Too Much Homework - by, Chris Coltran

Why are kids having so much homework given to them in grade school and middle school?  I remember when I was a kid I hardly ever had homework.  I made good grades in all my classes.  This week on just about every talk show on television the pundits have been talking about the amount of homework kids are

doing on a nightly basis.  Why?  I have kids in both grade school and middle school and I also believe they have too much work to complete at home after school.  After a full day of school, from 7:15 am to 2:10 pm, my grade school student is worn out.  My middle school student goes to school from 8:45 am to 4:10 pm.  That is a long day and almost dinner time by the time he gets home.  They have both had a full day and it’s no wonder they want to come home and decompress.  They want to play video games, they want to play with their friends, or they just want to watch television.  They have almost put in the same amount of hours in a week as most people do with a full time job.  When you get home from work do you want to spend another hour or two doing the work you couldn’t complete while you were on the clock?  I sure don’t.

Take math for instance.  Have you helped your child with their math lately?  I was an excellent math student and have always been very good with numbers.  I have never had a problem figuring problems and solving them.  The way we were taught worked just fine.  We learned long division, multiplication, addition and subtraction, algebra, probability, statistics, story problems, etc.  The methods we learned were tried and true and still work today.  They work, but if you show your kids how you learned it, it completely different than how they are being taught today.  I have had to relearn the methods being taught to kids today just to be able to help my boys with their math homework.  They tell me that my way does work but we aren’t allowed to do it that way.  They have to do it some new way that they are teaching!  What was wrong with the old way?  Did someone get bored and say that was too easy, and they had to come up with something new?  Some new method that is confusing and half the time doesn’t make sense?  They can get the right answer, but if you didn’t follow the new method, it is wrong.  In life, it doesn’t matter how you get the answer, as long as you get it right.

In science or history, many times I want to Google the answer but the kids are being told not to trust Google for the right answers.  I understand you can’t trust that something on the internet is true, but when you are on government sponsored websites and other education websites, it is pretty safe to assume that the information is accurate.  You can’t really trust Wikipedia, as anyone can post information on a particular subject.  But let’s face it, most times when we want to know something, we simply grab our iPhone and Google it.  More often than not the information you are researching is accurate.  The teaching methods in the classroom are one thing, but the homework issue is another.

One of our teachers told her students she doesn’t care about extra-curricular activities outside of the classroom.  She thinks every kid should read 30 minutes a night regardless of the amount of homework each evening.  The fact is that kids have numerous activities outside of school.  Football, baseball, lacrosse, soccer, piano, ballet, dance, drama, and the list goes on and on.  I believe it is important that a child participate in these activities outside of school for a number of reasons.  First, kids don’t get enough physical activity at school anymore.  Gym classes are limited to one or two days a week, and recess is only about 20 minutes for grade school.  Middle school doesn’t even have recess except on Fridays.  When I was a kid, I remember lunch being long enough that you could eat your lunch and then head out to the school yard for at least another 30 minutes.  Second, kids don’t have any time to just be able to socialize with their classmates.  They have assigned seats at lunch and they don’t have any time after lunch to hang out.  When did things change so much that schools don’t have time to let kids socialize and have some fun.  All work and no play can lead to a very boring life.  Third, music programs are not what they used to be in all schools, and many districts have had to cut back on both music and art classes.  This doesn’t mean that there are fewer kids out there with those God given talents of music and art.  It just means that in order to get more direction and education in those areas, they have to do them after school.  It makes it very difficult and stressful to find the time to participate in these things when the kids have so much homework. 

When it comes to the material they are being taught in class, it is much more complex than it was twenty years ago.  Have we really changed that much as a species over the last 20 years?  I don’t think so.  What has changed is that technology has made the world a much faster paced environment.  If you call someone and they don’t answer, we text them and expect a return text in a matter of seconds.  We have become a society of, “I want it right NOW!”  I don’t want to wait for a few minutes, a few hours, or God forbid wait until tomorrow to get an answer.  It used to take days to get responses through the mail, and now we get instant responses from anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds.

The world has changed, but what hasn’t changed are the children.  They are the same as we were when we were kids.  We didn’t have the stresses and the worries that kids have today.  School was a fun place and was enjoyable to attend.  Today, kids have to be medicated at an alarming rate just so they can focus on everything they have to get done each day.  When did we stop letting kids be kids?  They are going to spend most of their life working once they reach adulthood so why do we want to get them there so fast?  Let’s let them be kids.  Let’s let them have fun.  Let them learn the art of communication by allowing them the opportunity to interact and be social.  Let’s stop giving them so much homework and treating them like they are older than they are.  You don’t have to prepare a kid for the next grade.  They need to be taught for the grade they are in.  They will figure out next year when they get there.  Encourage them through positive reinforcement.  Don’t be so quick to mark up their paper just for sake of doing it.  And next time you are going to give them homework, ask yourself if it is really that necessary.

Chris Coltran is based in Acworth, GA. He is the author of the book, “SellingTo Your Grandmother,” and President of C2 Unlimited. He has worked in manufacturing, distribution, wholesale, and retail, as well as being a sales and marketing consultant to various companies. Chris is a motivational speaker, having spoken to various groups in the floor covering, furniture, automotive, and service industries. He is also an entrepreneur helping other entrepreneurs become successful. For more information or to contact Chris, he can be found on the web at: www.chriscoltran.com and via email at: chris@chriscoltran.com