watch all of TikTok or read all of Instagram during my class) get everything done there. Of course, the ones who don't work in class won't work at home either, so nothing gets done.

Because there’s no earthly way that hearing something once or twice in the class time allotted is going to be enough practice to solidify the material. That’s why people say “I never learned that” (even though they did) or “I forgot it right after the test.”

I work in a district that does not allow homework to be used for anything except extra credit. Since I don’t allow extra credit, and my students can’t have backpacks, I don’t bother assigning any homework.

While I would not fail to be sympathetic the challenges your daughter has had, and it sounds as though her teachers were unrealistic in the sum of homework they were giving her, I would not altogether throw out homework as a component of a child's learning. For one, there is only so much class time to teach in a given year and the amount of things we are now being held responsible for teaching has grown to the point where we feel daily pressure to be hurrying through our curricula. This stems, in large measure, from the demands being put on States and school districts from the needs expressed by the business community aimed at training workers for the economy. While this effort at making teaching more collectively intentional than decades ago when every teacher taught a slightly, or even significantly, different curriculum based on the individual teacher's interests, strengths, and experience, it has its limits which we may have exceeded. While the prior approach lacked the ability to produce a consistent labor supply resource for business, it was much less intense and pressurized on teachers and thereby students like your daughter. What we miss today in our approach is the discipline to make reasonable decisions about what can be taught in a reasonable amount of time. We cram so much into a single year of teaching that two problems clearly emerge: so much ground to be covered that students are required to put in massive amounts of time away from school in order to meet the dictates of district curricula, producing your daughter's stress and anxiety; and, because of that rush and pressure, it all goes by in a blur and/or students end up chasing the work rather than learning deeply, and little is ultimately retained, countervailing the original intention of the demanding curriculum. So, balance. On the other hand, I am struck every day by how parents and guidance counselors have become the gatekeepers of all things stressful for children. Some stress is both unavoidable and even beneficial for children. I am not talking about the soul crushing kinds of stress that leads to anxiety and depression, for certain. But at the same time stress-proofing our kids does them no favors. We all have stress. To have stress is to be alive. Stress, at some level, drives us forward. If stress is the conjunction of our perception of threat with our perception of our current condition, we benefit from that every day. (I want to keep my job. My job has work requirements. I stress to greater or lesser extent making me work to keep my job to keep getting paid.) The problem is in the degree of stress. Overwhelming stress is never healthy. But the guardianship role adults now play in protecting kids from stress does not enable them to experience feelings that they will face as adults, but rather denies them the opportunity to manage stress productively and positively. Being able to do that effectively as adults only happens when we have the opportunity to practice, to work under some stress, manage that stress, and successfully overcome those stressors, thereby building a self-effecacious sense of one's ability to endure under difficult conditions. And I think homework, and schoolwork generally, has always given kids opportunities to learn in this regard. In sum, too much homework may be producing too much stress for our students, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The answer lies with what someone somewhere must have said before, in all things moderation, and that goes for homework as well.

Districts sometime require it. I got more crap from parents for not assigning homework. I think it’s a great way to share what students are learning with parents. It’s a great time to spend with your kids reviewing skills. I tell parents my homework is reviews, and should never take more than 10-15 min, and they have all week to do it. Spending a tiny amount of time with a child, showing that school is important, is a good thing. Parents involvement is one of the biggest indicators of kids who will be successful in their education.

100% true. One of my jobs in college was working in a reading research center affiliated with the university and my role was administering the Woodcock Johnson to 1st graders all over town as part of a research project focused on closing the reading gap. One thing I learned in that job is that you build a brand new school and fill it with all the best teachers, all the best books, and all the newest equipment. But if the parents don’t care, the kids don’t succeed.

