"PDF" versus Homework

"PDF" is a new phrase out there - playtime, downtime and family time - that references the non-structured hours of a student's day.

What some researchers are finding is that today's student has far less of that free time than we did.  From the NY Times:

Higher-income children spend more time at school and activities than they once did, and have fewer opportunities to be with friends in an unstructured setting. 

Your children may not think they agree — young children are masters at “but Joey is doing karate and hockey and violin,” while ambitious teenagers may protest that they can handle an overwhelming load — but parents can’t take a child’s willingness to push the limits as a sign that they don’t need rest and recovery periods.

I recall talking to a friend's high school daughter - who had the most packed schedule I had ever seen - and I asked the daughter, "Do you ever lay on your bed and stare at the ceiling and think and daydream?"  Her reply?  "Who has time for that?"

Well, I did and in the words of great Beach Boys (In My Room):

There's a world where I can go and tell my secrets to
In my room, in my room
In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears
In my room, in my room

Do my dreaming and my scheming
Lie awake and pray
Do my crying and my sighing
Laugh at yesterday
Into this idea comes another idea - homework. Again, from the NY Times:

Last spring, when Public School 11, a prekindergarten through fifth-grade school in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, banned mandatory traditional homework assignments for children up to fourth grade, you might have expected universal acclaim. Rather than filling out worksheets, students were encouraged to read nightly, and a website offered tips for parents looking for engaging after-school activities.

Instead, war broke out among the parents. Those who wanted to keep homework accused the anti-worksheet group of trying to force through a policy supported by a select few. Some privately called the plan “economically and racially insensitive,” favoring families with time and money to provide their own enrichment.

Pro homework 
But parents with fewer means say the new policies don’t take into account their needs and time constraints, and leave them on their own when it comes to building the skills their children need to prepare for the annual state tests.

Con homework
 The focus for many anti-homework parents is what they see as the quality of work assigned. They object to worksheets, but embrace projects that they believe encourage higher-level thinking.

The Thinking

Researchers who study academic history said they were not surprised that debate over young children and homework had resurfaced now. Education and parenting trends are cyclical, and the nation is coming off a stress-inducing, federally mandated accountability push that has put standardized testing at the center of the national education debate.  

Alfie Kohn, the author of 14 education-related books, including “The Homework Myth,” is a leader in the anti-homework camp. In a recent interview, Mr. Kohn described homework as “educational malpractice” and “an extremely effective way to extinguish children’s curiosity.” He noted that nations like Denmark and Japan, which routinely outperform the United States on international math and science assessments, often gave their students far less homework.

Small amounts of enriching and age-appropriate homework in the early grades, he says, serves as a good way for parents to observe their children’s progress and to teach young people that learning doesn’t happen only inside a classroom. He calls parents who seek to abolish after-school work “homework deniers.”

The National Education Association and the National PTA have weighed in, suggesting that students get 10 minutes of homework per grade, starting in first grade — what educators sometimes refer to as the “10-minute rule.” 

 Thoughts? (Both on homework in general and what is happening at your school)