The North Scott School District is rolling out four points of emphasis for teachers this school year, including one that aims to standardize how teachers assign homework.
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Exhausted parents and students everywhere are rejoicing at this elementary school teacher’s bold stance on homework.
Brandy Young’s decision to relieve her students at Godley Elementary School in Johnson County of homework drew nationwide attention after a letter she sent out about her policy was posted on Facebook by one of the parents, Sarah Gallagher, noted KXAS-TV. “Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early”.
Young told CBS News the idea behind her policy was to help the children be more well-rounded students. She lives with her husband and her young son in Joshua, a small city south of Fort Worth, the site said.
But Young seems to want her second graders to master what they need to learn at school – and not have to put in any overtime. “Teachers are so focused on the importance of their subject they are not thinking about the fact the student has homework in four to five other classes”.
In a caveat to that rule, Kenneth Goldberg, author of “The Homework Trap: How to Preserve the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers”, urges parents to define homework assignment by time spent rather than work finished. “I’m trying to develop their whole person; it’s not beneficial to go home and do pencil and paper work”. Homework will only consist of work that your student did not finish during the school day.
“Another study from the National Center for Education Statistics found that high school students who reported doing homework outside of school did, on average, about seven hours a week”. “Because of its possible negative effects of decreasing students’ motivation and interest, thereby indirectly impairing performance, homework should be assigned judiciously and moderately”. For kids between kindergarten and second grade, the American Institutes for Research says most educators agree no more than 10 to 20 minutes of homework each day is appropriate.
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“As a team, they got together and decided reducing homework would be best for our kids”, he told the newspaper. “Whether or not it’s popular, I just wanted to see if it would work”.
