Rebecca Meyer
This woman’s son is in the fifth grade, and his teacher assigns a lot of homework daily. He spends most of the night doing homework, so he can’t hang out with his family too much.
Every day, her son has to complete a math worksheet, an English and reading comprehension worksheet, and a science writing assignment or project. Plus, the teacher schedules two or three pop quizzes per week.
She realized this seemed to affect her son negatively, so she scheduled a meeting with his teacher to discuss the issue.
Before scheduling the meeting, she shared her views with some of the parents of her son’s classmates, and they agreed with her.
However, no one felt comfortable speaking with the teacher about the amount of homework assigned, so she decided to be the one to open up a dialogue.
“I respectfully expressed my concerns that the amount of homework given seemed excessive for children his age and that it might not be conducive to a healthy school-life balance,” she said.
While explaining her point of view, she mentioned several articles and studies she’d come across during her research, all of which explained that children’s mental and physical health is negatively impacted when they are assigned too much homework.
“The teacher wasn’t receptive to my feedback, suggesting that if other children in the class could manage, then the problem must lie with my son’s time-management skills,” she explained.
She was stunned by this response and explained to her son’s teacher that she understood the importance of a good education.
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