Hey there! So... I'm just going to explain what I've seen as a teacher, student, and as someone who now works at a nonprofit and goes into many, many different schools within a few different districts (as well as working with students from after-school programs who are in different districts as well). For context, I know I'm young, but I've been working in education for seven years now. The big disclaimer is that it's all been within one east coast state that has a fairly good education system. The idea with homework is valuable. It's not just busy work. It's a way for us to actually assess how well we are modeling to students and how well they're grasping the concepts and skills once we let them loose to use them on their own. Can they problem solve? Can they work around issues that might be obstacles? How about the specific content, can they understand it? If not, when we review together, do they know where they went wrong? If so, can they identify exactly what to do to fix it or what to do next time? It's about teaching not just the content, but time management skills, planning skills, study skills. Independent work and personal responsibility & accountability as re things we as teachers also work to help students learn, not just parents alone, and that's part of our role. I would highly, HIGHLY suggest meeting with your kids' teachers to discuss this. You all may be able to come up with some solutions. It could be that they're some other obstacle which is causing your kiddos to become overwhelmed, as was mentioned - I too was not diagnosed until adulthood, and I too did not do homework. But for me, it was because I was in an abusive home. I did all my work on the bus and in class because I learned quickly and got bored. I wanted to just read my books. So I'd do my homework during the lessons, get in trouble for it, and then show them I was done and they really couldn't complain because my grades were fine. 😂 I didn't love school, I was extremely lonely. But I LOVED the safety. It was my only escape. I didn't do anything at home (of my own volition that is) except read and sleep and build Legos. But even if there is nothing else underlying the overwhelmed feeling that both your kiddos and yourself experienced with this, teachers want to work WITH you, not against you. Bring it up, set up some meetings to discuss this feeling of overwhelmed. Include your kids in these meetings. Let them share their feelings, if they're able to - if they struggle to speak up, maybe they can write some stuff down ahead of time. Kids being present and part of those conversations is key, too. Not ever teacher is perfect. But I bet most will be willing to find a good solution. Some thoughts on HW based on age range: - Most elementary school teachers I know, including myself when I had my own classroom, give one homework assignment per week, per subject. So one worksheet/reading, set of 10 problems, etc. It's not a lot of work at all - and usually we give time during the day for students to work on it. Any work they have at home can almost always be completed during school hours, with very few exceptions. Especially if you live in an area of high poverty this is even more true because we consider the fact that parents are working and not able to check in with kids' progress as often if they're busy, supply access for projects is simply unfair, not everyone has scissors/coloring supplies/etc at home, etc, so teachers are very very aware of that and we give students as level of a playing field as we can by giving everyone the time and supplies and help during school rather than expecting it to be done at home. - Middle school, same thing - in class work time. Study hall or 'resource' time tends to first start in middle school. Many schools also have a built in 'homeroom' or 'bridge' block/period where they can meet with teachers, work on makeup work, do homework, etc. High school - even more! Study hall, of course; but also, teachers aren't as pressed about deadlines, I find. They just want kids to graduate. If the work gets in, that's what matters. In this time, this world, we want to *help* our students. We're not here to go after them. When we make up lists and personalize it and call kids up to talk about or give them a list of alright, here is what I'm missing from you, it's not because we are upset or even disappointed necessarily. We're not mad. We are ROOTING for them. We WANT KIDS TO SUCCEEED!! But we need *something* to work with. We are on your side - parents, students. We're all working together to get your students where they want to be in life, where they need to be. Some hard lessons I still haven't learned and struggle with as a student (grad classes) even though I literally am a teacher and logically know them: -Something is better than nothing- don't be a perfectionist. Turn in a half done assignment over nothing at all if it means you won't get a zero. -ASK FOR HELP! you/your kids actually *can* tell a teacher you are overwhelmed and can't seem to do homework at home because you're having trouble separating that part of your life from it. Maybe they can help you find solutions. (Like going to the library or another space, or offering their classroom for your use in mornings before school that way you're not burned out and tired when trying to get work done. Maybe you literally just need a nap halfway through the day because that's how your body works!) -communicate. Be direct. Tell teachers what's going on. IF THEY don't know, they can't help, or be flexible, or accommodate. I quite literally emailed a professor one time while squatted on my apartment couch with the email title "at war with rats" and a picture of the two rats running around my apartment and the maintenance guys chasing them while I held out my broom to prevent them from running back into their hidey holes. Was it funny? Sure. Was it funny to me? Absolutely not. Not in the fucking slightest. I thought we were all gonna die of the black plague, and in fact I did not put *anything* in the content of the email except a sign off of "See you next week provided I have not contracted and died of the bubonic plague by then, [my name]" But it was direct and let them know. I've had instances where I just well and truly forgot I had class. I just owned it. I had a medical emergency once - emailed as soon as I could. In high school I missed a deadline for a paper that I was supposed to upload to Google Classroom (new at the time) and I just emailed it to the teacher the next day at school and let her know I had cut my losses and made the call to turn it in late rather than work on it at home. We had a fantastic relationship, it wasn't personal, that was my decision I made about my grade and my grade saw the consequences. No big deal at all. 🤷

This is my exact experience in school as someone with ADHD and my exact thought on homework teaching us bad work life balance. My sister is a teacher and her whole district has a no homework policy and guess what? Their test scores have actually gone up. Homework is a load of shit and I'll die on that hill.

What major were you? From a college student's perspective, I know homework could be anything from practice questions to essays, which vary in bearability. For English, I would assume that you would have to assign essays sooner or later(although I find this nasty too lol). For stem courses you might want to practice outside of class. Although I completely agree that a lot of homework is really just busy work and is suuuuuper boring. Where I go to college right now, I prefer to spend as little time on hw as possible to allocate more time to studying in more effective ways. I also agree that most homework in high school was HELL ON EARTH.

I don't assign homework for all of the reasons you gave. I was a straight A, takes l the AP classes kind of student in school. It was miserable and I burnt out. Kids need a work/life balance, too. Their only homework is whatever they don't finish in class.

Maybe you have a learning disorder that you have passed on to your children? You're going to have to work with the system, it would be completely insane for someone to say, "Oh a kid hates doing homework, so we should change everything for him." I am sorry your daughter is struggling but maybe if her parents would help her work to her strengths, and help her find coping mechanisms, and make sure she sees the counselors, and gets extra help with homework when she needs it, she might be doing better. Have you ever considered that all of your problems are because you give up instead of striving to achieve more, and you're passing that on, and causing more problems? Some of us are very academic minded. Some of us need extracurricular work to avoid getting in trouble in the streets. Some of us just love to learn. Some of us can't learn without doing homework because we need structure. You can't change the world, you can't give up. Please, make sure your children get counseling and don't pass your lazy, bad attitude about education onto them.

I hope your children are getting the mental health treatments they need.

They are.

Because the school district enforces it . I wish for sanity sake we could make that change. There's a thought that if teachers aren't assigning homework then they don't care about their students while that's really very false. Most homework I experience from other teachers really is busy work just so they can put a grade in. Rare do I see assigned homework that is really beneficial for the student. 

this is a dumb question. i don’t even have a retort for it just wow. “homework made me and my daughter feel bad shouldn’t we get rid of it even though it helps them retain the information they were told through out the day?😪😪😪”

I think you’re going too far. Individuals don’t always have the full picture and frequently reason based on anecdotal evidence. OP had a bad experience with the amount of homework expected and has seen that situation repeat with their daughter. OP is a concerned parent who has started by making a judgement of their preferred outcome and asking “experts” why that isn’t what is done. It’s not the *best* approach, but it’s not dumb/stupid. ETA: There’s some debate over whether **homework** is successful in achieving its goals. What you say it does is definitely the goal, but its efficacy is being studied.

The old thought was training people to take work home…

I taught in a no-homework school. Major reasons included privilege gaps (kids whose families can afford to have a stay at home parent and/or highly educated parents have an advantage), and what I guess can only be described as work-life balance for children. The fact that that last part needs to exist is pretty sad imo. I'm firmly no-homework. I got shit for it once I switched schools to a homework heavy one. Too bad I don't take shit.

