# Kids have too much homework! Hasn’t this argument been around forever? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 17, 2021, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326 "2021-05-17T22:58:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/21 "2021-05-18T02:05:30Z")
Three hours of hime work seems reasonable for a college prep high school. I just looked it up and to graduate on the honors track at my high school you have to take 270 units over the 4 years, college prep was 265 and high school diploma was 260. The honors track works out to 33.75 hours in the classroom per week with the student averaging 7 classes at a time (out of 9 periods) while the high school diploma spent 32.5 hours or basically one class less each semester. Each class assigning two hours of homework a week seem fairly minimal if you’re actually going to learn the material. When I was in high school in the late 90s I’d typically be really bored during the winter season when I didn’t have a sport going. I’d get done with school at 2:30 and even with a workout I’d be home by 4 and have most of my home work done before dinner. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/22 "2021-05-18T03:14:46Z")
I’ve posted this a few times but when my nephew started hs he had a math teacher who wasn’t a math teacher she was a literature teacher who was hired to replace a retiring teacher who ended up not retiring that year She admitted she wasn’t good at math, so she found youtube videos that explained the bookwork, which was the homework … But a lot of it these days is the teacher shows them how to do it or finds something that explains it and they do the actual work at home ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/23 "2021-05-18T03:20:18Z")
My kids had a lot more homework than I did. I was college prep in the 80s. Hell, my daughter had a dipshit of a gym teacher try to assign an essay about the Masters. ---
**Author:** ![Tabco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tabco/32/7644_2.png) [@Tabco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabco)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/24 "2021-05-18T03:22:27Z")
I don’t seem to recall my HS homework load being unreasonable. In any event, it left me woefully unprepared for the work needed to succeed in college. Someone mentioned earlier the expectation to work/study three additional hours for every hour spent in a college class, that’s what I’m still hearing a lot from instructors today. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/25 "2021-05-18T04:18:34Z")
My kid spends about 3 hours a day on homework as a HS Freshman. She’s in college prep in all subjects where that is offered.The teachers warned us that it will be more in Junior and Senior year when she’s in 3 or 4 AP classes. She’s on the tennis team which is a minimum of 3 hours a day. So she’s home at 6 and doing homework/projects/studying until 10 almost every night. She’s going to need to control her perfectionist tendencies or it’s not sustainable. Not only is she a straight A student her average grade is 98.x%. She may not even be in the top 10% of her class (public school that sends 94% of graduates to 4 year college) My brother took a total of two AP classes and went to Georgia Tech with NO extracurricular activities, no volunteer work, no sports. This was 30 years ago. GPA 3.8 SAT 1380. Was in top 2% of class but in a very ordinary high school. Last year my niece (his daughter) finished up with 10 AP classes. Was captain of an award winning robotics team. Had a number of leadership positions in school organizations. Did not get into Georgia Tech. GPA 4.3, SAT 1490. Was not in top 10% of class in one of the top ranked high schools in the state. What it takes to get into a competitive university these days is a lot more than it used to be a generation ago. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/26 "2021-05-18T10:36:38Z")
When I was in HS, (50s), homework was a joke. I never took a book home. there was time to do it all in study-hall. When passed in, nobody looked at it to see if we were grasping the material. The entire grade was based on the exams, where I could make steady Cs just by staying awake in class. I simply did not learn how to study, or more importantly, how to game the system. I was accepted at Duke, Illinois and LSU. The latter was the most affordable one, so they got the privilege of chewing me up and flunking me out. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/27 "2021-05-18T11:33:16Z")
I feel so conflicted about homework. One one hand, yes, it’s totally ridiculous for a student to have more than a couple hours of homework. On other other hand, modern college admissions expect extraordinary acceleration from students these days, and you can’t cover twice as much material as “normal” in the same 8 hours. _From the kid perspective_ Basically, the real issue is that people should think about what they want to get out of high school. The elite college route is basically deciding you want to work way, way harder than you have to, because that’s the most likely path to affluence in later life. We know that such a path means working really really hard later–to get into Med school or law school, in those schools, and/or working those 60-80 hour weeks as a young professional. Well, it doesn’t start there, if you want be making “good money”, or are just really