Who is in charge in the home?

I came across this article that broaches the issue of who is in charge of the home. It includes a common omission that I comment on. Here's the link to the article.

Here's my comment:

I would like to highlight the comment "Who is in charge of your house? You or your nine-year-old son?" and rephrase that to "Who is in charge of your house? You, your nine-year-old son, or your nine-year-old son's teacher?" The sad part of this common dilemma is that the authority of the teacher to assign and demand homework goes unquestioned. In reality, homework is controversial, teachers do not study the research, theory and practice of giving homework when they are in school, and they frequently miss the point about why an otherwise bright child does not do his homework. The key is almost always found in the issue of pace and that has to do with problems of attention, reading speed and handwriting speed. Children work with time containers at school, but with the expectation that they will keep working, without limits, until the work is done at home. This is unrealistic and unfair, and at the core of what I call The Homework Trap. But whether you agree with my analysis or not, take stock of the oversight in discussing whose in charge of the home, omitting the powerful authority teachers are given over what happens in an individual home. www.thehomeworktrap.com.


_{For more information on Dr. Goldberg's model, read other postings on this blog, visit his website, The Homework Trap, or read his book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.} 

 

New York Times Opinion Piece on The Common Core

There is an opinion piece written on Common Core in the New York Times today. I recommend reading it. Here the link. I wrote this comment:

The biggest problem with high-stakes testing is that it weakens the most important building block of education, and that is the relationship between the mentor and the student. Common Core, No Child Left Behind, and the Race to the Top all distract the teacher from that direct relationship and the art of teaching, causing them to look behind their backs rather than at their students. The problem overflows into the home, as the teacher thinks, to shove all the "stuff" in the kid needs to learn, that he or she has to expand the school day into the home, with more and more homework. Homework goes on to distract the parent from his or her primary relationship as a caretaker and as a teacher (one who does not need a curriculum sent home by the school), to one who gets overly worried that the homework assignments get done. The whole system goes awry and the student is the one to suffer. Interestingly, the student who is going to be a great scientist or mathematician may still do well in this system. The student who is going to be an artist or philosophy may not. And the student who needs a basic education to live an average life is the one who is going to suffer the most.

_{For more information on Dr. Goldberg's model, read other postings on this blog, visit his website, The Homework Trap, or read his book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.} 

On Cheating

There is a post in Valerie Strauss' Washington Post Education Blog, "Why Schools Should Relax About Cheating." I wrote the following comment:

I think there is a difference between people collaborating after they have entered a specialized field and are looking to create solutions, and what happens in school where students are taking a range of course subjects and are in the process of learning things that are already known. That comment aside, let's also consider the roots of school cheating and how we actually teach children to cheat from a very early age. Cheating, by definition, involves a behavior that veers from the rules set by an authority. It the teacher puts the students in teams and tells them to work as a team, there is no cheating when they share answers. If the teacher defines calling a friend for help as an acceptable behavior, there is no cheating. From elementary school on, we distort the natural hierarchies by giving teachers excessive authority to make decisions about what should go on in the home. Teachers assign homework and parents are expected to support them. Keep in mind that parents are children's original teachers, starting long before their children went to school. Yet, the teacher can make decisions about what goes on in the home over the judgments of the parents. For children who have difficulty completing their assignments in a reasonable period of time, parents end up helping them, and often end up doing the work for them, not because they value cheating, but because they are at their wit's ends. The hierarchical distortions created by homework cause serious problems for many parents and sow the seeds for "cheating" being okay.


_{For more information on Dr. Goldberg's model, read other postings on this blog, visit his website, The Homework Trap, or read his book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.} 

Children's Mental Health

There's a news item going around about the increase in child mental health problems. Here's one reference to this article in a Miami newspaper. The buzz is that we are not treating the increase in children's mental health problems. I'm a true believer that homework is a source of these problems and that homework reform is a non-costly method to treat children. Here's the response I left to the article:

This article mentions that problems of mental health affect children in their education among other things. We overlook the fact that our educational policies are, to a great extent, causing mental health problems. Our teachers are trained to teach, but they receive virtually no training in the theory, research and practice of homework. Yet, homework demands keep increasing with disastrous results. Homework undermines parental authority, increases stress in the family, and exacerbates the difficulties children who have trouble with handwriting, reading and auditory processing have. These relatively minor learning problems some children have are non-problematic in the class, since the school day is bound by the clock. They have huge implications for the child at home, as the demands expand and consume the time the child has at home. Place true time boundaries on homework. Give parents full and final authority on matters in the home. Let the home refuel the child for the next day just as it refuels adults for their next day at work. You'll see a significant reduction in children's mental health problems without investing additional resources for mental health treatment.