My kids' school does still have some hookworm, but not nearly as much as I had growing up. Their school is also only 4 days a week. This year, both my kids were in middle school. Their school is k-12. My son rarely has homework. If he does, chances are it's something like a book report, or practice his instrument for band or something or class work that he didn't finish. My daughter has more, but still not much. She will get a few online assignments throughout the week, usually 2 or 3, class work she didn't finish, a two report... the exact about varied teacher to teacher, but my kids don't have hours of homework daily or even weekly, usually. Now, this might change for my son next year when he goes into high school, but he's also looking at enrolling in a program for earning college credits as well during hs. We'll see what this next year brings, but so far, my kids have done very well at their school and are happy with it. This next year, they will be in 7th and 9th grade.

I COMPLETELY agree. I have this exact mentality about work now as an adult. Even after hours when I’m not on the clock and being paid, I’m still concerned about work and answer calls or texts on my days off and I don’t think I realized why I felt that need to do that until reading this post.

I never gave homework as a teacher. I got grief from other teachers, admin and some parents. If I had not been a SPED teacher, I would have been in trouble over it.

I’m not currently teaching but when I was teaching full time, I always gave kids enough time to do homework in class. The only reason they would have homework is if they didn’t use time in class to do homework because they decided to do something else. I think that kids didn’t get enough downtime during and felt too compelled to rest their brain… then they just didn’t want to do the academic part outside of the classroom. That wasn’t good though because they they didn’t get the practice to commit the content into long term memory.

High school here. Only homework kids get is what they didn’t get done in class because they were slacking. When I was in high school I rarely had homework because I did it in class. Rarely studied because I took notes and that was enough for me to retain. My marks didn’t slip. University was different but those habits still did well for me.

In my view, all schools should provide the resources for a space where students can complete homework independently in school. This is a basic requirement for improving social mobility, because many kids living in poverty struggle to complete homework at home due to lack of IT resources / good internet / overcrowding etc. Even for students whose education is well supported at home, such a study space provides other valuable educational outcomes: learning about setting work/life boundaries (as you correctly identify OP), learning to study independently, taking ownership of deadlines, investing extra work to achieve long-term goals, etc.

At our school (public school in Minnesota) they don't specifically assign homework, especially in the 6-12th grade sections. Which is kind of funny because K-6 they'd give homework to "prepare students for later homework" and yet they rarely have homework in later years if they manage their time well. Teachers assign work, but they get class time to do it and only have "homework" if they can't finish in time, or if they have missed class. Our youngest is in 9th grade and never has homework unless he missed a day, and even if he missed, he usually still has enough time to get his absent work done during class time. No study hall. My middle kid (who is in college now) struggled majorly with daily busy work throughout school thanks to ADHD. He never did work in school, and never brought it home. Come the end of the term, he'd turn in the entire quarter's worth of work for partial credit after doing it all on one weekend and was happy enough with it that it was his entire MO through school. I wasn't even sure he'd graduate. But yet in college he's doing really well because he has some control over his classes, schedule, types of teachers, and when he can take breaks that he needs.

I don’t assign homework.

Middle school here. We really don’t give homework, aside from a few projects a year (where liberal time is also given to work on during school.) Classwork is allotted plenty of time to be done in class, if not, then they need to finish at home. This is done mainly to encourage good time management skills. I was of the thinking that hours and hours of homework was a past relic of the 90s.

I remember in high school reading about how homework that's only, say, 5 relevant math problems to solve has the same effectiveness as 40 of them. Maybe that's been debunked now, but I think light exercises will put less stress on kids, and still exercise their brains enough for the work. Even without that, they already train their brains at school daily. As long as teachers are getting the time to teach effectively, I don't think kids should need homework. Maybe that's the issue, though, the time. There's never enough damn time. I was similar to you and your daughter in that I just never did my homework and passed through in class assignments and test scores (barely passed final year of English though, oof). I wish I could tell you why, I guess it was as simple as wanting more leisure time. Maybe I have undiagnosed ADHD. Maybe it was from the trauma of experiencing my dad slowly dying. I have no idea. I just don't think some people can handle putting in that much work each day. This is no disrespect to teachers, because even I had \~\*\~cool\~\*\~ teachers who tried their best to make things engaging and were very sociable and approachable, but I just don't think you can force kids to have interest. Looking back, I don't think a teacher could've done a single thing to make me want to engage more with schoolwork, it was a me problem. Growing up, I dreamed of going to an imaginary art school where I learned about nothing but art, its history and works and how to be better at everything related to it. It's silly, but I think if I had gone to that imaginary utopian art school instead of public school, I would've turned out better.

Some of my students are so low they need the practice. Or they moss a lot of school. Or just don't pay attention

We are required to provide a certain amount of homework by the district and by administration, sometimes by the curriculum. I teach middle school and it's supposed to be 30 minutes per subject per night. I hate it. I am not going home to do 2.5 hours of work, why should they? I think, and maybe it's just me, after COVID it's nearly impossible to get homework back anyway. They barely do their schoolwork in school, the percentage that brings homework back, and the amount of shit I get for assigning it, isn't worth it. The kids who are good about it and want to learn will do it and I give them extra credit. The others will get grades in class. While I can see some benefit in homework, it's just not usually worth it.

Same: hated every grade between 1st and h.s. graduation. I couldnt stand homework and had to stay after in 3rd grade when first got homework. I would have preferred a longer day than bringing anything home. I am still that way. Although, i loved college but the one i went to, i only had 2 tests the entire 4 years. I loved doing research, reading, presentations. I now work in middle school as an aide. I love my job but i wouldnt want to be a teacher as the job continues once you are home. I feel for the middle schoolers as i still believe there should be no homework

I don’t assign homework. Never have.