interested in a high-powered career–that “working harder than everyone else” starts in high school. Kids are truly just expected to have learned a lot more (among other things) to get into the schools that start them on the path to a job at BCG or Bain by 25. But it’s okay not to want that. It’s okay to want to go to a Regional State School and get a degree and a job and have a life. To work reasonably hard and make reasonable money. I do have some anxiety that as the gap between rich and poor grows, the “reasonable” jobs may become scarcer, but for now, they seem to exist. The problem is pride, and its ugly sisters, racism and classism. Mommy wars are real, y’all. Feeling like your kids are somehow inferior to their peers is rough, and if you decide that the courses your student is in are a sign of their worth, you will push them into that “most ambitious” path. And they will pick up your fears and learn to push themselves. In a lot of communities, the most advanced courses are where the rich and/or white kids all are, and everyone internalizes that. I admit I get really, really frustrated with students who pile up intensive course work and then want special grace because they opted into such a situation. I teach in a top ranked STEM high school. Our kids can take calculus as Freshmen–and most take it no later than sophomore year. All our students take at least 15 AP classes before they graduate, and many take 18-20. It’s a program of choice, designed to prepare kids for elite STEM programs. Of course it’s a stupid amount of work. It’s not designed for everyone. The thing we are really, really good at is taking low-income, first-generation students and launching them straight into the upper middle class. They come here to do that. But we also get a fair number of upper middle class parents who sent their kids here because it was prestigious and who then try to turn us into a normal school, by comparing us to what they think a teenager’s workload “ought” to be. I feel like they thought this was the school for the bestest, most specialist kids, not the school with the toughest work. So their special babies should, if anything, get less work. You can’t suggest they take less than the most rigorous courses, because “good” kids don’t do that. There are also kids who are so perfectionist that they will turn any amount of assignments into 6 hours of homework a night. I’ve had parent conferences where the parent was upset about the amount of homework for a kid who was making all 97s and above. When we suggest that they, you know, be a little more relaxed about some assignments instead of triple checking everything and studying exhaustively for every test, the parent always responds “Oh no, my student’s dream is to be valedictorian”. Well, okay then. That’s a stupid dream, but this is what that takes. That’s why it’s special, albeit worthless. From the teacher’s point of view All that said, even where I am, people assign to much work. These are the reasons I see: - “Accountability”. Teachers live and die by test scores these days. If they aren’t what’s expected, you have to demonstrate that it wasn’t your fault. If people feel like a class was “easy” and they fail, they blame you. If they were drowning in work each night, it’s their own fault for not doing all of it. It’s also true that if you are assigning tons of work and grading tons of work, you are working all the time, so low test scores can’t be your fault because you are truly trying your best. I’m not being sarcastic here: we feel responsible for our students’ educations, and the less we work, the more we worry we are shirking our responsibilities. And honestly, try it. Go to the community and say “we are reducing homework. We expect a moderate drop in AP and SAT scores”. People will lose their minds. - Cluelessness. Almost every teacher I know is bad at estimating how long something will take. Years and years ago, I had a parent I liked and trusted call me to let me know a project I assigned had taken their son 12 hours, that she sat and watched him at the dining room table working all day. I was a fairly experienced teacher at the time (10 years or so) and I would have described that as a 5-6 hour project, tops. Kids, even smart kids, are just slow processors. Have you ever sat and watched 15 year olds write essays? It can legit take 45 minutes to write a paragraph–like this paragraph I am writing. And I mean kids who later went to Harvard. It’s really hard to believe that, as an adult. So everyone thinks they are assigning 30-45 minutes of homework, but it’s really more like 2 hours. - Unrealistic expectations. I do work with some people who really sincerely believe an hour of tutoring and 2 hours of homework every day for just their class is reasonable. That if a student really wants to be successful, they can make that commitment. - Autopilot. Some teachers really don’t think. They don’t try to reduce. They just assign homework sorta at random, with no real understanding or plan–just like “oh yeah, homework. Do the problems at the end of the chapter” or whatever. Electronic platforms make this even easier. They aren’t really deciding anything. And to be fair, we get no training on this. What is enough practice? What Should practice look like, in a discipline? So, long story long, it’s complicated. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/28 "2021-05-18T12:27:34Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > What it takes to get into a competitive university these days is a lot more than it used to be a generation ago. It’s a shame so many people waste their lives trying to be happy and have friends instead of dedicating their lives to getting into a competitive university. Let’s hope those people aren’t a bad influence on your daughter. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/29 "2021-05-18T12:39:58Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Kids are in school for around 8 hours. Where is this? I got 6.5 hours in high school. (I suspect some parents would prefer this, as the school schedule would align with their work schedules.) ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/30 "2021-05-18T13:15:25Z")
