Kids today are overwhelmed!" A parent recently wrote in an email to GreatSchools.org "My first-grade son was required to research a significant person from history and write a paper of at least two pages about the person, with a bibliography. How can he be expected to do that by himself? He just started to learn to read and write a couple of months ago. Schools are pushing too hard and expecting too much from kids" (Wilde, 2011).
However, the homework paradigm affects more than just the student -- it affects parents, teachers, caregivers, and any secondary programs (sports, music, etc.) that children participate in. Some studies show that students are not, on average, doing significantly more homework now than in the past; while others say that there are far more "things" to learn, more avenues of learning, and with standardized testing, a greater push to complete a curriculum at a faster pace.
According to the Brown Center Report on American Education, American students have one of the lightest homework loads in the world; on average about 1 hour per day. Fully 50% of all U.S. students in Elementary and Middle School have no homework at all. This same research says that about 65% of American parents do not think there is too much homework given (Brown Center, 2003).
Why then, is there a conundrum and such disagreement about the subject of homework and assessment? Many find that the battle over homework is one of the things that differentiate a hierarchy in education -- from the privileged to the poor. At one end, we tend to see higher income parents who push their children into college preparatory, test prep, and other advanced courses; overscheduling their sporting and music events in between -- all so they will look fantastic when they apply to college. On the other hand, inner city teachers work tirelessly, often without adequate textbooks and materials, just to find any learning opportunities. We do not really have a national education system that has parity -- some students probably do have too much homework -- some not enough (Lahey, 2012).
Clearly, there are cases in which some students are simply overwhelmed. One student reported up to 13 hours a day...
That responsibility is of the school -- to ensure that the adult citizens so needed by contemporary society are produced by the school system -- those individuals being responsible for their views and able to analyze and synergize information so they may "vote intelligently." For Dewey, the central tendency of individuals was to act appropriately to perpetuate the "good and just" society (Tozer, 2008). This of course set the stage
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