Homework

I swim in the morning before work – partially to maintain some charade of fitness but also to do some of my best thinking. Grinding through an empty pool this morning I found myself pulled back to a deep conversation we had yesterday at the Administrative table about homework. Recently, a parent approached us to compliment the work of Jaye Singleton in the Middle School in running an exercise to help Middle School parents understand the complexity of the homework conundrum. This parent thought we might be smart to roll out such a conversation and event to the entire community.

In the aftermath of announcing Curriculum 2020, I think it is fair to say that we have community wide agreement that too much homework is a bad thing. In particular, a model in our Upper School that fundamentally depends on taking six full academic courses expecting at least 45 minutes a night in untenable. To be honest, that may be where the agreement ends. It is important to see the complexities here – that we occasionally have students who feel under-challenged by homework (usually somewhere in the spectrum of PK-6), and we have a fair number of students who feel overwhelmed by homework at Berwick (usually grades 7-12). Presumably we have many in the “just right” category as well. Parents have a range of reactions as to how much work should be done at home, and kids exhibit a range of choices as to how to use free time when they have it.

I wanted people to know that we are working on revamping our philosophical stance on homework as we speak – think of it as a needed appendix to Curriculum 2020. The nature of changes unfolding in our curriculum demands this appendix. It is also quite likely in the next few years that we will need to move to a schedule that allows for fewer transitions and longer teaching periods, which will by definition shift homework flow for our students.  Parents should feel confident that we hope to preserve the health and well being of our students throughout this process and yet we have no desire to become a “homework free” school.  Quite the opposite: we hope to offer the best homework in the industry. As with most things in education, balance will be the key.

I can say that, as a Lower School parent, homework at Berwick is working for my children at the moment – which really means my fourth and second grader at this point. While they are different personalities, they look forward to accomplishing their work independently without help from their parents. They see the value of practice, and their experience has clearly been augmented by adaptive technology in Math – challenging them at a level that is right for them. They cherish their time to read independently before they go to sleep each night. Additionally, we see examples of “extensions,” where kids can opt to do more challenging work if they meet the expectation.

But somewhere in the PK-12 spectrum this dynamic will inevitably shift, where homework production becomes necessary to have any kind of positive experience in the classroom. It seemingly becomes harder to give kids flexibility in doing more work on a night when they have more time and less work on days when they have outside activities. Choice seems to diminish, and students dig in and start producing. There are elements of this resiliency that are so valuable, and yet we know it can come at a debilitating cost if not monitored closely.

Without a doubt, homework demands a different approach based on developmental age at a PK-12 school. That said, we are seeking a more idealistic goal as to what we want homework to achieve at this school in the future. Like Curriculum 2020, we will view it more as a goal in the distance that we are working towards rather than an overly simplistic “new homework policy.” Stay tuned to hear more – I expect it will require a few more trips to the pool on my part.