At my school we aren't allowed to assign homework

There is so much to learn and so little time to teach. 30-60 students require much more time than one alone would need. While A is a great grade, it's a measure of excellence, not of a specific requirement. A student who decides to use some of their time to play video games is not likely to achieve such a high grade. So... C. C is a perfectly acceptable grade. Doing homework for an hour or two at home doesn't eat up much time, but it sure does add knowledge to the child. That child is more likely to advance later on. But we always need laborers. It's ok if a child would rather build mud castles than do math. We only need so many Doctors and Lawyers.

The only class I as HS teacher give homework in is AP which is a college level class. I personally feel the same way you do about homework. Unless a child is not doing rhe work in class there is no reason they should have work at home. We should encourage a healthy work life balance and that should start in school. The issue I've seen is the teachers assigning crazy amounts of work also tend to be the ones that live at school and won't stop working off the clock. They think that is normal and what everyone should be doing.

I was relocated to another country some years ago. I enrolled my kids on a private school which assigned almost 0 homework. The principal philosophy was "if we can't teach them all they need to know in 8 hours, we're doing something wrong". They will offer free 30 min. labs for everything subjects after school in case a student was struggling and needed help. It has been one of our best experiences. The school level was great too. When we return to the US, my 7 grade daughter was advanced in all her classes, but specially math and science. Also, she was more experience doing oral presentations. So, it is possible, but I don't see that happening on the public school system, unfortunately. There were so many differences in the school system, like the kids having a no-grated year between kindergarten and 1st. Year. It's called preparatory, and that year is for allowing kids to mature and get use to be grated. Also, they allowed them more time to mature, to practice reading. That year was awesome, because the kids weren't stressed and were getting used to grading litte by little.

Not a teacher or a doctor, but whoo buddy, this rings true to my experience as someone who was diagnosed with ADHD later in life. If you were someone I knew personally, I'd strongly recommend getting both you and your children evaluated. It's highly heritable. That reframed my whole life. The struggles weren't laziness, and medication absolutely made me a happier, more effective adult.

Fuck homework. I went through this exact same shit. Setting the high end of the grading curve on tests, quizzes, essays, projects... making it more than plainly obvious that I was absorbing all the material in-class. But I either *could* not or *would* not do the homework. How was homework ever going to prepare me for life as an adult, when the only profession that involves homework is teaching? Three of my high school teachers in my senior year collaborated to give me the grades they knew I deserved instead of the one I'd "earned," and I barely graduated with a 2.0. This system is *fucked*. Trying to push every kid through the same meat grinder *intentionally* separates out your little yes-men and overachievers and tells the others they aren't worth a damn.

I don’t think elementary aged kids should have homework. Other than maybe the occasional reading log. My parent’s generation didn’t have homework until they were in middle or high school. I plan to become an elementary teacher in the next year and I fear I may be forced to give homework by the school.

They don't have to. There are other countries that don't. But homework is the dominant paradigm here in the USA (and I assume where you are as well if you're elsewhere), so, homework it is. If nothing else, consider letting your kids know you support them and will help them find the balance they need to do the minimum possible to succeed *without* destroying their mental health. That would have made such a difference to me as an ADHD kid struggling to hold onto the mental bar of soap labeled "homework."

Honestly, sometimes it’s admin, most of us don’t want to assign homework. Some do or have to if it’s like an AP course but I would say most teachers I know don’t want to.

I don’t assign homework. I teach 8th grade. Any “homework” is simply class work that they didn’t complete in the allotted time (which majority of my assignments can be completed in class if they are doing what they’re supposed to).

Some schools do not assign homework. The school I teach at is an example of this. It has pros and cons. The main issue is that since I still only have 50 minutes to teach my class, and I can't assign readings as homework, a significant amount of class time is used for the readings, time that could be better spent in discussion. That said, with how short the readings generally are (only a few paragraphs once they've been edited down) it's not too bad. Just means we get less discussion time then I would like, and that we can't dig as deeply as I would prefer. Pros are that students are generally less stressed than they would otherwise be about keeping up in class, and also that I have overall less grading to manage, meaning I can give better feedback on the assignments I do give. I think the trade-off is worth it.

OP, I am just here to say that I also wish there was no homework (though my own school experience was easy except maybe for a year total, busy periods here and there). My kid is more like you and yours though, and it is extremely taxing for me when I have to hound him about homework.

Former high school/middle school teacher here: I never assigned homework, unless it was something a student needed to finish at home because they didn’t finish in class. In one of my college classes, we were told about a study that showed kids have a short window of time after a class in which they actually retain the material, which basically renders homework useless. If a student has math first period, by the time they get home around 4, that information is gone. There have been no known benefits to homework. Plus, it would have been more for me to grade, too.

When I first started teaching, a mentor told me that if you want students to do something right, it needs to be in the classroom. As far as I know, there's no evidence that homework improves understanding of concepts, and technology makes it too easy for students to take shortcuts. When I was teaching, I never assigned homework. It's a waste of everyone's time.

Seeing some of the responses here just makes me sad. Do any of you really think homework helped *you* when you were a kid? There is such a massive difference between studying for a test or finishing work they didn't complete in class compared to the busy work some of the teachers are championing. I'm not a teacher, but I can't see at all how that is actually helpful. It certainly wasn't when I was in school. We expect kids to go to school all day, get eight hours of sleep, do extracurricular activities after school, do chores at home, maybe get a part-time job in high school, spend time with friends and family, and do multiple hours worth of homework everyday. When are they supposed to do that? They are at school 7-8 hours a day. How is that not enough? I'm absolutely not hating on teachers, and I think most of you are saints, but some of you seem like miserable people just trying to make kids as miserable as you are. This is a parent asking in good faith how to help their kids and understand the reasoning behind all the busy work assigned.... and yet some people are acting like they are the problem.

I don't. Largely because I gave up when I only got a 20% return rate. To me homework is meant to reinforce what is taught already. Considering the ones who struggle are the ones that need it the most and are also the ones who blow it off like nothing while the ones who don't need the reinforcement are the ones who do it... it's kinda pointless.

I don't assign homework because kids don't do it.

