Time and the homework trap

I felt inspired to produce this video clip after listening to a taped conversation between Dr. Dan Gottlieb, the host of Voices in the Family, and Maiken Scott, a health and news reporter for WHYY. To listen to Dan's comments click here.  Also, here is a link to a sample email you can write your child's teacher seeking help getting the modifications your child needs.

Here are my comments:




Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

Recent Study on ADHD

There is a new study that is making the news today finding a delay in brain development for children with ADHD. Although the study is new, the results are not surprising as there have been other theories and evidence that support this line of thinking. The implications may be that the ADHD child is capable of learning at his or her age and grade level, but not capable of complying with the behavioral demands that go with that age. We medicate these children to get them to comply. We then demand that they keep complying when they get home. It seems clear to me that we should not be fighting these kids against their inner natures 24 hours a day. It’s one thing that place demands on them during the day for the sake of giving them the education they need. It is another thing to keep pressuring them through the afternoon and night, and make them do more schoolwork when they get home. If their brains are a few years behind, at least in the area of behavioral control, then we should let them act and play based on where they are at in a developmental sense. With little research to support homework as a policy for all, it should be a standard accommodation in a 504 plan for children with ADHD that homework assignments be waived or greatly reduced.

For other comments on ADHD, visit these recent postings:

Early treatment of ADHD.
Homework, ADHD, and the 504.
Homework, ADHD, and the lifespan problem.

Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
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Teaching Algebra

The New York Times published an opinion piece today entitled “Is Algebra Necessary.” I quickly dashed out a comment. To my dismay, they had closed the comment section by 8:00 am, so it did not get published in the paper. I’m printing the comment I wrote here. This topic calls for more discussion that can be conveyed by what I say here and I will try to get to that in a future blog. That said, I truly recommend this article. It is connected to the homework problem, but it is also absolutely true that math has become a huge hurdle to success.

“Bravo for this highly important article. As former doctoral student in mathematics, I could not have conceptualized this problem until I switched fields to become a clinical psychologist, and got involved in working with children who are persistently homework noncompliant and adults who are struggling to return to the workforce. In that capacity, I have seen young people whose futures have been compromised under the demands that they spend hours at home trying to master something they cannot understand, both in high school and community college. These are people who are motivated and capable of assuming productive societal roles. They lose access to things they do well, athletics in high school and meaningful college educated jobs later on, and this further fuels the epidemic of high school dropout, drug use, and our high rate of incarceration. When I was young, I gloated over my proficiency in math. As I near retirement age, I am saddened to see so many young people harmed.”







Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
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Recommended reading

I recommend the following article on homework.

Here is the comment I posted for this article:

I absolutely agree that we have to question homework policy and recognize that for some children, it is truly harmful. The problem with arriving at consensus is that the effects of homework vary from one child to another. As a parent of three children, I can attest to the fact that, for two of my children, whether or not homework helped, it certainly did not cause the type of harm that would cause me to question the judgment and authority of their teachers. For one of my children, the harm was extremely significant. The saddest part is that the system rendered me helpless to use my judgment to help him out of the bind. That is why I eventually wrote my book, The Homework Trap. I hope educators and parents realize that some children are greatly harmed by homework and that parents need effective methods to protect them from that harm and the authority to implement those solutions.

Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
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The Myth of Motivation -- 2

I saw an articlefrom Pakistan that suggests that “slow learning” is a leading cause of suicides, among youth. The article refers to students who cannot pass their high school matriculation exam.  Yesterday, I wrote about The Myth of Motivation. I find a lot of evidence that children who do poorly, particularly those who don’t get their homework done, care far more about doing well that the credit they receive.  One interesting observation I’ve made is that children with chronic homework problems usually appear highly motivated in September when they get to school. This is particularly true in middle school because they have four or five different major subject teachers. It gives these children a window of opportunity to “do well,” for at least a few weeks, since they can get all the work done for some teachers, even if it means doing none for the others. Quickly, the boom comes down, their parents are called in, and so much pressure bears down to get all the work done, that they end of doing nothing at all. Again, they are viewed an unmotivated. But watch that window. Typically, these kids are extremely excited about school.

