Facilitator: Jill Schiffman Assistant Professor of Psychiatry DHMC
Transription by Linda Addante



First skit:

Dad and two sons. Older son sits relaxed playing guitar, asks Dad if he can go out and party until 2 am. Younger son, enters room with "200 lbs" of books needed to do his homework for the evening-he plans on being up until 2 am doing his homework. Emphasis on no time for anything else, no time left after doing homework.

S-Choice between doing well in school and having fun in school?

S-Procrastination on homework that's my problem.

***Homework can be overwhelming where to begin? Homework can restrict which courses you choose to take.

S-Need to have X-period to get work done.

***Balance with academics. Choices for other activities. What is the purpose of homework in a particular course?

P-What do teachers expect students to do for academic subjects. Does this match with what students believe to be necessary?

St-There has been discussion about this.

S-I need a break after school. I spend 3-5 hours per night on homework. I run out of time. Tonight I will spend closer to 5 hours on homework.

S-Sophmore year is the worst for homework.

P-Volume of homework?

St-I assign about 4 assignments per week/per class with each assignment 30-40 minutes to complete. But one student can do assignment in 15 minutes and another may take an hour. I think the student needs to be working on the assignment for 30 min. What message should we send for how much is too much?

***How to balance huge course loads the kids are taking?

P-I have a problem with kids taking 7 courses. If kids take 6 courses that would be better.

S-This semester I dropped an art course-I'm taking 3 honors courses. During one X-period I eat lunch and during another I study.

P-My son is in 10 th grade. He needs to take Health its a requirement , and he loves band so that means he is taking 7 courses. If he takes Drivers Ed. that is a total of 8 courses!

Facilitator's question: If some courses don't have homework attached to them does that help with the options?

St-Health and Chorus are 2 electives, even thought they don't have homework as part of the course, they do result in the loss of X-periods.

***How did we get to 7 courses being the norm?

P-In part because there are a lot of opportunities in school and a lot of opportunities outside of school.

***Is it pressure to perform or are there just lots of great choices?

P-Academics are stressed. You have to work hard to get into the "RIGHT" college.

S-I take 7 courses, 2 languages, German and French, with Health and Art. I need more time to do homework but I REALLY ENJOY the languages!

St-Education shouldn't be an Either/Or choice. Education isn't entertainment but is is something you can take pleasure in. My concern is that we are rushing our students . They don't have to take college credits at such an early age.

***May not be as important as we think for our kids to have "it all" now. It's exciting and good when kids enjoy learning . Is there pressure that I (student) am not going to make it to the next step unless I (student) take 7 courses? We need to examine what has become the norm at HHS and decide if that is what we want.

St-Civic class/student teacher-Kids who have a sport, extracurricular activity also have to take required Phys. Ed. course-seems like this is unnecessary aren't they meeting Phys Ed requirement in their sport/extracurricular activity?

St-Don't know where norm came from. Has existed since at least 1975 when the norm at that time was average of 5-7 course load for students. Course load does vary for each student. Staff does watch for student overload and advises students who may be over extending themselves. Of note: GPA's on the average are lower for students who take 6 courses instead of 7 courses. GPA's for students taking 5 courses are, on the average, lower than students taking 6 courses. What does this tell us? 25 % of the students take 7 courses. If they take 6 courses what is given up?

***Is there any kind of requirement that a student has to meet before they can go from 5 to 7 courses? Do students have to have a certain GPA to help keep kids from overextending themselves? As parents and kids we need some way to monitor our choices so that we do not overextend ourselves.

S-If there are a set number of minutes you are suppose to spend on homework than your just getting it done.

St-I would rather give less homework and have students think about it when they are doing the homework. I don't give a lot of homework-for that reason sometimes my assignment is done last by students and may get less thoughtful attention by the student. Yet the most important part is for the student to really think about what they are doing/learning as they complete the assignment-you can do it quickly to just get it done or you can give it some thought and really learn something.

St-Amount of material covered in course equates with the rigor of the course. What is lost from a course if the homework is lost.

St/P-When I came to HHS in 1976 as a new staff member this was not an issue. The kids are doing so much more outside of school now. More kids have jobs, sports, etc. I try to make homework assignments so the students can juggle their own time/schedule. But kids take variable amounts of time to do the homework, some kids need more time than others to complete an assignment-sometimes taking 6 hours to complete a 3 hour assignment.