We sent Sophia to a college preparatory academy for her high school and 3 hours of homework was a _minimum_ for her. The first year was tough - 9th graders learning Cornell notes and all that - but it got easier as they adjusted to the workload. And, as I noted above and also in my post about [The Gestalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gestalt/938324) (the hive mind our kids have because of their phones), the homework pressures are intense and the ways the children deal with it are different as well. What we cannot do is expect the same rules and expectations which worked in 1984 to work today. They are just inadequate for the situation: > [@](#): > > _Things are difficult, midway through 10th grade, the stresses are piling up and the destination seems as long as the journey already made. I ask Sophia sometime during this if she would like to talk to a therapist, perhaps someone focused on academic pressure, and Sophia says (in effect) “No, thanks though. I always have Maddie or McKenna or Bethany to talk to and I’m always there for them. We cheer each other up all the time.”_ > > _This is when Sophia and her friends (even the guys) started ending conversations with “I love you”. I first thought it was a girl thing, maybe even a Sophia thing, but they all do that, and continue to this day. Love. It’s what they tell each other they do for the other._ … > [@](#): > > _COVID strikes, completely ruining Senior year and piling additional pressures on the kids above and beyond the loss of prom, the loss of the senior trip, more. The school adapted quickly but with little preview, getting a number of online courses for some subjects, especially the maths, so the students can continue their education._ > > _And these sites were fucking terrible, just terrible. The problem wasn’t getting the correct answers, it was that the software was designed so you had to enter the answer for each step of the question, and if you didn’t get that answer exactly right, you could not go on to finish the problem. One example Sophia showed me said something like "to 2 decimal spaces, what is the answer to… ". One of the steps had the answer of “4”. Just that: “4”. And the software refused to accept “4” until she entered it as “4.00”, then she was allowed to go on to the next step. And, of course, it took FOREVER to get these online assignments done._ > > _The kids freak for a bit. College admissions (they think) are completely on the line here, they are going to bomb Trig 2 or whatever, their grades are going to tank, they’ll have to go to UTSA instead of UT, UT instead of Rice, Rice instead of Stanford, etc. I would have panicked myself! But they were resourceful and things calmed down quickly, within a week or so. And, later, in a relaxed moment, Sophia told us why:_ > > _For the math tests and quizzes, each kid assigned themselves specific problems, with all problems eventually tackled. You worked through your assigned problems, telling the group which answers were going to be accepted by the computer for all steps on questions 11, 22, and 33. The other kids did the same, throwing the answers on a shared Google doc. Therefore, instead of doing 40 questions, you do three and 12 others do 3 as well._ > > _I wrote an email to the school administration that they may give consideration to using the Senior class as “evaluators” for these systems rather than trying to teach, but they ignored my sage advice, crammed a lot of work on the kids, and in the end, gave them all the highest grade they had ever attained in that course at anytime during the semester, pre-COVID or post-COVID, so there were “D” kids who got an A because their first quiz scored a 96. All that effort on the kids behalf wasted, the opportunity to conduct an end-user review on new systems was lost as well._ > > _Regardless, the teenagers adapted swiftly to the new environment, realized the different parameters didn’t change the primary objective, and developed and executed a plan where all of them would succeed, and they did all this with no consultation with any authority figure whatsoever._ > [@](#): > > For example: cheating. Us 1984 grads considered cheating to be wrong. We did it, but furtively, with fear of being caught, and if someone said they weren’t going to help you cheat, you could beat them up… but you couldn’t call someone who didn’t want to cheat _immoral_ … that would be just weird. > > The Gestalt thinks otherwise, especially post-COVID. To them, passing around your term paper to the other kids to read and comment on just fucking makes sense. You’re there to help each other, you all have a common goal, and