My friend and colleague, Professor Jay Kuder, used to join me on presentations on the Homework Trap. He would use the example, in explaining the Myth of Motivation, of a kid who slammed his desk in frustration that he never won the Student of the Week Award which in this school meant being given the opportunity to have lunch with the principal. Hardly an unmotivated student. Yet, he could never win this award, not because he didn’t try hard in school, but because he was not capable of completing the homework assignment s, get recognition for his efforts, and eventually winning the award.

The article from Pakistan is very short and does not give details about why this is the case. But it is chilling to think that we think kids don’t care, but then see them taking their own lives when they fail to do well.






Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
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The Myth of Motivation

I came across what I consider to be an extraordinary claim that “According to the National Association of School Psychologists, ‘Most students understand a homework assignment and have the ability to perform the task but forget to bring home all of the materials required to complete it.’” The claim is in a news release that appears to have been generated by a commercial enterprise that manufactures and sells an organizational device, called a “Seat Sack,” so I understand this is not a professional piece but may be part of that company’s marketing approach. Nevertheless, I am interested in knowing the source for the statement. Is that true? Has the NASP really taken that position?

I raise the issue because several years ago Professor Jay Kuder and I presented a workshop at the annual convention of the NASP. In the presentation, we focused on the “Myth of Motivation,” and went on to explain how so-called “bad behaviors” were not the cause of homework non-compliance, but actually the result of unremitting homework pressure based on a failure to understand that the child cannot, rather than does not want to do the homework. I appreciated that the organizers of the convention gave us the opportunity to present our ideas.  We never expected that NASP would take a position one way or the other, but would rather serve as a professional forum where psychologists could share and debate different ideas.

Beyond the question of NASP’s positions on homework, I am further concerned if school psychologists as a group are not questioning the idea that children who don’t do their work really can do their work. In ways, school psychologists could be on the front line of efforts to protect and help homework-trapped children. The under-the-radar learning problems that I often refer to as contributing to homework noncompliance are typically found in the areas of working memory and processing speed. School psychologists routinely administer IQ tests in evaluating children who are having problems in school. The standard IQ test generates four composite scores, two of them being working memory and processing speed. One of my concerns and a point I make when I review records of children who are homework-trapped is that the implications of these findings (low scores on one or both of these scales) frequently get overlooked. Child study teams garner a wealth of information in their efforts to help children. Yet, they cannot help homework-trapped children if they hold onto the “myth of motivation.” They need to look at the data from a new perspective so they can see how behavioral problems are often learning problems in disguise. Otherwise, acting out becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, and the child moves down a path of greater behavioral disturbance. Ironically, the child may then move into a special education class or an alternative school where homework is not given at all. It’s a curious result that the child, who could have thrived in regular classes by being given homework relief, now gets the relief he needed all along, at the cost of being excluded from the regular classrooms.

I know that many people who follow my blog have children who are homework-trapped and have been evaluated by the child study team. If you are one of those parents, I recommend that you pass my comments on to the school psychologist on your child’s child study team. I don’t know if the claim cited at the beginning of this blog post truly reflects the position of NASP. If it does, it might be helpful for your child’s school psychologist to know there is another point of view. 





Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
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Ending the Homework Battles

I found this article called “Ending the Homework Battle.” It reports on book by a psychologist, Drew Edwards, called “How to Handle the Hard-to-Handle Kid.” I have not read Dr. Edwards’ book and I assume that it goes beyond what is reported in this article.  I would be interested in knowing how much he considers the possibility that the child is not doing the work because he can’t do the work, can’t do all of the work, or can’t do enough of the work in a reasonable amount of time. If the child keeps getting zeros for work not done, the child and parent will inevitably run into a wall that they cannot get past.  I note that one of the points mentioned in the article is “Find a starting point.” I would like to add to that, “Find an end point.” I think bringing homework to a close, whether or not it is done, is one of the most important steps in resolving homework problems.






Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
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School Principals Visit Finland

Interesting video from two school Amercan School principals who visited schools in Finland.

