Has Homework Become Too Much for Children?

Have you witnessed your child reach their breaking point because of the crazy amount of homework they were assigned? Has this involved tears, yelling and pure frustration because all they want is for it to be over? Are their homework assignments taking over your weekend time? Enough is enough. Today, homework has become more of a problem and viewed as a nuisance rather than seen as a benefit to a child’s education.

As an educator I truly do believe in assigning homework. I feel as though it helps reinforce what was learned as it also promotes independent thinking on a particular subject matter. However, is the amount of homework assigned completely necessary? This is especially true for the younger, elementary grades. Today, schools are piling on the homework even after students have put in a full school day. It is safe to conclude, kids are stressed out.

            But in reality, homework isn’t only stressing out the kids. Parents are most likely taking just as much of a hit to this emotional roller coaster as well. With the type of homework assignments these teacher’s are assigning, it is nearly impossible for the parents to “stay out of it.” Kids simply cannot do this by themselves. They need the support and knowledge of older adults in order to do what is expected of them.

Let’s take a step back and see if the amount of homework being assigned to younger children is actually necessary or even of much benefit to them at all. I believe kids deserve to come home from a long day of school and have time to just play, rather than spend hours on end doing homework that is most likely seen as busy work.

The Effect of Video Games On Your Child’s Behavior

            Video games have become increasingly popular in this era of technology that we are currently living in. Parents – I’m sure you have a child who has either played, is playing, or even will play a video game at some point in their life. Today, it seems like video games are consuming so much of a developing child’s time and has almost become the “norm” of a child’s regular routine. However, devoting so much time and energy into playing video games for hours on end at a time is certainly not in a child’s best interest.

           

            Because video games are essentially taking over children’s lives, it is nearly impossible to cut out gaming for them as a whole. Although there are various types of video games available on the market today, realistically speaking, a child isn’t going to choose an educational game over a game where he/she is able to get a thrill out of killing people for potential reward. An interesting study found that, “student’s who had played a violent virtual reality game had a higher heart rate, reported more dizziness and nausea, and exhibited more aggressive thoughts in a posttest than those who played a nonviolent game” (Cesarone, 1998).  

            Working in a preschool classroom, I observed a group of 3-year-old children interact with one another in the dramatic play area one morning. Interestingly enough, I heard one child yell out, “Shoot the zombie, BAM-BAM-BAM!” Although I presume this child is not actually playing video games at home himself, I do however believe he is watching an older sibling at home participate in such violent actions. Overall, it is safe to conclude that children don’t always have to participate in such actions; they are simply influenced by things occurring around them.

These the types of qualities are certainly not what we want in our children that will one day make up our future. It is important to come together to promote the importance of participating in extracurricular activities with peers and friends and place less emphasis on the addiction to avid gaming.

Dress Codes with Reason

School dress codes have been one of the most fought over polices that schools enforce.  Granted there are some schools and administrations who take the dress code to extremes by sending girls who are decently dressed home for ridiculous reasons, like collarbones and shoulders showing.  Some school's dress codes can be considered sexist because the action is only taken against the female population of the school.  With that begin said, I am not making this post about the sexism and negativity that goes along with dress codes.  Instead I am going to talk about the positivity about dress codes and why I loved my technical high school's dress code. 

The dress code at my high school was that all students must be decently dressed.  For the girls straps on tops had to be at least three finger widths wide, skirts and shorts had to fall to or longer than your fingertips when your arms are at your sides, and any undergarments could not be showing.  For the guys pants actually had to fit and cover their butts.  Granted there were more rules for the girls than the guys but the school had reason for it.  There are so many more types of clothing for girls than there are for guys.  The school's main use of our dress code was to show students that you can still show your personality through clothes while looking classy.   

As I said above I went to a technical school, so on our academic weeks the dress code was more relaxed. This does not mean that students were given a free pass to wear whatever they wanted.  Girls were still asked to cover up their bra straps if they were showing, because it looks trashy.  Guys were still asked to pull up their pants and use a belt, because no one wants to see a guy's pants at their knees and their underwear hanging out.  If they didn’t have a belt they were either given and extra one from lost and found or a rope from of the shops.  The dress code definitely got stricter on our trade weeks.  While in your shop or trade you had to dress the part; if you were in banking you wore dress clothes appropriate for a bank,  if you were in health or dental assisting you wore scrubs, and in electrical, carpentry, automotive, and plumbing you wore steel toe work boots and either jeans or coveralls.  If you were not wearing the appropriate clothing in shops you were sent to the Dean's office and they would either try to find you something extra or have you sit and work on any academic work you had. 

