MOMS TALK: Too Much Homework?

Rosalie Nunez, a Timonium mother of two, has been done with school for a long time, but homework still controls her life.

It’s her daughters’ homework, of course. She’s okay with what Amanda, her first grader at , brings home, but 13-year-old Ryann is a different story.

Ryann is in seventh grade at , and Rosalie is overwhelmed by the homework assignments.

“If it’s just one or two [assignments], okay, fine, I can try to…” Rosalie trailed off as she grappled with the stress of even discussing the issue. “But when it’s three, four, five homework [assignments] a night, it’s like, okay, this is a little bit overwhelming now. It’s a little bit stressful.”

It’s more than a little bit stressful. Rosalie continued, “You’re taking family time out to help your kids, and it’s very time-consuming. And sometimes we catch ourselves not going to sleep until about 11, 12 o'clock at night, trying to get this homework done.”

Many of us can relate.

Rosalie, at least, finds the e-mails from the teachers helpful, because they keep her apprised of what’s coming.

“It’s a great, great help,” she said. She tries to keep a day or two ahead of Ryann so she can brush-up on some long-forgotten math skills and history knowledge, in order to assist with homework.

“It’s a little crazy,” Rosalie sighed. “I want to pull my hair out sometimes, but what are you going to do?”

And when Amanda is old enough to be fully immersed in science fair projects, Ryann will be writing research papers in high school. Rosalie dreads that day, but tries to stay positive.

“I have to pray and hope that I can handle it,” she said simply.

But what’s the alternative to less homework, or possibly even no homework? Is it less learning for the child? Caroline Chavasse doesn’t think so.

Chavasse is a Baltimore mom who founded a Sudbury School called Arts & Ideas Sudbury School on Harford Road. Sudbury Schools are curriculum free. The kids learn at their own pace, in their own ways, and nothing is compulsory.

“The wonderful thing about this kind of education is when the school day is over, you get your kid. You have a family life," Chavasse said of her program. "You all get to experience that however it manifests, whether it’s having a nice slow meal or an afternoon outing, or extra time to read, or a bedtime story—all those wonderful things that families can do together when given time. The school doesn’t bleed over into family life. We acknowledge the separation between school life and family life, and honor both equally.”

Chavasse mentioned the documentary Race to Nowhere, which looks at the current state of education in America and challenges our assumptions on how to educate our kids. “One of the quotes that really stuck out to me,” said Chavasse of the documentary, “was when one of the experts said about an hour of homework a night for students who are in high school has been shown to have some benefit. But no homework at any other age has been shown to have any benefit. No benefits have been shown. Not for middle schoolers, and certainly not for elementary schoolers.”