My Thoughts:

 There are differences between American and Finnish culture and it is not important that everything the Finns do be directly applicable to the American school system. There are important lessons for us here that cannot be ignored including the question of readiness for school, the importance of social learning, the need to address special education needs without creating conflict between schools, parents, and communities over budgetary issues, the need for meaningful vocational courses of study, and the importance of separating the functions of home and school. I strongly favor limiting the amount of homework children are required to do, at least until they reach an age where they are personally and voluntarily opting for paths of education that call for high levels of academic discipline (i.e., in high school and choosing a college preparatory track). For the young child who likes to work with his hands, I would much rather see him cleaning and tuning up his bicycle than be forced to spend his time doing things that were assigned at school.




Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

I saw this letter to the editor in the Edmonton Journal and sent the following email to the author:

I saw your comments in the Edmonton Journal and was going to add my own comment but did not see a comment section in the paper so I decided to write you directly. I don’t agree that there is a connection between a no zero policy and coddling. The problem with zeros is that they are ineffective. If they were effective methods to support learning, that would be fine. There may be some children who get a zero and then get back on track, but those kids would react to a 50 or a 60 just as much as a 0. For kids who get zeros over and over again, the negative effects are so harsh that they send parents into a frenzy without contributing to the child’s learning, and over the long run, have a highly destructive effect. If you are interested, I had commented on this issue in a blog post last month. Here’s the link: http://homeworktrap.blogspot.com/2012/06/homework-zeros.html.




Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

Are parents too involved?

I came across this article, “When Are Parents Too Involvedin Education.” The article raises good points and brings into focus some legitimate complaints educators may have about parents at times. But it fails to recognize the fuel for the fire, and that is the fact that educators are too involved in the home. It is natural for parents to feel invited to exceed the boundaries of legitimate oversight of the school (there are formal mechanisms through public school boards and informal mechanisms through open lines of communication), when we don’t recognize and respect the natural boundaries between home and school. Teachers must be are in charge of the class, and parents must be in charge of the home.

While complaining about parents trying to overly influence the schools, I think educators don’t give enough thought to the fact that current homework policies involve an extreme overreach of the school into the home. I know there is a debate going on about the amount and types of homework given, and it is a good debate, but I think the question of boundaries and lines of authority is a far more important issue than what educators decide, in their professional circles, constitutes good or bad homework.

Educators may complain that parents are asking for or demanding too many breaks for their kids, and discount them as being “helicopter” parents, but the current system gives teachers the authority to not just ask, but demand with the power to enforce what the child does in the home.

If teachers deferred to parents as the final decision-makers in the home, which includes the right to modify or waive homework assignments, parents will feel less pressure and will be less inclined to make demands on the teachers. And if they do, teachers will be on stronger grounds to say no.

There is research that shows that children with involved parents do better, but that research is entirely based on voluntary participation.  Coercive participation, i.e. creating home based requirements that  cause stressed out parents whose situations do not allow them to be that directly involved in the academic education process (keep in mind that parents are always “educators,” just not academic educators, from the moment that child is born), creates negative involvement to the detriment of the child.




Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

Homework and ADHD

I came across this article reporting on a school district that got cited for its inappropriate handling of discipline with a student who has ADHD. The ruling generates varied responses from people with different points of views. Interestingly, homework is not addressed in the article or the responses.

I frankly feel sympathetic to the teachers, the school district, the parent and the child. I think everyone has legitimate concerns and no one is really wrong. Teachers need to have control in their classrooms. Students need access to a good education. Children should not be humiliated for behaviors that are out of their control. Other students need order in the classes they attend. Undoubtedly, the school district will promulgate policies and procedures to comply with this report. I truly doubt that anyone will consider how homework may be the fuel that continues to stoke the fires.

The first and foremost intervention that children with ADHD need is homework relief. Without it, there is a tendency to continue to medicate them into the afternoon and evening, disrupting appetite and interfering with sleep. They lose the capacity to unwind and burn off energy that’s been pent up trying to keep it together through school during the day. They lose the respite they need by having a calm home, instead getting pressured to continue working after they get home. They lose the support they need from loving parents who are forced into the role of taskmasters. And this occurs in the absence of any clear, verifiable evidence that homework contributes to a child’s education.