Skit Two:

Testing situation with faculty test monitor present. Three students. One student very nervous, has always done well, but has hit a "mental block" on the test. She has never cheated before, can't fail now-this is her last exam at HHS. She looks at her neighbor's paper as she goes up to ask the faculty monitor a question about the exam. Because of the pressure to do well esp. on this last exam before graduation and because she has seen other students cheating at times she feels she deserves one time to cheat on an exam. Teacher reflects that he may have seen student cheat, but is not sure, acknowledges she is a good student and expresses his indecision on whether he should or shouldn't confront the student since he is not absolutely certain he saw her looking at the other student's test paper.

P-I have two children-one dealt with pressure well and the other is just a calm person. I'm the one that says do well. I'm the one who is feeling the pressure. It is very easy for me to recall the pressure I felt when I was in high school. I may be putting pressure on my kids.

P-No adult is asked to synthesize what they have learned in the last six months-yet we ask that of our students with every exam. An important message to give our students is that the learning, testing cycle of school does not represent real life experience. School is an artificial environment and failing Biology is not the end of the world.

***Are we giving the right kind of exam, the kind of exam that is in keeping with learning?

***We must remember that for the student it does feel like the end of the world when they fail an exam-esp. if that test grade goes on a transcript. Also in real life there are some instances where fact retrieval is an important skill. We also have to realize that some people just do not do well in test taking situations-they have high anxiety and freeze.

***Open book test better or worse?

P-Worse, they are much harder because you have the whole book to look through.

S-I got a "B" on a mid-year exam in Science. My mother said, "You didn't do so well." I was disappointed in my myself already. After she said that to me I was crushed.

***Expectations from faculty, parents are a burden to students

S-during SAT's having faculty monitors watch what I am doing is stressful

S-I had two teachers point out places on the midterm exam that they thought the students should Ace. This put a lot of pressure on students- Students ability varies

***Students failures are viewed by some faculty as their failure.

***Students ability to focus can be affected by events outside of school. For example parental divorce affects ability of children to concentrate even when children are young and in elementary school. Kids worry about their parents, parental conflict, etc.-makes it hard to concentrate on school.

P-When is it a good time to talk to kids about school. When should parents talk with their kids about school to find out if they are feeling stressed out?

S-Friday nights are the time to talk to me about school-I'm relaxed. Don't talk to me on Sunday evening. There are times when kids don't want to talk. Sometimes we don't know the answer ourselves so we can't answer the parents questions.

S-Sunday nights are homework nights. Don't try to talk with me about school on Sunday night.

S-I'm a senior and I disagree. The last thing I want to do is talk about homework when I get home from school. My dad doesn't bug me with questions but at the same time I know that I can talk to him anytime I want to and he will talk with me. About cheating, I don't cheat, my conscience won't let me. I do have senioritis, college applications are in, and some seniors cheat just because they can and who wants to study when there is a party. You can't cheat on an essay. Math and Science are different-you can cheat on these subjects.

S-On one midterm halfway through the exam most of the students realized they didn't know the information because it was taught in a different way from how the exam was written. Ms. P gives right amount of homework. Once after a test she told me she knew that I knew the material because of what I did in class, in spite of the fact that I did not do well on the exam-that really made me feel better to hear her say that.

S-Worse cheat is the one who cheats and feels no remorse. I cheated once and it consumed me with guilt.

P-I cheated 40 years ago and it still bothers me!

S-If you cheat as a rule, you'll eventually get caught

***Purpose of exam is to see what has been learned by the student, if the student cheats that circumvents the reason for giving the exam.

S-If there is useless stuff on the test students feel they are doing useless work-they "take revenge" -cheating on the test feels justified.

St-What makes homework pointless or busy work-esp. if the homework is done "thoughtfully" not just fill in the blank?

S-Busy work feels like it's just memorization. Sorting useless facts

S-A whole point is getting missed here. I was interested in your point (reference to homework being done "thoughtfully"). Maybe this is obvious but I don't think students know this about some assignments

***Purpose of homework assignment needs to be clarified for better compliance from students. Teachers need to explain why the assignment is important in the course.

P-Question value of posters-seems emphasis is more on formatting than on content

S-Rational for homework assignments is necessary

St-I love it when students ask me why are we doing this. I wish students would ask this question more often.

S-Even if the teacher explains the "why" of an assignment the students may not agree.

***Who sets the standards? A common practice between very articulate, intelligent youth and adults is the art of debate-this can get in the way of deciding what the standard is going to be.

St-Posters usefulness is related to finding out how some students are doing, esp. for those students that need others ways to demonstrate their knowledge, skills and test and quizzes are inadequate for evaluating every student or for evaluating all of what students know.

***Posters-making posters uses the other side of the brain-more hands-on skills. Another way to evaluate what students have learned.