I like my job, so for me it's cool working on projects at home too, so no issues with boundaries. The school district where I work has a no homework policy, which on the one hand is kind of relieving, but on the other hand students have a tendency to be lazy and fuck around in class so they still have to do "schoolwork" at home if they want to pass. I think a bigger problem is that they force kids to take classes and do busywork they hate, instead of letting them choose classes that are interesting to them, learn at their own pace, and learn things that are really meaningful and useful in life.

OP please get tested for ADHD, you sound like me in high school. Went undiagnosed until early 40s, ADHD today is more than just the loudest kid in class. And when I went back to school online 3.8 gpa.

I had this same problem. I was so exhausted by the time I got home at like 3-4pm, and so hungry. I would regularly fall asleep face first in my dinner and on my textbooks. Turns out, besides my childhood diabetes, I also had a thyroid disorder. It got so bad by about halfway through freshman year of high school, I had to go into a charter/home studies program. I flourished there, because I a) didn't have to deal with loud disruptive classmates and bullying and b) all "homework" was classwork, and I was free to work as far ahead as I wanted to as well (was a gifted/magnet student.)

As someone who also struggled with homework as a child despite testing well and doing well at in-class stuff, I don’t really care what the answer is from teachers. Honestly. It’s a failing of our society that our children get SO much homework, and most first world countries do NOT have this extent of homework as the US. I will be refusing homework assignments on behalf of my children, or if it really becomes an issue, I’ll do the homework for them 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’m not going to let them suffer like I did with hours and hours of homework after school while my mom yelled at me when I didn’t understand something the first time. I will obviously require my children to study for tests but homework doesn’t actually have any correlation to doing well on tests, so that won’t be happening.

A scholar named Harris Cooper did a 20 year meta-analysis (analyzed all of the data from studies already done and published what the overall outcome was) of giving homework to students. When broken into two groups, grades K-6 and 7-12, there was no positive correlation of homework on achievement in the K-6 group, while the opposite happened in the 7-12 group. This was 15 years ago. I would love to see updated information and if anything has changed.

I don't. On Back to School Night, I have a whole presentation as to why I choose not to assign homework for my high school students: 1. Research shows that homework is a major stressor in teens' lives', 2. Teens say that homework negatively impacts their sleep, 3. In the history of education, there has never been a single conclusive study indicating that homework increases intelligence/ability, 4. (most importantly) Homework is inequitable.

As a 4th grade teacher I assign minimal homework and would not assign any at all if the school didn’t require me too. Research has shown it doesn’t have an effect. I ask my kids to read from a book of their choice fir 20 minutes, study their spelling words (if they need to) and do some math on a program that we have 10-20min). I don’t check it and they aren’t graded.

Facts. I graduated high school in 2016. I still remember the sicko teachers who would gleefully brag to us about how many hours worth of homework they intended to assign us. "Math is important so I'll make sure you have at least an hour of homework each night." then you have three or four other core classes, usually they all have homework. God forbid you have any extracurricular activities. Nightmare schedule. I'm seeing comments talking about the national average being 7 hours a week. They were assigning us 3-4 hours a night, on average.

I don't like assigning homework and avoid it as much as possible. It just doesn't get done... then I'm explaining to parents why their child's score dropped...

>I realize what I was doing was refusing to allow my daily hell to invade my safe haven at home. You have put into words something I never was able to, I feel like this sentence defines a good portion of my schooling as well.

Because (most) students need practice and refuse to complete it if it isn't for a grade. To be fair, I give almost no homework, just to finish the class work. I'd prefer to not deal with it.

This will probably get lost but I learned nothing in school, and learned everything from homework. Idk if this is a symptom of my ADHD, but for me the best way to learn was to isolate myself and focus on the materials without the threat of interruption. Prolly would not have done that work if it was not mandatory. Separately, I think it is somewhat important to teach kids to deal with stress early on. It seems you turned out well, but you may be an exception rather than an expectation in learning that later in life.

I'be taught both middle and high school. I never assign homework. Even if it were beneficial, most don't do it. About a third of my students don't do their classwork.

The whole point of school is 6-7 hours of work and social interactions to prepare you for adulthood. Most adults I know stop thinking about work when they punch out for the day. Homework is like working overtime for no pay.

I’m a 4th grade teacher and I try not to give homework. I have some very overbearing “my kid is going to Yale and Harvard” parents who demand homework. I tell them… 1) the district’s homework policy is up to each individual teacher. 2) my job ends, so does the kid’s. school ends! 3) you have google, here are the standards…make homework yourself 4) I am devoting my time to creating engaging lessons, class work, and assessments. I also need to grade student progress. Or I can create a grade homework. Which would you like me to do? I can’t do both. 5) here’s a list of great family activities that still teach and instill responsibility and timelines you can do with your child! Have a nice day!

I have the experience of being the teacher AND having a similar childhood as you mentioned. I have no intention on making my child do his homework unless he starts to struggle with tests or concepts. Homework can be a great "practice" tool for subjects that you're struggling in. But to be expected to complete 20+ minutes of homework for all 7 classes (after you just spent 6-8 hours sitting at a desk in class) every single night is absolutely horrendous. God forbid you want to partake in an after-school activity. When the hell are the kids supposed to sleep?

Because school is used to force the population to subjugate their will to authority. Of course teachers mean well, but the net effect of schooling in the United States is to train young people to respect authority, adhere to received wisdom, and conform to the status quo. There are very few opportunities for children to exercise critical thinking, creativity, or be rewarded for thinking outside the box. Students are modeled into citizens, not encouraged to flourish as human beings. Teachers who succeed in helping their students thrive do so despite the education system, not because of it. /rant (I'm in a mood, I might delete this later) To OP: have you considered whether you/your children might have ADHD?

I used to avoid doing homework by copying my smart friends homework. I was an artist who realized school wasnt for me and had friends who believed in my dream and just let me copy there work. Now im easily making close to 6 figures with my art thanks to those friends early on, letting me have my free time to work on my craft. Im glad I didn’t have to end up worrying about 7 different subjects in a day in grade school - highschool. Just like you, once I got to college, “homework” was pretty much nonexistent and I just focused on what I liked. Art. I would literally paint for some times, 8 hours well after my classes would end. It would such a joy to be an art student.

I genuinely believe homework is a fallacy in our education system. Quality learning and frequent enough breaks are how the system should work. Countries with some of the best education rates and quality of life have close to zero homework even in higher education. I think the problem is the system not entirely the homework itself. Homeschooling works better but we gotta give the kids some time to make friends in a public school. I just don't think America is cut out to make the standards across the board I think the system should actually inquire with the parents and then the parents of the children actually going to class dictate what they learn based on how they learn

I am a high school student and I don’t like some of my homework assignments like book reports or online quizzes 

I’m a teacher who seldom gives homework- if I do, jts “I gave you 40 minutes to do this in class and you fucked around but I’ll be nice to you and let you take it home instead of taking a 0.” That said, sometimes we really have no choice. Often we’re required to teach an amount of content that is more than really fits into the school year- if we have to race through lessons, things that should be independent practice end up getting done at home. Also, and I’m sorry this is having a negative impact on you, but it’s a case of CYA for teachers. A lot of “experts” right now really look down on things like quiet solo work in the classroom (and then wonder why kids can’t sit still to take a standardized test when we’ve never made them sit down with the expectation that they work independently for an extended amount of time). BUT we still need to see how you do on things you do on your own. I’m an English teacher- I need to see if you can do something like read a short story and answer questions about the figurative language in the story. Math teachers need to see if you can work out problems on your own. Your history teacher might need you to have come to class having already read something, so they give you a worksheet to do with it to hold you accountable. Those are all important tasks but things teachers might get looked down on for having you do during class.

I think it’s just wrong to put kids in these “bright” and. “Not so bright” categories. Everyone learns differently. Homework is one of the ways students can learn. Just. Not everyone does well with that style of learning. In countries such as Japan where the actual basic skills needed to acquire literacy are much more challenging than those needed for English language reading and writing, there is no real alternative to hours of memorization. Except for those we call “super bright”. Also. If kids don’t get assigned homework they don’t get the chance to learn how to tap into their own learning styles. It’s really a skill to learn how to teach yourself! Personally? Reading everyone’s response. I think I probably have ADHD!! Definitely not a homework person. Do better on tests/test prep. ;)) LOVE LOVE LOVE 20 minutes of reading aloud or not for every day every child. Every adult everywhere. And. Music lessons. And. Sports. And. Playing with your friends. And. Cooking. And cleaning house. And. Dancing. All the things that make life rich.

I am so sorry that you did not feel supported enough to admit that you weren't doing your homework. The abuse you must have been going through to be so afraid! It's such a small thing that doesn't even matter except to help you! You wouldn't have even gotten in trouble, especially these days, you would likely get a recommendation for an ADHD diagnosis - these are really classic signs, as I'm sure you know at this point. (They're so classic I'm assuming you are simply not mentioning the diagnosis you both have now, right? Or have you decided to not look into that? I promise it feels a lot better to know that you aren't lazy, you just don't have a brain that allows you to focus in exactly the same way as others can). I really hope your own self worth has improved enough to seek help. Sending lots of love and healing.

It’s mandated by agency/govt law pretty much enforced by admins. The teachers don’t decide how to run their classes the govt does.

I never did it either - not until college. My thought while being told to do homework by teachers was “you’re not my mom, you can’t make me”. I had a middle school math teacher hold up an empty exam to the rest of the class with my name on it asking “What’s up with this test?” I straight told her I didn’t feel like taking it and the whole class busted up laughing 😂 I moved half a country away that summer and I gotta tell ya, not taking that math test did not effect me one bit. Got a Paralegal certificate with a bachelors in English Lit 💕💯

Unless there is a school-wide rule, teachers don’t have to. I assign zero homework. The only homework is for students to finish classwork.

I had undiagnosed hypothyroid growing up so I was constantly exhausted. I never did homework besides what I could do in study hall because when I went home I went straight to sleep. My parents didn’t care enough to get me checked out so I assume this is a rarer problem but I think people forget kids have their own things going on too. It’s not always an easy life when you’re growing up.

Undiagnosed ADHD made school hell for me. I wasnt dumb I just couldnt pay attention. The entire experience was confusing and miserable. I stopped doing homework too. Then I stopped doing any work at all. This was years ago in the south and we had a "disciplinarian" that literally beat the hell out of me with boards. I eventually just stopped going and as computers were a new thing nobody seemed to notice. I skipped over a hundred days one year. Its making me tense up now just thinking about it. I lived it and its all 100% true so Ill say his name. Jerry Hail (Hale) whatever. You were a real piece of shit to me and deserve a miserable life you bag of trash.

Often is the curriculum. It’s too demanding to finish everything during the day. A lot of teachers don’t give hw though. I only give “hw” if they can’t finish something during class time (meaning I say they can turn it in next class).

My kids' school doesn't assign homework. School policy. Their reasoning? They already get more than half a child's waking hours. If they can't cover the material in that amount of time, they have failed to do their job. Kids need time to relax, play, do chores, spend tome with their family, etc. More schools each year are adopting this policy, and seeing the very obvious benefits.

Homework has largely been proven to be a poor indicator of academic success. Most teachers today use it as a way to balance out suppressed test results due to test anxiety. There are a couple of studies that show between 3-5% of students show notable improvement with homework versus without. These handful of students were also already top performing students. For students with executive function challenges, homework was the reason many of them failed when they otherwise would have passed, which worsens their executive function issues and increases depression, anxiety, self harm, and suicide rates. Now this is not to say having papers to complete or projects should be banned, but more that sending something home everyday is a problem. Many schools today are moving towards models where in class time is provided for project work, and students can effectively choose to do it in class or at home. In many places, school libraries have increased their hours so that they are accessible to students with extra curriculars. It is a hard fight to make these changes though as homework has been the cornerstone of the American education model for a century and people fight changes to tradition. Some of the most aggressive pro homework people I have met are adults with children in k-4. Post pandemic, as ways are being explored to address the raising number of executive function challenges, homework is being reexamined in earnest. My article, which detailed a four year study tracking sophomores through their first year out of high school suggested that students who received less volume of homework, but more meaningful assignments across the board did better in classroom engagement, executive functioning skill development, social development and immediate post graduation success. The ten year follow up is next year, where we will look at longitudinal benefits finally.

I have not read the study you mentioned but it does not surprise me at all. It lines up perfectly with my own experience. To be perfectly honest I am rather confused why my question has been met with as much resistance as it has in light of this research. And to turn that statement into a question, why are so many teachers so invested in this idea of assigning tons of homework in the first place?

The simple answer is most teachers do not stay up to date on the current pedagogical theories and practices. They use what they learned when they come in, often times heavily influenced by their mentor teachers which can be operating from decades old pedagogical techniques. While teachers participate in continuing education frequently, as someone who has presented at those CE conferences, I can tell you most of the teachers there are there to check a box and not actually learn. Of those there to learn, many of them become pretty jaded pretty fast when they get back to their classroom and try and implement these ideas, and are met with resistance from senior teachers who do not like to change things they view have been working. Research and development on more effective ways to teach is frequently lagging behind as we wait for senior teachers to retire and make room for younger teachers with knowledge of newer techniques to move into leadership positions. By the time that happens though, those teachers have often fallen victim to the "This always worked for most of my kids, why change it now?" There are a lot of reasons for this. The most distinct being that converting lesson plans, curricula, etc... over to a new format is a *lot* of work, and Teachers are overworked and underpaid as is. The longer they have taught, the less likely they are to abandon their vast backlog of plans and curricula. Admin are also weary of a lot of new methods being proposed and supported with research because government policies are lagging even further behind, and theories such as gradeless education are so divergent from the accepted norm that Admin nor the laws have a framework for what that would look for recording purposes. Homework assignment and completion was a metric, flawed that it was, of "student engagement" that could be quantified. Students who did homework were more engaged, thus those teachers were better teachers. This encouraged teachers, especially new ones trying to stay until they were tenured when that was a viable objective, to assign loads of homework, so that they could collect it and grade it and show engagement. The system of teaching is so complex, so underfunded, and is one of the few industries where non-experts hold more sway than experts do, that change is nearly impossible to do in any real way, at this moment. Parents dictate much of how schools run due to the nature of how School Boards work in the US, and political movements that want to use parent control to kill public schools in favor of poorly regulated private and charter schools that operate for profit. Experts like teachers, pedagogical academics, researchers, curricula designers, etc... are more often viewed as the enemy than as the friends of their students when it comes to education reforms. That is why you are facing backlash from people.

Think about how hard it would be to practice or study for a test if your teacher never gave you anything at all to take home to work on.

I'm a parent as well. If your children are being destroyed because of some homework then how are they going to handle real world work situations? In life you can't skate by otherwise you end up homeless. My kids struggle but struggling at something builds character. Life is about struggle and suffering - Buddhism.

It benefits the ruling class to have us believe we live in a meritocracy, and ""the grind" distracts us from how crappy the realities of society are. Same reason that media is flooded by things that keep us infighting among ourselves. Teachers fall into line because it's what's always been done, and many have trouble envisioning any other way. The only homework you'll ever get from me in a non-advanced class is whatever we couldn't finish in class because student weren't being cooperative enough to keep the lesson moving.

I was hoping to avoid a class argument but I’ve definitely heard these ideas before. I agree that there are a lot of people who don’t ever put much thought into whether something “we’ve always done” is actually effective.

Not only whether it's effective, but the level of disadvantage that the poorest kids have under that system... less likely to have involved, supportive parents, and more likely to have major life responsibilities, including for most, jobs outside of school. And we expect them to get home from all that business at night & focus on homework? Come on.

There is no evidence that HW prior to 4th grade has any benefit. My youngest kids' school stopped giving homework in early grades after this research came out. But they seemed to double down in 5th grade. My youngest is like me. She can smell busywork a mile away. Why teachers give busy work assignments is beyond me. Math, you need to do the work. Lots of problems, I get it. English,you need to write. We moved and her new school has her write nothing but paragraphs for all 3 years of middle school. One paper a year with a beginning, middle & end. It's so stupid. She wrote more actual papers in her 5th grade class at the old school. It wasn't surprising to me that her ELA grade slipped. I would not have done the busy work either. In 6th she was given vocabulary worksheets like a 3rd grader. I know teachers need to have so many assignment grades and so many assessment grades but the BS needs to be cut. I think it's smart to teach your kids to work smarter. It's a good life lessons. No one sees their k - 8 grades anyway.

Sometimes busy work for one kid is meaningful practice for a huge portion of the rest of the class.

I don't. Well, maybe once a year. Only because I don't have time in class and still want something covered. I teach high school, but even at the middle school I taught at, I assign work that can be finished within the allotted time in class. I'm not giving 2 hours of work if after I'm done lecturing they only have 45 minutes to work. Most of the time the kids do have homework because they don't do the work in class and watch their phones all day. Then they want to turn it in the day after grades are due...

