Here is another article with good, common sense advice that will not work for homework-trapped children.

Here is my response.

This is good advice if it works. The problem is that there are numbers of children for whom it does not work, and will not work if we hold to the underlying principles of what is being said. Children work at difference paces from each other. Whereas school starts and stops by the clock, homework does not. To say that the child needs to do all the work thoroughly, manage time, and sustain motivation when, for that child, pace is an issue, is a set up for that child to not manage time well and to then lose drive. The most important component of time management is to identify the time that has to be managed. Is the child managing an hour, two hours, three hours? Common standards say ten minutes per night per grade, so no child should be working more than two hours a night (if he is a senior). If he has to take three because he writes slowly, or reads slowly, or works slowly for some other reason, he isn't managing time. If he figures out what is doable for him in two hours, then prioritizes the assignments and makes thoughtful decisions about which assignments he is NOT going to do, or decides that it pays to do all his assignments quickly but NOT thoroughly, then that student has learned to manage time. Until we shift from content based to true time based homework, we are going to be leaving a substantial number of children behind. Kenneth Goldberg, Ph.D. author of The Homework Trap. www.thehomeworktrap.com.

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