P-We are driven by achievement , grades are the goal and I am afraid we forget about learning. Where to we get that happy meeting place between achievement and learning?

S-Students who do a course because they want to learn, do homework "thoughtfully' Those who only want the honors credit just do the homework to get it done.

Skit Three:

Student is typing away at computer and he is totally engrossed in the project. Enter father, who walks up behind his son and comments on a grammatical error in the text his son is working on. Son, focused on his work, nods an acknowledgment and keeps working. Father spies another error and comments, this continues with the son acknowledging his Father's comments with a perfunctory nod or grunt each time another error is identified. It becomes more obvious that the student is very tired, and has been at this work for a long time. Father offers to take over and make a few minor corrections. He tells son to he should get some rest and offers to work on the rough spots for him. Student who is very exhausted goes to bed and father goes on to do some heavy editing of his son's work.

***Its very difficult from a parent's perspective not to get involved

S-It happens especially if you have intelligent parents-they want to show you how to do things-Helping is okay, but parents doing the assignment is not helpful.

P-Kid didn't even want to talk and parent persisted.

P-I think it's about boundaries. If I ask too many questions I get a "hand up" from my kids. It means "back-off" lets talks later. I like to help with English -they don't want it. It's about listening and respecting boundaries.

***It's easier to listen to verbal communication than non-verbal cues. Parents may miss the non-verbal cues for their kids.

P-It's about choices and consequences. Sometimes our kids opt for choices we parents don't like but we have to go with that. The message to kids should be, "Try your best and you will experience the consequences of your choice- then you'll know."

S-Kids ask for input/guidance and they don't want an "I don't know" as an answer from their parents-they really do want to know what their parents think.

***Boundary-Parents feel they're are being judged by what their kids can or can't do. It's hard for a parent to step back and let their kids be who they are as individuals. Parents feel judged (or they feel their parenting is being judged) when teachers evaluate their child's performance in school.

***Separating yourself out (as a parent) from what your kids are doing can be a difficult but very important task for parents to accomplish.

S-My mom and I are in a trusting relationship. She doesn't butt into my homework unless I ask her to. Parents have to trust the kid to create their own work. I don't know what you do about kids who never ask for help.

***Learning Theory: Example- Value of creative spelling. The important point is that any correction should be done constructively versus critically. The style in which the help is offered is very important.

S-Spelling and grammar needs to be corrected early on so students can learn correct way. Otherwise the learning doesn't happen. My spelling errors weren't corrected when I was younger and now I am the worst speller I know.

St-I hate grading work, that is putting a number on a students work-esp. when I realize they may not bother to read my written comments. I want students to know that a grade they receive is not about them as a person-it's about how well they know the material and how well they did the work on that one day for that 45 minutes they were taking the test. The grade is not about them as a human being, it's about one topic on one day.

S-It is more than that. If you add up all of the grades you receive and you get a "D" on a test it can adversely and severely affect you transcript so it is more than just a small slice of your time at school or just one moment in time.

S-Some students feel the teacher doesn't like them-maybe because the teacher talks to other students and not to them. Then the grade the student receives is interpreted by the student as evidence that the teacher doesn't like them-that's when the grade does feel like it's about who you as a person and not about how well you performed on one test, at one moment in time.

St-Do parents and students feel they can ask these questions: Why was this assignment given? and Is this too much work?

***Students possibly feel more comfortable asking these questions. Parents may not want to take this on since students are in high school and it may feel like parental intrusion.

P-Just make the call to the teacher when the student isn't home.

St-I ask students, that is, I frequently check in with my students on homework and ask if the assignments are too long. When I don't ask I get frequent feedback.

P-Do students feel comfortable admitting they find the homework too long and/or too hard.

S-I recall students saying the homework was too long or too hard, and I recall students saying the homework was too easy but I NEVER recall students saying that the homework was just right and I learned a lot!

S-Students will "bitch and moan" in first 5 minutes of class-teachers know if homework is too hard and too long. They just need to listen to the first 5 minutes of class.

S-If you have a different opinion from other people you don't like to let that out unless you are sure you are not the only one who feels that way.So I don't say how I feel first, I let other people talk.

***Challenge as a teacher is that every assignment affects individual students differently.

S-In math we as students try to convey what works best for us as far as homework.

St-I have had parents come to me and say "My child is not getting enough homework". But lifestyles have changed since these parents were in school.

A special Thank You to all of the students, staff and parents who contributed to the evening's success by sharing their thoughts, experiences and perspectives. We hope the comments collected here will encourage you to keep talking about homework issues with the students, parents and/or staff members in your life. Please feel free to pass this on to others who may be interested in this topic.

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