life is hard enough to go at it alone like they do in those old movies like \*Metropolitan". So they’re constantly helping each other on their essays, quizzes, homework, papers, and more. Sophia once said that she’s pretty good at giving people points to discuss on their 5-paragraph essays no matter the topic, and I would not be surprised if she’s good because she’s done this often. > > And, to be honest, it’s hard to blame them. At no other point in our lives were we 1984ers forced to go it alone like we were in our education. We collaborated at work, we collaborated at love, we collaborated in our marriages, we collaborated in our volunteer efforts, we collaborated at church… but we were taught that collaborating re: education was wrong. And the Gestalt thinks this is _insane_ , purposely using isolation to damage ourselves for no good end whatsoever. Anyway, yes, there is a lot of homework. And the kids are handling it in different ways than we would because they have technology to both intellectually assist and emotionally support each other which we did not have. And that’s OK. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/31 "2021-05-18T13:24:13Z")
What I recall most about the homework assignments my kids got in high school was that it was “busy work” homework. Too often they were required to sit and draw or color some bullshit graphic. I recall asking once why these kinds of assignments were given to high school students and the response was, ‘Kids seem to enjoy them’. I called bullshit on that but the teacher just shrugged helplessly and blamed the schoolboard curriculum. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/32 "2021-05-18T13:33:52Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > It’s a shame so many people waste their lives trying to be happy and have friends instead of dedicating their lives to getting into a competitive university. Let’s hope those people aren’t a bad influence on your daughter ? Not too sure where this is coming from, TriPolar. I don’t even think MM was addressing you, and then you make this comment about their kid? Seriously? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/33 "2021-05-18T13:37:41Z")
Sorry, @Mighty_Mouse, that was supposed to be general commentary, I didn’t do that well. You sound like you are concerned about the effect of this amount of homework on your daughter and I didn’t mean my comments to reflect specifically on you or your daughter. Good call on my bad @JohnT ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/34 "2021-05-18T13:40:51Z")
lol, no problem. I just take the Mafia attitude on message boarding - shoot at each other all we want, but family is off limits. And sometimes what we wanted to say is not always what we said, so that can be an issue too. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/35 "2021-05-18T13:46:37Z")
I agree, family should definitely be off limits. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/36 "2021-05-18T13:47:20Z")
I got my first mod note this week, so I was holding my fire 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/37 "2021-05-18T13:55:07Z")
Awesome! Now that we are vaxxed… [![Imgur](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51188305390_7d707aa495_b.jpg "SmartSelect\_20210518-085404\_Messages") ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/68782016@N08/51188305390/) ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/38 "2021-05-18T13:59:13Z")
I don’t know that it’s always a waste. It’s just a choice. If your family is very poor, sacrificing the “typical” HS experience is the best way to have a “typical” middle class or upper middle class life for yourself and your kids; if your family is affluent, it’s the only way to stay in the same world you grew up with. And if your family is in the middle, you may well just be the sort of person who thrives on stress and competition. And there can be camaraderie in that sort of environment, too. People practice sports 4 hours a day, and that’s a weird choice too, but it’s the world some people want. I’ve seen some very emotionally healthy kids in the “academic grind” path. Seen some very unhealthy ones, too. The problem is people thinking it’s not a choice, it’s the expectation or the only way. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/39 "2021-05-18T14:10:45Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > The problem is people thinking it’s not a choice, it’s the expectation or the only way. That sums it up quite well. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326/40 "2021-05-18T14:31:59Z")
A big difference between my high school and college homework was that that majority of the high school homework was assignments to be turned in and graded. Whereas college was much more reading and supplemental material. My pchem professor was not grading problem sets. But if you weren’t doing them, well, good for you if you didn’t need to, but I sure did! I think it’s harder to give a 14-year-old some problems and tell them “you pick the ones that will help you the most – there’s a test in three weeks.” Sure, some have their shit together enough to manage, but a lot don’t. So the teacher assigns all of them and makes them mandatory, even though they don’t in any way match every student’s needs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-have-too-much-homework-hasn-t-this-argument-been-around-forever/942326.md?page=3)