I’m not saying that teachers cannot assign homework, but children need boundaries on the homework they do. They need limited penalties for work which is not done. They need to know that their parents are the final decision-makers for all matters that take place in their home. And, if they have ADHD, they need less or homework or possibly no homework at all.

I think the school district will experience a dramatic reduction in its “behavioral” problems by backing off from relentless demands that children continue doing schoolwork at home. If they insist on giving homework, they should at least give parents more authority in the home, and allow children with ADHD to come to class ready and refreshed even if that means they did not homework at all.



Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

The Hometrap in a nutshell

 Here's a video expanding on the Homework Trap as it relates to the article, "How to Catch a Falling Son."


Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

Homework Trap in Action

First person story on Great Schools website. Author has implimented principles of The Homework Trap.

The thing I would like to emphasize about this story is the dramatic changes that occurred for this writer’s son by implementing the most simple concept of The Homework Trap, time-based assignments. She describes a child who was failing school and, through this simple intervention, quickly shifted to showing striking interest in school and earning passing grades, within three weeks.

The writer notes, in parentheses, “Ideally, you work with the teacher to devise a homework solution that works while you’re retraining your child to approach homework differently.”

As I say in my book, the first step, time containers, can be implemented by the parent without any agreement from the teachers. The second step, reducing grade penalties, calls for collaboration and that’s where my book can serve as a tool to help the parent bring the school on board.

I should also add that I was interviewed by this writer on June 1, so, to the best of my knowledge, the changes that occurred must have occurred quite quickly. This coincides with the feedback I’ve gotten from one other parent who has used my book and model (I don’t have other examples , but of course, the book just came out).

I would appreciate feedback from anyone else who has tried this model. Don’t hesitate to tell me if it has not worked for your child. Any feedback is welcome.  And, if you have a homework trapped child, good luck with your efforts to turn things around.





Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

Underfunding of schools

The Washington Post has this article on the underfunding of schools.

I wrote this comment:

Here in New Jersey, we have the same issue: school districts that excel minutes away from other school districts that barely survive; school districts with high graduation and college admission rates, school districts with high dropout, high crime, murder and incarceration rates, with bright young people who experience no options other than to service the drug trade (often fueling the demand of those high performing districts).

Mandates without funding only worsen the problem, not just because they leave teachers without resources but they also strip teachers of their most important resource, the direct and personal connections they form with the students they teach.

This article notes the demise of an after school program run by librarians so that children of non-English speaking students have a place to do their homework. I read often of success stories, from around the country, of after school programs affording students a place to do their work, within the school, in public libraries, in boys and girls clubs, or at the YMCA. The key to all these programs is that they tap into the hearts and souls of caring adults, dedicated to helping children, and, most importantly, they allow homework to be done outside of the home.

The co-opting of the home environment for educational purposes is a back story to this article. We may erroneously look at that non-English speaking home as a place that lacks the resources to help its children when, in fact, it may be a rich and loving environment that provides its children with powerful, moral lessons, perhaps no different from what my Russian immigrant grandparents did for my parents , coming to this nation to start a new life, sending their children off to school with great hopes and expectations that they’d partake in the American dream. Sure, they may have set the tone that homework must be done, but they were never hampered by the fact that they had to work hard, struggle to manage with little, and were not directly responsible for the academic educations of their children.

We have moved in a direction of removing those components of healthy child development that call for balance: good relationships with parents free from academic demands, good relationships with teachers free from excessive outside review, safe enough schools without a virulent drug problem, over-incarceration, and the risk of a deadly confrontation.

I talk often about children being homework trapped. I also believe that teachers have become trapped by outside standards and mandates.

What do you think? Please leave your comment.




Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

Homework, ADHD, and the life span problem

 

I read an article in the Denver Post entitled “Advocate for your child withinschool systems.” The article reports one parent’s experience with a child who has ADHD and the difficulties she had over her first ten years of education. The parent then came across a brochure, “My Child Hates School … and I Do, Too.” I don’t have a copy of that brochure but it appears that this parent finally learned that while the school was not providing accommodations, her child could have protections based on this developmental disability.