_{For more information on Dr. Goldberg's model, read other postings on this blog, visit his website, The Homework Trap, or read his book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.} 

Examples of success with The Homework Trap

I have two examples of success using the model of The Homework Trap. I recently shared an interaction between a parent and me over her child's homework problems. She has since been sending me periodic updates. She set time limits on homework. Although the school frowned at the idea, they accepted it. Her child proved more cooperative doing his homework. She took the role of observer rather than enforcer and, as often happens, highlighted handwriting problems as the culprit. She has since explored the problem and, in her most recent communication with me, indicates that she is proceeding with occupational therapy to help her child out.

Two days ago, I had a conversation with another parent whose child had been homework trapped. She took the same position of limiting her child's homework time. She went on to making sure that the school had ample supplies of the book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers. This created a buzz in her child's school district about homework policy. As expected, teachers responded in different ways and many did not directly agree. Yet, the attitude changed and they stopped punishing her child for work that was not done. He is now an honor roll student despite the fact that he fails to do some of his homework. The key is that teachers may grumble and may hold onto their past beliefs, but no one works in a vacuum, and, to some degree, everyone has to bend. The teachers may be used to bending to what their superiors (e.g. the principal) say yet remain resistant to bending to parent demands. But if parent's demands are reasonable and made in authoritative ways, many will bend.

I have no doubt that, for both of these parents, the story has not come to an end. Their children will advance one grade at a time, and face new teachers, with new systems, and different attitudes. They may have to refight these battles. But that are winnable battles, and logic and reason are the tools they have on their side.


I welcome all feedback, through public posts on this blog or The Homework Trap Facebook page, or through private communications to me, that can be made through The Homework Trap website and can be conveyed to others in anonymous ways. And I am open to feedback of situations in which my model has not worked. From what I hear, time boundaries is proving to be one of the most powerful and effective steps a parent can take.

_{For more information on Dr. Goldberg's model, read other postings on this blog, visit his website, The Homework Trap, or read his book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.} 

Why Boys Underachieve at School

Here is an interesting article about boys underachieving academically. The author attributes this to a misguided notion of masculinity. I think homework policy plays a role. Here's a link to the article.  Here is the comment I left to the article.

I think we miss the point if we do not come to terms with the fact that, in our frenzy to improve education, we have pushed kids to work much more than they should. We've allowed the school to co-op the home with increasingly large amounts of homework to do. Typically, boys are less mature than girls, they have more difficulty sitting still and paying attention, and, although they are better at gross motor functions, they are weaker than girls in their fine motor coordination. The notion that they will come home, at young ages, to mountains of homework which strains their patience and hurts their hands, runs counter to what boys can easily do. I don't think a misguided notion of masculinity creates a disinterest in school. I think that pressures to work beyond reason as young children, creates a negative feeling about school. In the past, kids went to school and then came home to play, or at most, to light amounts of homework. Today, we are forcing kids (in fact forcing them over their own parents' best judgments) to work far too much. This is the primary reason why boys get turned off to school.
 

_{For more information on Dr. Goldberg's model, read other postings on this blog, visit his website, The Homework Trap, or read his book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.} 

Follow up on the use of The Homework Trap

Last week, I reported an example of success using the Homework Trap model. I just received an update that the child continues to do well, and that the parent has now identified the types of difficulties the child was having.

In my model, I advocate for time bound assignments and for parents to transition from acting as enforcers and, instead, becoming observers. Once you cap the time and dispel the belief that all homework must get done, you can stop and step back, and figure out what is happening with your child. As an observer, you can obtain information and share it with the teacher, with the goal of ultimately helping your child. As an enforcer, you get caught in an ongoing and inevitable, unproductive battle.

_{For more information on Dr. Goldberg's model, read other postings on this blog, visit his website, The Homework Trap, or read his book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.}