I loved that my high school's dress code made us take pride in how we dressed and taught us how to dress for the professional word.    If schools used the dress code as a way to show students how to dress in the real world there would be no backlash about what is appropriate or not.  School dress codes should not be about making students feel inferior but about making sure that students are given the chance to show off their personality while looking respectful, both to themselves and their environment.   

Think of the Professor

Gaining a higher education such as masters and a doctorate means respect and more money correct?
WRONG! Most professors are only part time professors, who are barely making ends meets.  These are the people who are educating the future and they should be able to make a living themselves.
According to the article 9 Reasons Why Being An Adjunct Faculty Member is Terrible adjunct faculty are the part time professors who are protesting in gaining more hours, pay and benefits.

Much of these professors have had an enormous pay check cut that even some of them are living off of welfare to do the job that they love. These pay cuts are unacceptable. The majority of professors at colleges are these part time professors trying to make a living too.

In the article mention above there are several reasons as to why adjunct professors pay affects the students. For adjunct professors to be able to afford living need to teach on average about twenty classes a year. With that amount of work as a professor there is very little time for office hours for the students and the quality of time put into the students' assignments are less. If the adjunct professors had a higher wage, there would be no need for the professor to teach that many classes. Which would allow for better quality time on their students' work. 

These professors are doing a job that they love with consequences in their home life. The affect on these professors also affects the students in the college. There is a spiral affect that branches out to several different avenues. The adjunct professors are the ones who are teaching future generations, why not give them a higher wage? 

Limiting Technology in the Classroom

As a member of today's society I love technology and do not think that I could ever go back to living without it.  That being said I believe that technology is used in classrooms way more than it should be.   Technology is a wonderful tool and is often very helpful to students.  However students are becoming way too reliant on technology and are have a hard time doing work and answering questions without it.  There are many positives to technology and I believe that it does deserves a place in the classroom but it has to be limited.  Here are three reasons why technology should be limited in the classroom:

 

1.  It causes students to be distracted.  When students are in front of computers, tablets, and phones they always have to check what's going on both on social medias and text.  I am one of these students who get distracted, especially if I find something interesting on Pinterest.  One of my professors asked that none of us use any sort of technology in the classroom because it takes away our focus.  Her request made sense to me, but other students were shocked and aggravated that they would actually have to participate in a class that they paid thousands of dollars for rather than staring at their computer screen. 
2. Technology is causing students to forget that they are able to actually store information in their brains.  We rely so heavily on technology to give us answers.  Most people do not even give a question any thought before turning to Google.  We need to remember that there are other ways of finding information.  It has been proven that you are more apt to remember something you looked up in a book due to the action of physically looking something up, rather than just googling it.
3. Technology is ruining our spelling skills and grammar knowledge.  Due to spell check people are no longer relying on the skills it takes to sound out a word and figure out how to spell it.  This makes for a panic when people are faced with the issue of spelling a word when there is no technology that can be used, like during a test.  The text speak that goes hand in hand with technology is ruining us as well.  Students are so used to using shorthand that they are having trouble using correct grammar in their papers.

Playing Good Versus Evil

          One of the current trends in school is the banning of good guys versus bad guys play.  The reason is the use of pretend weapons.  Many parents and teachers believe that if we allow games where the ‘good guys’ takes down the ‘bad guys’ it will cause children to become violent. With all of the different tragedies going on in the world this has become a huge concern. Children are actually getting suspended for pretending to use weapons in school.  Just because a child makes a pretend gun out of their fingers does not mean that they will become a violent killer in the future.        

          Children play these types of games for a number of reasons.  Some reasons being as simple as they have fun playing it.  Another reason that I have said before is that children use play to process the world around them.  Children are using the good guys versus bad guys play to try and understand why things around them are happening and what the effect is.  This type of play allows children to make the distinction between good and evil. 

          This play should not be completely stopped but it should be monitored and discussed.  In the article 'When Good Kids Play The Bad Guy,' Scholastic gives tips on how to handle this type of play in a manner that will not shut down a child's ideas.  One of the tips was to help you child set rules for play where there are good guys and bad guys.  It is so important to have discussions with your child or students about what a good person is versus a bad person is.  It is also important to discuss the difference between reality and pretend.  This play should only be stopped if children are actually getting hurt or if you are seeing an actual violent streak in a child.  One of the ways to combat this is to limit a child's access to violent images, shows, movies, and video games.    

Comfort and Community

As the bell rings, students enter the boring colored class room with the same chairs with encouraging academic posters. The classrooms all look the same with a slight switch depending of the teacher and their tidiness. Why not make the classroom more homelike, since most children spend a majority of their time at school?

According to the article How Comfortable Classrooms Lead to a Better Student Community the comfort level of the classroom affects the children greatly. A great teacher once told me that school is like our home away from home, we live here. That saying rings true when talking about the comfort of a classroom. When children are relaxed and feel safe, they can really begin to learn.