I think all parents should have this information, but I also think that it is critical that we go further and understand what protections help and are actually needed.

For the most part, protections come in the form of a 504 or IEP. They can only consist of provisions and accommodations of which the school is aware. Considering the 504 plans I’ve reviewed, it appears to me that they mostly consist of good teaching practices, which should be used for all students, and a few specific ones for the ADHD child – e.g. extra time, preferential seating, tape recording, hard copy instructions. I have yet to see a 504 plan that includes homework relief.

Without homework relief, the 504 will be highly ineffective for the child with ADHD. That child may or may not be medicated. Either way, the child will be struggling to hold it together through the full school day. That child needs relief, not more work, when he or she gets home. That child does not need extra medication since it will invariably interfere with appetite and sleep. That child needs to play, to burn off steam, and to get refueled through a peaceful home that offers respite and relief.

The problem with more time is that it is absolutely meaningless as an accommodation at home. At school, more time is actually redistributed time within a fixed school day. The child may go to school from 9 to 3. If he or she spends an extra 15 minutes completing a worksheet or test, that is 15 minutes less of other things to do. If the student takes the SAT, it is not a problem to stay into the afternoon to finish a test one Saturday of the year.

But where does the extra 15 minutes, or ½ hour, or couple of hours come from when the assignment is sent home? Maybe extra time means no penalty for handing the assignment in a few days late. But as long as the assignments keep piling up, there is no true accommodation at all.

My general formula for homework trapped children involves time bound homework. For children with ADHD, I strongly recommend an even shorter period of time.

When you go for your 504, keep this formula in mind. More time at school; less work at home.

Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

Potentially dangerous report that homework is too easy

There is story today that is making the news cycle that is worth taking note of. I’m finding references to this story “Many students find their homework too easy” in newspapers around the country. Here’s one link from the Seattle Times.

For those of us who seek homework reform, reports like this can be disconcerting, not that we wish to cover the truth – if many find it too easy, then they find it too easy – but because of the conclusions that will be drawn. The report says that about one-third of all children have expressed this feeling. It goes on to estimate up to three quarters of children understanding their homework while drawing some distinctions based on economic class.

These results are not surprising and quite consistent with what I’ve been saying in The Homework Trap.  If we think of performance in most areas as falling on the normal curve, whether it is how fast a child can run or how quickly a child can do his homework, we see that the average child falls in the middle with some who run or do their homework quite quickly and those who run or do their homework quite slowly. The kids who run quickly are often drawn to athletics. The kids who run slowly get drawn to other things. The kids who do their homework quickly receive lots of rewards. The kids who work slowly are made to sit at the table for hours on end until the work gets done, even at the cost of teaching them to dislike education and hate school.

We may put the slow running child in gym class, but we don’t make him run the entire school day. He participates in a time-bound setting. Gym class is over and he goes on to something else. If he loves to run in his free time, that’s what he does, but it isn’t foisted on him any more than anything else.

This is why time-bound homework containers are so needed. I think teachers really try to be fair, and based on the normal curve, we can predict that about a third of the kids will find the work quite easy, a third will find it hard, and the majority will say they understand the work and can get the work done.  

The homework-trapped child is also capable of succeeding, but not without boundaries on what he’s required to do. Place a time cap on the work, he’ll get the work done. Make him run the full homework marathon and that sets him up for a bitter experience with potentially dangerous consequences.


Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

Four articles worth reading

I received a specific request today to promote this link on my blog and website with the comment that the author feels it coincides with the basic tone of my writing. The link refers to college students or adults, not children, but the message, as the writer says, is quite in synch with what I say and its relevance to children. The message here is that one can use their free time, the summer, to learn things of personal interest, not necessarily taught in school (or if taught in school, on a voluntary basis that is driven by interest).

Today, there are also several articles in the Washington Post that also go to the point of the meaning of education. Valerie Strauss comments on a view in Texas that opposescritical thinking as upending authority and challenging religious views. ArnoldDodge discusses the downside of common core standards in that they sap the excitement that teachers can generate when they truly engage with their students. And Valerie Strauss goes on to discuss how we fail to recognize the need for skilled tradespeople.

These four different articles all have bearing on the central concepts of the homework trap. Homework is like eating vegetables: Some kids like them, some don’t. Some parents like them, some don’t. Some teachers like them, some don’t. We introduce vegetables. We may encourage them. We make a big mistake if we force them down a kid’s throat. Up and down the line, voluntary, caring and committed interactions between teachers and children, parents and children, parents and teachers, creates the environment in which learning can occur. In some cases, pressure is helpful. In most cases, coercion is dangerous.

The message of the blogster’s suggested summer activity list is to do things of interest that capture your passions. The problem with the Texas anti-critical thinking movement is that it values compliance and respect for authority (which has its place) over initiative, independence, and even the value of trying out both good and bad ideas. There is nothing wrong with a generally standard curriculum. There are some things that kids need to know and educators can define them and teach them to teachers in their schools of education, but to create a top-down mandate that gets too deeply into particulars, lest we miss some particular details that kids need to learn, can sap energy and initiative on the parts of teachers, and, as the writer says, turn “core” concepts into “boring” concepts.

And as Valerie Strauss says about the shortage of skilled tradespeople, we need to teach the trades at the high school and post high school levels, but the foundations are often built when we are young. I was good in math and loved to do math problems, so homework in ways was play for me. My next door neighbor spent hours tinkering with his bike. True, we both had to learn how to read, write, and do basic math, but the interest and skill that precedes a successful hands-on career starts with play, and we can’t keep stifling children’s play by making the sit fixed at a table until they eat their vegetables or until the homework is done.





Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

The Purpose of Education

I came across two articles today that address the subject of the purpose of education. One is on the ASCD website, What is the Purpose of Education, and the other is in the New York Times, Honor Code.  Both articles are important since they take us past the question of what we do, to why we do it.

I have often highlighted the fact that despite my keen interest in homework, I am a clinical, not a school or child psychologist.  I have a general practice and although I have met with some children; for the most part, my work has been with adults, often people who are disabled.  At times, I have likened my perspective to that of the legendary radio announcer, Paul Harvey, whose hallmark phrase was “the rest of the story.”

It’s not that psychologists who work with adults have no interest in childhood. I was trained in psychodynamic approaches and it is gospel to the psychoanalyst that the person’s early experiences with his or her parents are central to understanding how that person evolves. But we did not talk about school.

I came to realize, working with disabled adults, often men who have worked with their hands until they got hurt, that they break into a sweat when they think about needing to go back to school, even though they are normally bright and should be capable of handling county college or technical school.  This is not some neurosis that stems back to their relationships with their parents. It’s terror based on school day experiences: constant negativity for not getting their work done.

I’ve known people who have told me that when they were children they had to sit at the table for hours on end until they finished their vegetables. What do you think? Good parenting or a bad idea? These people usually grow up to hate vegetables and exclude them from their diets as adults. So what about “sit at the table and do your homework,” and you can’t get up until you get it all done? It’s no different.

If the purpose of education is to cram a serving of homework down the child’s throat, then let’s use the vegetable approach. But if the purpose involves … Well, I’ll leave it up to you. Read David Brooks’ New York Times article. Read Willona Sloan’s ASCD article. Decide for yourself. Post your ideas as a comment to this blog. But then ask yourself. Does a serving of homework, forced down the throat, like a serving of vegetables at the dinner table, seem likely to accomplish the goal you have in mind?

Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

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Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
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Two Cheers for Germ Theory -- A Comment

The Huffington Post published an article by John Thompson titled "Two Cheers for GERM Theory of School 'Reform.'" I stimulated in me the following thoughts that I posted on the Huffington Post.

I think there are two separate “charter” school issues, one for the affluent, one for the impoverished. We can talk all we want about competition, but I think most who are doing the talking come from the more affluent group, the group that already has access to good schools.  For the poor, I have no doubt that the charter school movement is being fueled by desperation, and not just desperation over their children having “good schools,” but desperation over the sheer survival of their children. I live outside Camden, New Jersey, in the suburbs. Do I care that my children went to public, not charter schools? Not really. They were all afforded educational opportunities to launch them into life. I have my criticisms, particularly over homework policy, but not sufficient for me to get excited about the charter school movement. Yet in my professional practice as a psychologist, I meet citizens of Camden every day. Their stories are sadly commonplace, to the point that I can predict before they speak the murder of a father, uncle, nephew, cousin or son, perhaps a few. For them, charter schools are not some esoteric or academic debate but a matter of survival against powerful forces which are outside their control.




Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans

Excellence in Education

David Drew wrote an extremely interesting article for the Washington Post, “Why US can’t get back to the head of the class (because itwas never there).” He makes the point that American education excels at the university level, but not at the public school level. He further talks about the role poverty plays in our educational limitations.

Professor Drew makes an excellent point. After all, I don’t see American youngsters lining up to get visas so they can get their educations in other countries. We have some of the finest universities in the world, and we have a comprehensive system of private and state colleges and universities that is well equipped to meet the educational needs of any student who can graduate from high school and has the fundamentals to begin a college education. These are not the young people we need to be worried about, and they can certainly succeed whether they have an average or much better than average high school education.

We fall short in the short-changing of young people from impoverished neighborhoods and through our community college system, where these bright and motivated young people get stuck at the basic skills level, and never get beyond.

I live and work in the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia. New Jersey is unique in the United States in that it is parceled into an unusually large number of small communities, each running its own public services including its own school systems. It has been said that New Jersey leads the country in school superintendents per capita. The outgrowth of this system is a collection of schools that vary greatly from each other, yet, even with variations between the different suburban schools (and there are some that have particularly great reputations) the big divide is between the suburbs and Camden. I live minutes from the city of Camden, in great safety and with certainty that my children went to good schools, knowing that out of earshot, there are children who walk to school passing needles in the street and having heard gunshots the night before.

Professor Drew focuses on the issue of safety, and, I agree. It is not possible for children to learn if they do not feel safe. It is also not possible for teachers to teach effectively if they don’t feel safe.

My children were in school when the shootings at Columbine took place. Our community was shaken. For a few days, my children and their classmates felt afraid to go to school, and the schools made adjustments those couple of days. They understood that while the children were so scared, they could not learn. Yet stepping back, it seems odd that children in suburban New Jersey should feel scared to go to school because of shootings that took place 2000 miles away, when they do not even register that frequent shootings occur only ten minutes away.

The solution to this problem is far too complex to be taken on by the educational system. It involves several systems which include the war on drugs, the criminal justice system, and the child protection system, in addition to education. These fuel and exacerbate the problems that are inherent with poverty and the lack of economic opportunities.

But putting that complexity aside for another day and another discussion, we can at least focus on what the schools can do. When I read reports of schools that excel in the inner cities, they are almost exclusively centered on the presence of an inspired leader, the principal, and a commitment to make the in-school experience vibrant and vital. The same teacher who might have been burnt out and afraid, comes to life, and the same student, who might have seemed angry and rebellious, and may even face terrible circumstances on the streets and in their own homes, beams with excitement and gets engaged.

For those who have followed my blogs, you know that I put great emphasis on keeping teachers in charge of the classroom and parents in charge of the home.  I think homework should be assigned cautiously, and teachers should never assume that their assignments override the parent’s ultimate decision about what should happen in that particular home. It’s in that same spirit that I look for academic autonomy for teachers in the schools, and believe that the internal motivation of the teaching team, not the external pressures that we “race to the top,” provide the foundation for improving the quality of education. And that quality education cannot start unless the children feel  safe, at least in their school, and the teachers feel safe when they go to work. Even if the outside community fails to be safe, creating a zone of safety in the school is central for children to be able to learn.



Dr. Kenneth Goldberg is a clinical psychologist with 35 years of professional experience in dealing with many different psychological issues. He is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers and currently works in his own private practice.

Visit the website
Read book reviews of The Homework Trap
What is The Homework Trap?
A Roadmap to Success
504 plans