Good Question: Do Kids Have More Homework Nowadays?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A letter to parents by a second-grade teacher in Texas has gone viral after she wrote she wouldn't assign any formal homework this year. Instead, she's asking families to eat dinner together, read, play outside and get their kids to bed early.
The letter, which was posted on Facebook, received lots of praise from parents. So, are kids doing more homework than they used to? Good Question.
"It really depends on how you define homework," says Margaret McDonald, a teacher at Minnetonka Middle School West.
The research on this topic is extensive, but appears to be mixed. According to a study from the Brookings Institute that looked at data between 1984 and 2012, there were differences in the ages of students. Overall, those researchers found the youngest students – 9 year olds – did have more homework, primarily because many never had homework in the past. For 13-year-olds, the homework load was slightly less. For 17-year-olds, it was about the same.
But, a study published in the American Journal of Family Therapy found first and second graders have three times the recommended amount of homework.
"Often times with younger students, I'll tell them how much time it should take," says Sonia Labs, an English teacher at Minnetonka High School. "They'll make it longer than it needs to be."
The National PTA recommends 10 minutes of homework per grade level. For example, 10 minutes for first grade, 20 minutes for second grade, 30 minutes for third grade and so on.
"Homework, the definition of it, it's definitely changed," says Tim Felty, a Spanish teacher at Minnetonka High School.
Most teachers point to the impact of technology on how teachers decide what and how to teach. They say, given the students' access to so much more information these days, they make homework be more intentional and not simply busywork.
"I think we might have 25 years ago given them a list of vocabulary words and asked them to define the words," says Labs. "We had students last year create podcasts."