Greetings, GreenMount Community,
Recently,
a concern from a parent came to my attention regarding homework. It seems that the student is spending hours
completing homework with little time left for anything else. The fact that a child spends nearly all of his
or her free time doing homework is counter-intuitive to the idea that we want
all of the students who attend GreenMount to have opportunities outside the
classroom for exploring the world on their own terms and following their own
interests.
This morning, I
spoke to our students at our Monday Morning Meeting about the idea put forth in
Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Outliers,
that in order to be truly exceptional in any field, one must devote at least
10,000 hours practicing whatever skills are necessary to become “outstanding.” Concert violinists, for example, must
practice for 10,000 hours, basketball players must practice 10,000 free throws;
the Beatles, according to Gladwell, played together for 10,000 hours before
coming to the U.S. to change music forever.
Let’s not think about the fact that it is very hard for a heart surgeon
to perform 10,000 transplants or an airline pilot to log 10,000 hours of flight
time before becoming certified (Southwest requires 2,500 hours). Most teachers can reach 10,000 hours in nine
years.
So, is time
spent struggling with homework for hours wasted time? Should a youngster be using at least as much
time following personal interests as they do completing homework? The answers to these questions are hard to
define. Sometimes, it is good for
students to struggle with problems. We
want them to learn to persevere and to work hard. At the same time, we don’t want to frustrate
them and make them hate the idea of independent, out-of-school assignments. We want our students to have the desire to
complete their assignments and to also have the desire to do things in an
excellent fashion. Please consult the
homework policy we developed as a staff a couple of years ago. Also, check the Family Handbook for suggested
times allotted for homework. If students
are taking more than the allotted time to complete assignments, let us know.
Finally, let’s
consider procrastination. As a project-oriented
school, students receive assignments that are to be completed over a given time
period. Unlike us mature grown-ups, they sometimes wait until the last minute
to finish their projects. (Imagine that!) The consequence often is a long evening
without much of anything except a battle to complete the project.
Our teachers
(many of whom have logged 10,000 hours) give students timelines for projects
and remind them along the way about meeting benchmarks before a project is
due. Please check with your child,
consult the homework page on the web site, and talk to teachers about these
timelines so that you can help meet deadlines with products that are “excellent.”
The GreenMount School Homework Philosophy
Homework is an
important part of every student’s learning process. It not only supports daily instruction, but
teaches responsibility and organizational skills.
The student’s
responsibility is to make every effort to complete homework assignments.
The parent’s
responsibility is to provide the time and adequate space to complete
assignments.
The school’s
responsibilities include the following:
- Connect homework to classroom learning
and clearly identify the purpose of each assignment
- Provide students with relevant tasks
that they can complete without adult help
- Use what we know about learning to
design homework appropriate for individual
students
- Facilitate two-way communication
between teachers and students and teachers and parents
- Provide direct instruction and modeling
on homework completion strategies
- Provide non-optional help for students who are struggling
- Eliminate zero policy – all homework
gets done. Missing homework is not acceptable and will result in a
behavior reflection if it is not completed.
- Grading is based on completion only
Cheers,
Steve
