All this week, we’ve been talking about how students are learning both in and out of the classroom. Our conversations have looked at cell phones as educational tools and at whether college students are studying less now than they did 40 years ago.
Today, we take a closer look at the study habits of primary and middle school students. In the past several years, a growing number of parents, teachers, and researchers have argued that kids are being assigned too much homework. After eight hours in school, they wonder if studying for hours at home afterward is really necessary.
Diane Lowrie is one of those parents. When her son was in second grade, she felt he was receiving too much homework and relocated him to another school. He’s now in fifth grade, and doing a lot less homework than he used to.
Jessica Lahey is also a parent, as well as a middle school Latin and English teacher. But unlike Diane, she thinks the backlash against homework is misinformed.