Creating a comfortable classroom takes multiple steps. A teacher should keep the space clean, clutter free, and involving the students. In a clean classroom the materials that students need will be ready and prepared for any project that a child is presented with.

An important factor of keeping the classroom tidy is the teacher's desk being clean. A clean teachers desk, is a role model for the children and it is a welcoming space for the students. When a student approaches the desk the student may not get distracted easily and can see organizational skills at work.

Involving the students in the classroom is when students can see their artwork or decorations on the wall. Decorating the walls with the students' work shows the students that they are part of the classroom community and not just bodies filling a chair.

For a teacher, the children's needs should be first. Children come to school to feel safe, comfortable and to learn. Why not optimize their learning in an environment they are constantly in, and really make it feel like a home away from home? 

What is Best for the Children?

There are many debating about the pros and cons about private schools versus public schools as pointed out by the article Private versus Public. Most of the hot topics when comparing public versus private are money, standardized test scores, curriculum, and special needs. 

MONEY: 

• Private Schools- Most private schools gain their finances through donations, grants and tuition. With gaining their own money without help from the government those schools are able to create their own calender's and curriculum. The money goes towards the faculty, staff, coaches, athletics and student clubs/interests out side of athletics. 
• Public Schools- Public schools get their funding from federal/state funds. There are pros and cons to having money from the government: there are more regulations formed by politicians. Depending on the school district, how large or small, the district may be underfunded. Where the one lives in the district also gets funding based on the taxes, in better districts parents pay higher property taxes to help with the school budget. 

STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES:

• Private Schools: Since private schools do not depend on government funding, private schools do not need to give out standardized tests. 
• Public Schools: Public schools do give out standardized test such as the MCAS and PARK, to be able to level the children in the correct learning levels. 
• HOWEVER! In different studies and research there has been a back and forth of which school is actually ahead when being tested with standardized tests. 

CURRICULUM:

• Private Schools: There is a freedom to create their own curriculum and assessments of the children. Private schools can gear the lessons to the needs of the children ad specialize the curriculum to what the teachers think are important to learn. 
• Public Schools: Since the funding comes from the government the schools have to follow state regulations. These regulations instill a certain curriculum and assessments. There are specific procedures that the teachers need to carry out through out the day and teach the children to the "standardized tests" 

SPECIAL NEEDS: 

• Private Schools: Private schools get to pick and choose who they let into the school. Private schools do not need to accept children with special needs into their program. For some special needs there are extra resources that will be needed, which may not cover by the regular tuition and grants. 
• Public Schools: By new laws public schools are required to let children with special needs into the classroom. There are specific education programs and resources for children with special needs. 

In my own experience I was in a public school from preschool to eighth grade and than private school from ninth to twelfth grade. Both were great experiences for myself. My public school district was a really good district and my private school was a great private school. However because of the stress of having to take standardized tests to determine my leveling in school, my parents decided for me to go to private. My private school gave me less anxiety. 

Either option is good depending on the child. When going to decide which is better for the child, parents should research their school district and the public schools they are looking at. Research could determine if the school district is a good one or if the private school teaches the beliefs a parent would want to instill in the children.  

Sleeping Beauties

Research has shown that sleep is essential for a health life style. In further research it is proven that teenagers need more sleep, such as a little over nine hours according to Background: Later School Start Times. This article discusses the importance of sleep for adolescences. It is true that in today's society that sleep almost seems like a luxury in everyone's busy schedules of school, work, chores, after school activities, homework and a social life.

Schools and administrations are trying very hard to match school start times with the number of hours of sleep that the students need to function in school. It is challenging to match these hours because of how many people are involved in this dilemma such as parents, other siblings, teachers, coaches, and work places. All of these people influence the decision to start school at a later time. The reason for this later time is for the students to get the correct amount of sleep., Research has stated that later in the day is said to be the highest alert time for the students, and the most dangerous. In the article Background: Later School Start Times it mentions that students tend to get into dangerous activities such as drugs, sex and alcohol between the hours of 2-4pm. The later school start time would mean that schools would run later and into those "dangerous times", but who wouldn't say that the students wouldn't find another time for such activities? 

A personal story about myself and high school is related to sleep. I went to a private high school that was about an hour away from home each way. The start time was 7:25am, henceforth I had to leave my house around 6:00am. In the evenings after high school sports, and work I was not getting home until after 7:30pm and  needing to eat dinner, along with two to three hours worth of homework left to do for my honors and AP classes. Most would assume that I was tired and not really able to function. However I felt energized and always ready for school, with the little sleep I was getting.  From personal experience I do agree that sleep is essential for all ages, however I am not sure that a later start time is correct, maybe teaching children time and stress management might be more efficient and effective. 

What Is Your Child Really Eating at School?

I was never the type of kid who regularly bought school lunches. They were never really appealing to me and quite frankly, still aren’t. I never really paid any attention to them or gave it much thought until after seeing some of the lunches served to the children at the daycare center I worked at over the summer.

           

Each day the lunch cart came around, it was my job to provide 14 preschoolers with a “well-balanced” plate that included mainly carbs and cheeses and the occasional vegetable and fruit. As an educator, I really wanted to encourage all of my children to at least try everything on their plate. After looking at some of their plates I thought to myself, “How can I tell them to try that if I won’t even eat that?” This made me think that there just has to be a better alternative to school lunches simply because these parents are paying far too much for their children to be eating this garbage. Not to mention, secondly, children should not be consuming this type of food on a regular basis. Period.

Meals like nachos and cheese, pizza, mac n’ cheese, loaded potatoes (you get the idea) offer no nutritional value what so ever for these children. People often have the mindset, “They’re kids, they will run it off.” Except, do we ever stop to think about how this type of food could actually have an effect on their mood, or energy levels? Could this be the reason why they are so tired when they come home from school? Regardless, schools have control over the food they serve to these children.

Children may not be overly thrilled that they don’t have a loaded baked potato on their plate for lunch, but it is also our job to educate them and teach them about healthier options and inform them about this so-called word we always seem to ignore; moderation. I am a firm believer in, “Everything in moderation.” Therefore, we should take a step back and reflect on the meals that these children are consuming on a daily basis. At the end of the day, children should not be eating something on their plate that is almost unrecognizable due to the amount of cheese smothered over it.

Learning Through Play

To an adult play may seem like a lot of nonsense and children making a mess; to a child play is everything.  Play is the basis on which children begin to build their knowledge and understand how the world around them works.  So why are schools taking away playtime in favor of more academic activities like math and writing worksheets?  Worksheets are not going to teach children how to function in the world.  There have been so many studies about whether having playtime benefits children or not.  Almost every study has had the same results, that children learn best through play and by doing. 

           In May there was an article printed in the New York Times called "Let The Kids Learn Through Play,"  which focused on how children are effected by both learning through teacher directed practices and through play.  In most cases children who are just sitting at a table writing their letters over and over again are not getting as much out of their education as the students who are playing.  Sure after a while the children who are copying their letters will have them memorized but the way they learned was not an authentic way of learning to a child.  However if children use different materials, like playdough, to make letters they have an easier time learning the alphabet.  Children will incorporate whatever they are learning into their games, reinforcing the knowledge that they have recently learned.

          Children become accustomed to the world by bringing current events into their games.  While playing children are getting the opportunity to experiment with behaviors and social norms that are used in the world around them.  Children will often incorporate anything they hear on the news or what their parents are talking about into their games as well.  The little ones do this to comprehend how the world works and the consequences of different actions.  It is so important to allow children time to play in the classroom because it allows children to build upon their knowledge in a way that makes sense to the individual child.

Promoting Early Literacy a Little Differently

      I was recently looking at children's books for my classroom when I found If You Give A Mouse A Cookie by Laura Numeroff.  I remembered having this book read over and over to me as a young girl.  When I was growing up my mother was a stay at home mom, so she always had time to read books to my sister and I.  Now that I am studying early education I am beginning to understand why it is so important to introduce literature and to model literacy at such a young age.  Introducing literacy at an early age is so important because it prepares children to become readers and speakers.  Promoting early literacy also helps reading become enjoyable later on for children.  It made sense to me that my mother would read books to us because she had all the time in the world to read.  With the economy the way it is now does not give much leeway for a parent to stay home and spend the day with their child.  I began wondering how early literacy can be promoted if there is not always enough time to read books.  I decided to do a little bit of digging when I was approached by a parent who had this concern. 

          What I found completely changed my perspective about introducing early literacy.  Thinking about it now I cannot believe that I never realized there were so many ways to promote early literacy that do not always involve a book.  One of the tips that I found most interesting was to tell stories about and talk about family history.  It was explained on Get Ready To Read's website that this type of storytelling gets everyone involved in the tale.  Another tip that I found from Project Enlightenment was to encourage children to draw and write.  Drawing and writing allows children to explore the idea that their thoughts and ideas can be put onto paper and can be shared.

           Children are natural born storytellers and listeners.  They take so much more out of stories than anyone could ever imagine.  The stories that children hear often have a huge effect on a child's development.  A child's language development is always influenced by their environment and the world around them.  One of the major ways to help develop both early literacy skills and language skills is to involve children in conversations and modeling how their native language works along with the rules that the language follows.  This is a perfect way for a busy parent to promoting early literacy and the perfect place to involve children in conversation is the car.    The car ride gives parents and children time to tell stories and have conversations about the world around them.