Erin Anderssen

From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009 9:43PM EST Last updated on Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009 7:03AM EST

Sherri and Tom Milley were exhausted by the weepy weeknight struggles over math problems and writing assignments with their three school-aged children. They were fed up with rushing home from soccer practice or speed skating only to stand over their kids tossing out answers so they could finish and get to bed.

And don’t even get them started on the playground that their daughter, Brittany, had to build in Grade 3 from recycled materials, complete with moving parts. Or the time their eldest son, Jay, was told to cut pictures of $1-million worth of consumer goods from a catalogue.

So last week, after two years of trying to change the homework policy at the children’s school, the two Calgary lawyers finally negotiated a unique legal contract: their kids will never have to do homework again.

“We have struggled constantly as a family with excessive amounts of homework,” said Ms. Milley, who left her practice to stay home with her children. “We just blindly accepted the way it was.”

But after many long stressful nights of getting 18-year-old Jay through his high school homework, they weren’t prepared to repeat history with Spencer, 11, and Brittany, 10. Being lawyers, she and her husband decided to make it official.

The “differentiated homework plan” spells out the responsibilities of the students: to get their work done in class, to come to school prepared, and prep for quizzes. But their teachers will have to mark them based on what they do in class, and cannot send work home that factors into their grades.

If you attended, we’d like you to complete a brief on line evaluation that you can get to by clicking here.

We got so much terrific input from our attendees to enliven and inform the debate.  Our executive members are very grateful to those who gave up part of their Saturday to participate.  Students will be the ultimate benefactors of all this work and that makes it all the more worthwhile.

Do you have something to say about this hot button issue ?  By all means join the debate and post a comment right here on our blog.  We’d love to hear from you.  As well we have our survey and that has been a welcome surprise – more than 2100 of you have responded so far and the number is growing daily – if we haven’t had a response from you yet, there is still time.  Click below to take you to the websites where the survey is located and you too can give your input and participate in the information exchange.  Tell your friends, neighbours and colleagues and help us push the number of respondents over the 4000 mark.

Parent Survey

School Staff Survey

Student Survey – coming soon

As we get closer to the Homework Forum, I find myself becoming more and more uneasy. I know that the recent research and media pieces indicate that there are legitimate issues with respect to homework abuses, such as overly repetitive drill and assignments based on little or no in-class practice. All I need to do is to mention that I am working on this project and I immediately am on the receiving end of examples of perceived homework abuse expressed in strong emotion.

I guess I go on the defensive because I was guilty of giving homework assignments (French and German) for almost 40 years and now wonder if I, too, was also guilty of homework abuse. Judged by the number of calls from parents about problems with assignments their children had received from me or visits by administrators to discuss complaints received from parents, I must admit that I was probably not guilty of first degree homework abuse, or even second degree homework abuse (absence of intent). Then again, I tried to live by this maxim: “Homework is not a test”, but rather is based entirely on what had been presented and practised in class. That foundation led to another maxim “Test what was learned in the way it was learned”. The taking up of homework is an integral part of the learning process and the corrected homework forms a key part of the body of work that can legitimately be tested.

I won’t even begin to discuss to-day a third maxim “People learn to do what they do”, which means little or no involvement by the parents or siblings in homework and long range assignments, because their help is not needed. Projects done by parents but handed in by children is an issue for another day.

However, I am not only a little conflicted about the homework issue, but also alarmed by some of the positions staked out on this matter. The argument that I wish to discuss this time is the unreasonable pressure homework places on family time. Homework certainly can be a source of stress, if the assignment is not based on knowledge presented or practised in class, and the first recourse in such instances is to challenge the person giving the assignment. Now I would like to examine the position that homework of and in itself takes too much away from family time. The implication is that the child has far too much schoolwork to do out of class time, in fact so much homework that the family must forego planned excursions or has no time just to hang out together. The Cameron and Bartel report “Homework Realities: A Canadian Study of Parental Opinions and Attitudes” (O.I.S.E. 2008) did explore the impact of homework on family time. Of the twenty sections of the report presenting the results of their study, only one placed homework in a much broader context, “Other Activities in Child’s Life Competing With Homework”. I submit that the issue of other organized activities in the lives of our children to-day is a rich field of study which has yet to be examined in much detail.

Yes, poorly crafted homework is an issue that must be addressed and corrected within each board and school. I assume that all graduates of faculties of education are well versed in what constitutes legitimate homework practices and that it is a matter of some practising teachers requiring a brief refresher course.

However, I submit that pressure on family life supposedly caused by homework may well be itself a symptom of a much more serious issue, the over organizing of our children’s lives. When a reasonable amount of time on legitimate school assignments is perceived as an attack on the family, I must ask what are the priorities? Is a reasonable amount of time on legitimate homework less important than dance lessons, karate classes, snowboarding weekends in Collingwood, or hockey tournaments? Or is it time to let some of the rat race of organized activities slide in favour of letting kids have the free time to be kids or to for the family to have some time just to hang out, after certain legitimate demands on their free time have been met?

In later postings, I would like to explore the validity of statements such as ” My child was in her room for an hour and a half last evening working on her assignments for to-day and came down near her usual bedtime to report that she had a lot more to do.” The purpose of all the postings in this series is to explore exactly what the issues are with respect to the stress some claim that homework places on family life to-day.

Volume 1 – March 12, 2009

Click on www.slate.com/id/2149593/

Post a comment below!  Do you agree with any of the arguments presented?  Which of the three authors seems to make the best case?  Are you inspired to read any or all of the three?

Click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npZ4dKt4e4U

Make a comment!  Is Kohn right?  Do we put too much pressure on children during the “second shift?”

Click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFp9Ll11vSg

Post a comment!

http://www.schooltube.com/video/17834/Homework-Tips

Post a comment!

This event is jointly sponsored by the Thames Valley District Catholic School Board and the London District Catholic School Board.

There is no participation fee!

Participating students will hear award-winning Canadian author Paul Kropp speak on his career and give tips on how students can improve their writing.  A neat part of the conference is that students will have time to create their own writing, which they may choose to have published in a commemorative book.

Registration information has been mailed out to your schools!  For further information, contact Ian Bennett at i.bennett@tvdsb.on.ca, or John Mombourquette at j.mombourquette@ldcsb.on.ca.