Parents wringing their hands over homework loads
The two major findings of our research are that, first, children's free time has declined and, second, that free time is increasingly structured.If you think homework is a boring subject, listen to these expressions of anguish and frustration.
Here's what Michele Newbern of Memphis, Tenn., says about her third-grade daughter's homework:"She has two to three hours a night sometimes. By the end of the night we're screaming at each other, we're at each other's throats. She's in tears because she's too tired, my blood pressure's up because I'm on her to get her homework finished. . . . I just think an 8-year-old, that's entirely too much. She has no time to play with friends, be with her family, barely time to eat her supper."
Debbi Hudson has children in third and fifth grades. "School is a virtual nightmare for these kids because of homework. I think homework, it just consumes our lives during the week."
And Kye Bargiachi says, "We changed our lives because of homework."
Her 10- and 12-year-old daughters swim and play soccer, but combining sports and homework was turning weekdays into compression chambers.
"The pressure at home was way too much," Bargiachi said. "We had no family life. . . . To me, they looked like soccer at 4:30, swimming at 3:30, not like individuals. They're my babies, I want them to be like children again."
She's home-schooling this year, with support and advice from the children's former school.
Newbern says she hasn't complained directly to anyone at Shelby Oaks Elementary, where her daughter goes to school, but, "I sent a little note one time asking, 'Am I the only parent that thinks this is entirely too much homework?'"
The answer is no.
The day The Commercial Appeal of Memphis published a short notice asking people if homework was affecting their family lives, the message line was full within hours, overloaded with calls from parents who told stories like Newbern's and Hudson's. "Stressful," "overwhelming," "frustrating" and "excessive" were the words used.
But principals say the response would have been just as charged if the notice had asked people to complain of too little homework.
"As a matter of fact, I've had parents say they don't feel we're doing as much homework as we should in the same grade parents say that it's too much," said Kevin McCarthy, principal at Richland Elementary.
Ed Locks, principal at neighboring White Station Middle School, said he's had complaints about too much and too little homework being assigned by the same teacher.
"We do demand more because our kids can do a lot," Locks said of the 880 seventh- and eighth-graders at White Station Middle. "We know that they can run at those high levels. This is their job right now, to go to school, and sometimes you have to work overtime.
"When you're really trying to get kids ready for high school, in a college prep program like ours, you've got to have the width and breadth. You can't be the country bumpkins. Middle school is the time to put the pressure on. We look to two to three hours a night of homework. In the optional program, with four course subjects, you'll have 30 minutes in each subject. If they have to do extra reading, you might add to this."
His advice to parents worried about the workload their kids are carrying is to look to themselves for the solution.
"Some of our parents are exposing their children" to a demanding extracurricular schedule, Locks said. "They've got organized sports, organized gymnastics, organized symphonic groups, piano, violin, how-to-study lessons, speed-reading lessons. We're doing this to our kids."
Educators said homework should be meaningful, a review of what a child learned during the school day or a preview of what he'll learn the next day.
McCarthy gathered 10 students in a Richland classroom recently to talk to a reporter about homework. Five were fifth-graders, all 10 years old.
Philinese Kirkwood said her homework takes her about two hours a night. "One time I was up until 11:30 doing my homework. But I'm getting used to it now, so it's a lot easier."
Matthew Milam said there's more homework in fifth grade than there was in fourth. He estimates he spends 11/2 hours on homework on Mondays and Tuesdays; 30 minutes Wednesdays and Thursdays. "I watch football every Saturday and Sunday," he said.
Lindsey Styles said there was more homework at the beginning of the year than there is now. She had the impression teachers had deliberately "slacked it down."
Jannica Barber said, "I talk on the phone and do my homework."
In the traditional after-school scenario, parents enforce the homework rule, as in, 'You can't watch TV, play with your friends, go to the game, unless you finish your homework.' But a new dynamic is developing if parents resist homework.
Mike Brady said his son, an 11th-grader at St. Benedict, used to finish his homework between 3:30 and 5:30 every afternoon. "Now it's 3:30 to 8 or 9," Brady said. "I went and talked to the principal. He said, 'You're paying to get a good education.' I said, 'Yeah, but they've got to enjoy life a little.' . . . There's something not right about it."
Says Brady's wife, Shirley: "Eleventh grade is killing me."
A study by University of Michigan researchers, "Changes in American Children's Time, 1981-1997," confirms what these parents suspect. The study found that the time 3- to 12-year-olds spent studying at home each week has been increasing, from an average one hour 25 minutes in 1981 to two hours 14 minutes in 1997.
"The two major findings of our research are that, first, children's free time has declined and, second, that free time is increasingly structured," reported the researchers, Sandra Hofferth and Jack Sandberg. They attributed this and other changes they documented in family life to the increase in the number of mothers who work.
Schoolwork is "more intense today, because of all the state testing," said Richard Bavaria, vice president of education for Sylvan Learning Centers, based in Baltimore, Md. And education, he said, has become more important because it dictates quality of life more than ever before.
"There were times a generation ago when people could find good, honorable, decent jobs with a high school education, or without it. They could make a decent living, support their families, live a good, solid, middle-class life."
Those days are gone, says Bavaria.
Bavaria, who taught English and oversaw curriculum development and instruction for Baltimore County public schools before he joined Sylvan, thinks students -- and their parents -- should learn skills that help them adapt to homework. Resistance should be a last resort.
"Whenever a fifth-grader is telling me she's spending three hours a night on homework, my teacher sense goes into high gear," he said. The child may not be organized -- "There might be two hours of homework and one hour of going through their backpacks looking for materials."
Or the child might not understand material he was supposed to have learned in the past. "A child might be having difficulty in algebra, and it might be he never mastered long division or fractions."
Or, "maybe there is too much homework, in which case parents have every right and responsibility to get in touch with the school." The Bargiachi family, whose distress about homework led to home-schooling, plans to send their older daughter back to eighth grade at St. Benedict next year so she will be ready for high school.
They wanted their children to play sports, get exercise.
Denise, 12, and Gina, 10, are competitive swimmers and both play on soccer teams.
"It was a very scary, very frightening decision to home-school," their mother said. Teachers are professionals, she said, and her bachelor's degree is in nursing.
"But the school was very supportive of me. . . . And if the girls don't learn as much as they would have in school, we had this one year to know our family. I sure am enjoying being with them."
Peggy Burch writes for The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn.