Haha, yep tried the timer!

I have seriously tried every idea I can get my hands on! I am hoping when daddy comes home he will want to impress him and that will motivate him 'cause I don't know what else to do.

He does his homework about 70% of the time. I won't do it for him although I WILL work WITH him on it. He is smart and has no problem doing the work when he is motivated but when the school day is over he is DONE and homework is typically torture for both of us no matter how fun or interesting his teacher or I try to make it.

I have done the timer, I have had him earn privileges for homework, I have given rewards, I have punished, I have tried to make it a game, and on and on.

I am seriously at the end of my rope with the fucking homework!

You and me both Tex.

I could home school in less time than it takes my son to do his homework every day.

I'm with you all but I'm not familiar with the American system. As a School Principal with 20 plus years of experience (and 39 years as teacher), and still in control of an International school, here are my comments and my homework philosophy:

I am continually amazed that parents of 4 (yes!), 5 and 6 year olds demand homework for small children who are exhausted after a day at school. Don't parents get tired? Why should a six year old not be tired? He or she has run around since 8 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon and you expect homework? Get your priorities right. Relaxation and play is the winding-down formula!

Here is a timetable for homework up to Grade 7 (seems meek but remember school is for learning, home is for fun repetition of things already learnt)

Grade 1: Learning readers should read to parent and parent should read to child : Total 5-10 minutes.Math counting skills can be revised.
Grades 2 to 4: 10 minutes Reading and 10 minutes Math (The math must be consolidation of the day's work. No homework with new concepts should be given).
Grades 4 to 7: Teachers should never, (especially in a subject-teacher orientated school), be out of tune with one another's homework demands. The principal should ensure that the 12345 rotaconcept is followed rigorously: 1. Math, English, science. 2. Math, English. Social studies, 3. Math, English, other language. 4. Math, English, Creative. 5. Light work for weekend.

These subjects should not exceed 30 minutes of total work per day (I know, you're shocked), and should consist of Reading, project work and consolidation only. A lot to fit into 30 minutes? Sure, I don't sympathise. Grade 12's should not be doing more than 1 hour a day (except during exam time). Quote: "My sixteen year old should be spending 3 hours on homework a day," says Mrs S. Are you running a prison Mrs S.? There is fresh air outside.

These subjects should not exceed 30 minutes of total work per day (I know, you're shocked), and should consist of Reading, project work and consolidation only

That would be wonderful.  A problem I have with my older boys is that each teacher seems to think that theirs is the only subject.  They can get quite a bit of homework some nights, too much in my opinion. 

I got a 90 once in a class where there was homework every night, and the homework was 20% of your grade, and I didn't do a stitch of homework. Why? Because I knew the material better than anyone else in the class regardless of that.

20-30min? How I yearn for those days. Actually, I don't do much homework as it is...I never really have any besides reading. Yay college and procrastination!

I think it's pretty fair...they just need to get their little 2nd grade asses in gear and start working.

~Zoo

LOL, Zoo! Hahaha. I can't wait 'til you have kids!

, Zoo! Hahaha. I can't wait 'til you have kids!

If they take after me then I'm in for some fun.

~Zoo

Thanks, guys!

I completely understand what you're saying--I was HOPING that there would be some positive peer pressure to be responsible and bring homework back to school, but it does make sense that would backfire. We'll cut that.

I know that school is stressful for lots of kids. There is so much pressure everywhere. The first day I gave homework I told them to go home, do something FUN for a little while to relax, because school is their "job," like teaching is mine, and then go back and do the homework. I don't give them anything we haven't already covered.

We were "taught" that kids should have 10 minutes of homework for each grade level. But I think it depends on your students and your school how much someone gives--you kind of need to gauge it that way, too.

I appreciate all your thoughts and ideas. Thank you!

Off to SLC today. God bless my substitute! lol

Tova:

I could home school in less time than it takes my son to do his homework every day.

Tova - My wife and I homeschool all 4 kids in the same time it would take * of them to do their daily homework last year. It wasn't unheard of for them to come home needing to do 3 - 4 hours of work a day.

And the difference? My wife was at the original Jamestown settlment (not the "fake" Jamestown that the local tourism board set up as an exhibition before excavation began in earnest on the original site) late last week. Our 6 year old daughter (1st grader) was reading (out loud, to her grand parents) the placards explaining the various exhibits. She had trouble with a few words (what 1st grader wouldn't?), but she sounded them out, repeated the correct pronunciation (and asked for definitions if she needed them) and continued on. There was a 4th grade class from the local school system (and sadly, we've got one of the better public school systems (for the Commonwealth) here in the James City County/Williamsburg area). the teacher made the comment to my mother-in-law that my daughter was reading the placards better than some of her 4th graders.

Can you say - nice little perk up for the wife's self-esteem there?

But alas, what can I say - I expect it from my kids (and am rarely disappointed). She is, after all, using Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as her current reading project. A chapter a day, and she's already halfway through it. And demonstrates her understanding by answering our questions about what she read.

This is exactly what I am seeing...my sixth grader get homes and starts homework at 4:30 pm every day. He is usually done by 7:30 but some nights it is 9 before he finishes.

Part of the reason for this is because besides homework he has a lot of quizzes and tests. We are teaching him how to study a little bit (about 10-15 minutes) a night for several nights before a test. So the night before is just review. Well add that to the "normal" homework and it really is a load.

There is no way I can home school because my oldest refuses to take instruction from me. He'd rather be wrong and get an F than change an answer I tell him is wrong. We are working on that though.

Your wife rules.

Round here...to be test facilitators. But I've already covered that...heh.

I'm with LW on that. 3 hours of homework is punishment. Let's be realistic. Homework is consolidation not additional grudge-work. Subject teachers, and principals, need to get savvy and realize that homework is a good discipline but is being abused!

Tova:


I think so, too. Just don't let her hear it. She probably won't believe it. Woman's got one of the worst cases of low self-esteem that I've seen yet. And that's with 15 years of me working to improve it!!!


That's one of the biggest complaints we had with the school system (other than the SpEd worker that though she knew better than 2 of the best pediatric neurologists in the state) here. They teach primarily to the tests/SOLs. If it's not there, it gets sent home as homework. We realized early on that we were covering material that should've been taught in the classroom.

Needless to say, the school superintendent's office wasn't happy to hear that when I spoke to them about our reasons for pulling the kids out for this school year.

You have to realize that it's NOT teachers testing the crap out of kids. It all trickles down from NCLB. My students just spent 3 hours taking a computerized multiple choice test. It was WAY too difficult for them, and while they did their best trying to figure out what the questions were asking, hardly any of them did "well." It was torture for them, and I hated having to drag them down to the computer lab for yet another session. While we have to "proctor" these tests, the mandates come from far above teachers. I haven't talked to a teacher who wouldn't rather show student achievement in more child-friendly, authentic ways versus hours-long multiple choice tests.

You don't want your tax dollars to pay teachers to be test proxies? Email, call, or write your representatives in Washington and in your states and let them know how much you think all this testing sucks. Vote for candidates who are for major NCLB reform.

I know I'd rather spend my time in the classroom working with kids and teaching them the things they need to know and extending that learning versus testing them continuously to see if they know the material that there wasn't enough time to teach.