Head in the Clouds

The Less-Homework Revolution

I have plenty to say about homework, and I’ll be saying it from time to time right here on this blog. But today, I’m mostly just going to say amen to this Parenting magazine article about homework, which I found on MSNBC.

Author Nancy Kalish used to be in favor of homework. “In fact,” she writes, “I once wrote an article for this very magazine telling readers how to get kids to stop whining and knuckle down to work.” That was before her daughter started struggling with homework—and hating school because of it.

“I'd always assumed homework was essential,” Kalish says. “But when I finally looked into the research about it, I was floored to find there's little to support homework—especially in vast quantities.”

Now she’s leading a revolution—the "less-homework revolution." It seems like an important cause for families with ADD, since our children are likely to be the ones who take extra time doing homework—who take extra time even just getting started doing it—and who have lots of other interests.

Maybe Kalish will inspire you to revolt.

Here's a previous post about homework. More to come, as promised, when I can process the trauma of it enough to write more.

Haunted by Homework

People sometimes repress memories of traumatic events in their lives. I have hardly any memories of doing homework when I was growing up. Was it that traumatic for me?

I do remember trying to write a summary of the Nutcracker one night in fourth or fifth grade. Despite all my mom’s cajoling, I couldn’t combine all those scenes in the Land of Sweets into one concept. It got later and later, and all I could do was laboriously describe each part—the Chinese and Spanish and Arabian dancers, the waltzing flowers, the Sugar Plum Fairy. 

I have one other memory—of doing math problems in pencil on blue-lined paper. But that’s about it.

I do remember vividly, however, how much I hated homework, especially as I got into high school. I was particularly scornful of worksheets on which you mindlessly spit back facts.

My dad does have memories of me doing homework. When I was supposedly working, he told me once, he or my mom would sometimes come in to check on me. “It would seem like you’d been daydreaming,” he said. “When we asked how you were coming along, you’d get angry.”

I assume now that my anger was defensiveness. I could spend hours at the piano composing dreamy atonal music. But I suspect I had a pretty hard time getting started and staying focused on work that wasn’t creative and engrossing. Not that I have a great idea of how to do that even now, in my 50s. But I have some strategies beyond just gutting through it. And I have a little less shame.

So, now that my daughter has started fourth grade, homework is back to reactivate the trauma. More on that in an upcoming post.