HOMEWORK AND PARENT INVOLVEMENT:Part 2

TIP OF THE WEEK- 12/10/12

NO HOMEWORK! THEN WHAT?

Last week I concluded my post by referring to Kohn's notion that non-academic skills (discipline and engaging in required study habits) teach nothing since kids have no say in the matter and are not exercising their own judgement. According to Mary Jane Cera(see last week), the kids at her school take home what interests them such as journal writing and their music. " A lot of what we see kids doing is continuing to write in their journals, practicing their music with friends, and taking experiments home to show their parents."  says, Cera.

HOMEWORK GUIDELINES:

The National PTA guidelines for homework are:

Grades K-2=10 -20 minutes

Grades 3-6= 30-60 minutes

Grades 7-12= 1-2 hours

This time frame makes no sense at any grade level if the assignments are poorly conceived and lack quality. Is your child taking home a bunch of mindless work sheets? Is the assignments 15 repetitive math problems when it could be five instead. If your child knows, understands, and demonstrates the concept, why does he/she have to do them at all? " Some of this stuff is not woth two minutes of their time." opines Mr. Kohn. He says that parents should ask two fundamental questions regarding homework:

1) Does the assignment make kids more excited about the topic or learning in general?

2) Does the assignment make the kids think more deeply about questions that matter?

A parent informed me this past weekend that one of her son's teachers  gave tons of homework while another teacher at the same

Ask The Principal