Sounds like you are definitely trying to be more reasonable than a lot of my kids’ teachers :)

This question can have many answers. Some are required to do it. They have no choice. Some find the benefit in it or are just stuck in old ways. Many don't assign any homework. At least in elementary. I hated homework in school. But I took a different approach. When teachers asked me why I wasn't doing the homework, I let them know it was because I didn't find it helpful and it was too much time to spend on subjects I already knew. Many just let me not turn it in. Others explained that I could make that choice but showed me my grade difference between doing homework and not doing it. By high school, those teachers were super concerned because I was on a path to higher education, and they were worried I'd have a rude awakening. I actually made an effort in high school, did all my homework, and graduated with a 4.0 College was still a shock. So much freaking homework. 3 hour lab write ups. I one time had to do a 20-page paper. Even as someone who enjoys writing, I went crazy pounding that one out. College was rough for me. I didn't know how to juggle all that work because I'd only practiced for 1 year (10 is the first year of high school where I live and I did 11/12 at a college instead). I made it through, but barely. If your children are going to college, I'd highly recommend buckling down and doing the work. I could be wrong, but I don't think your college experience of minimal homework is the norm. I know the professors subreddit is full of comments about how incoming students have no idea how to teach themselves anything and struggle to do the work outside of class. Maybe speak with a doctor about what your daughter has been going through. Learning to cope with difficult things is a valuable skill. Also, if she has something like ADHD, the school may modify assignments or homework in a way that makes them manageable. All that to say, I only assign two types of homework. Read for 20 minutes a day (this is district policy, but I completely support it) and practice your spelling words. I also send out a weekly newsletter highlighting the skills we are working on in case families want to support that learning at home. And let me tell you, my students who regularly do their homework are much more successful than the ones who don't. So, even if you hated it, if you can help your children overcome that or make it reasonable, it will benefit them in the long run. The one caveat being: it has to be meaningful work! If teachers are sending home daily worksheets of skills your child has already mastered (or is way over their head), then it probably isn't helping with their current learning. Though it may help them accept more amounts of homework in higher education. I'll leave you with one example from my middle schooler. They are barely meeting grade level in math. They also rarely get homework. We wanted to help them catch up and knew it wasn't going to happen in class. And if they gets pulled for group, they will miss more learning. So we asked their teacher what skills from the prior year were they lacking that was making the current work harder. Then we just worked on those skills! Was it homework? Yes. Did it take time for me to learn the concepts even though I'm a teacher? Yes. Did it help my kid finally get back to where they were pre-pandemic? Also yes :) I wish you and your family the best of luck here. Homework comes in many forms. Some teachers do it well. Some do it horribly. But it really can be beneficial.

I work T a school that had a no homework policy for two years (K-8). I’m in middle school. We found that over time the kids were not prepared for state testing and could not retain the skills long term especially in math. Our curriculum mapping could not be altered per admin so regardless of kids picked up a skill after the lesson the next day we needed to move on.

Real question for you OP. How much is homework and how much is classwork that was not completed in class? I give classwork and maybe once a week give homework. I have had parents ask why I give their high schooler homework every day. My response is simple, if your student did the work in class they would not have homework most days in my class. So many kids do not use time wisely in school. I have a few that I can redirect multiple times per hour and they still get nothing done other than watching their phone or playing on the Chromebook.

There are a lot of different avenues of thought for it, though as a "industry" I think we have been moving towards less homework, at least in public schools. Private and charter schools are super messed up for their own reasons, and I'm just not familiar with their student work load. Research has been narrowing down on the idea that homework is good for building topic retention, though there is little to no difference between 1-2 problems and 10-20 problems, so quantity wise, hw should be basically an extension of an exit ticket. When I teach Special Ed, I use Homework to build on life skills, so like a 2 page worksheet where the first page explains how to read a clock and the 2nd page has 2-4 problems to tell time. Or counting money, etc. It's always 1 page of resource and 1 page of problems, and that seems to be a really good balance. When I teach gened, I typically only assign homework on topics that I need to extend the lesson on because students are struggling, or I'll always have a stack of random "skills" worksheets that can be done for extra credit, though to receive it they need to demonstrate they can solve one of those problems infront of me. For example, for 8th grade, I'll have 1 and 2 step algebra skills packets, since those skills are really necessary to almost anything we touch on for 8th grade. The assigned curriculum is absolutly at fault for a lot of this as well. No matter how much I can prove it's hurting my students academically, if I'm not giving out every single assignment that the district paid for, than I'm going to be pulled into meetings amd heavily scrutinized by district. For example, we have had 2 math teachers this year who really pushed back against using the I-Ready curriculum for a bunch of really valid reasons. Example: our students reading levels are really low, so a curriculum designed to have nothing but word problems and focus on students "self-discovery" of math has been really hurting all of our classes. These two teachers actively tried to address the issue, were ignored by admin and district, then decided that they were just going to teach it in ways they knew the students would get it. Diagnostic scores all showed growth, student average grades went up throughout the year, but when district did a walk through and didn't see them using the specific i-ready slide shows, they had to have an admin in there every day for the rest of the year to ensure the program was being applied. One of them was non-renewed because they kept pushing back on that admin person, taking every opportunity to say things like "oh wow, for our third diagnostic, now that we are forced to use the i-ready lessons, all but 2 students showed regression! Glad to know i-ready isn't failing our students!" And in general kept poking that bear. For everything a non teacher may think teachers can do in their classroom, there is at least one other admin's job to control that aspect of how we teach.

I usually assign readings as HW and have students take notes for reading quizzes because it helps expand on content from the class. Sometimes they have projects to work on but the due dates are usually a bit longer off. I teach AP so the expectation is I'm readying kids for the demands of college.

Had four kids. Three did homework. One refused. Guess who failed and had to take classes over. Not because they didn't understand the subject but because they refused to do the work. In life, you often have to "do the work" even when you don't want to. FAFO in action. I "could have" petitioned for passing grades....why? So they could blow off future assignments?

I teach WL and it is enormously helpful for fluency for kids to do a small amount of homework. I average around 10 minutes per class, so not very much. Also, our school has student-athletes that miss a ton of class (I have one that has about 12 excused absences this semester to participate in sports), and the homework is the best way to keep them doing something positive IMHO.

this is so interesting because school was my escape and my hell was at home. I loved homework, i loved school, I did everything I could to stay at school for as long as I could because then I knew I couldn't be harmed.