There was a time in my life when I would have been opposed on principle to the sentiments expressed in this article. The author talks about how schooling has become a way of destroying childhood. I used to scoff at articles like this.
But no more. I see my grandson come home with the results of his spelling test. He has math homework. He is only in first grade. He goes to a wonderful public school in Brooklyn. He seems too young for the pressure. What’s the rush? He’s now doing what children in second or third grade used to do. Is this necessary? I wonder if the pressure will get stronger every year. I wonder. I wonder if schooling has changed or I have changed. Or maybe both.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is mostly rhetorical but, yes, schooling is a way of destroying childhood. It always has been. Childhood ends, that’s what schooling does, usher in the next stage. The spelling tests in first grade thing is a much narrower policy change. It’s either a good or a bad thing, but it’s not a problem because it “destroys childhood”; spelling tests, like little league and snack time, are part of childhood.
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One thing my school discourages is assigning homework on a Friday (I know, unbelievable huh?) Sure, teachers have the discretion to do so; however, I like to organize my assignments such that students who make good use of their time are able to complete the work in class and avoid homework overload. Also, if my students (usually my upperclassmen) tell me that they have two assignments due on the same day as one of mine, I will negotiate and reset the due date. This makes my students feel heard and empowered, and it prompts them to complete my work out of gratitude, a motivator to improved quality.
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Nice effort but you are part of the system that “destroys childhood” and you alone can’t do much for our children.
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Have a nice day. 🙂
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You know, Vesna, you’re wrong. I’ll tell you how I know that my actions “alone” are having an impact:
The “reformer” superintendent of my state monitors this website to follow my responses so that he can anticipate the “damage control” with which he must counter what I write. How’s that for influence?
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Mercedes, words are powerful.
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Aw. How nice for those children who make good use of their time. So the rest of the kids bring the boring worksheets home and ruin the evening for the whole family. Arg!
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I just read the article and I am even more astonished that any teacher, in the context of responding to this article, would defend the practice of sending the work that the teacher wasn’t able to get the children to complete in the classroom.
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John White,
Are you there? You are a complete failure. Resign!
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Compare with kindergarten in Scandinavia, where formal teaching and tests are absent, the consensus of opinion being that very young children should explore and engage with the world without a timetable, not least because they often develop at very different paces. The 4 year old of a friend is obsessed with Maths, yet is force fed atomised English. He hates this – he is simply not ready. The UK has Key stages to mark progress again mistakenly assuming we are all clones of each other.
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This had been truer than most believe for a long time. We have taken curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, and free communication from too many kids for too long. Since 2001 it has only gotten worse.
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The reformers have ensured that curiosity, wonder, joy of
exploring, learning at your own pace, have been replaced by a
regimented equal treatment of children with different abilities,
different backgrounds, and different needs all measured by means of
a narrow test.
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So true. I used to love teaching but now it is all rush
rush and teaching things that are not appropriate for young
children. The expectations have increased, while children still
develop as they always have. We are making kids hate school the
minute they begin.
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We’ve been destroying childhood for decades now; the trend in schooling is only the latest stage in this process. The move to a business-oriented culture, in which everything is a process that requires a “return on investment”, and the corresponding rise of “experts” who sell advice with books, lectures, and videos, has been the main driver behind this social disaster.
BTW, Diane, what do you think of John Taylor Gatto’s comments about public school? I find him over the top–I don’t believe in “unschooling”–but I also see the problems at the heart of his views.
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In my 12 years of teaching, the focus has gotten so much narrower. I worry when middle school kids can’t tap into their creativity to draw something, they need a model to trace or copy from. We are definitely causing unnecessary stress on our children. So much of their day is spent being told what to do, is it any wonder they can’t then figure out what to do when they have some time to themselves? It is not just a school problem, but a societal problem. We want our children to achieve and we overschedule them with lessons and activities. When do they have a chance to just be?
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I have had that very same experience as an art teacher, nittany89!
It’s 2013, and everything about education is going backward, instead of moving forward!
Society should be demanding that we encourage the strengths our children show, not always pointing to their weaknesses! And demanding the Arts and a full, hands on curriculum! Children learn from DOING. And being!
And there is never time to just be.
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The research shows almost no benefit to homework, especially before middle grades. Whatever slim benefits there may be, if any, are vastly outweighed by the stress on children and parents, the lack of time for other pursuits, the resultant parent-child conflict, etc. Your grandson’s parents should opt him out of homework.
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Not a treadmill, but a forced march… toward drudgery, obedience and commodification.
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Schooling has changed and teachers have no input.
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Teachers do have discretion in terms of how much homework they assign in my county. I am forever grateful to the brave soul who did not torture my family this year with a science fair project.
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I don’t. I got called into the office because I hadn’t started it yet, and then on my observation I was told it was too easy. This is first grade. Now they have an 8 page packet that covers all subjects!! Crazy. It is not up to me at all!
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I use Breakthrough to Literacy and most of my students’ homework is talking with their family members.
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Diane, school has changed. And it is not for the better. All of the young children who do not have a grandma like you and parents like your children quickly see themselves as failures and fall further behind. Depth and creativity have been traded for factoid memorization. We are raising a generation that will come to hate learning.
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Agree!
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They already do…very little curiosity, short attention spans, glazed looks. Trying to light a fire, keep up enthusiasm, give lots of choices for free reading, supplement with book talks, trailers, sharing recommendations, praising whenever possible, designing lessons related to their lives and current events based on their interests, hobbies, aspirations, but they seem weary and they are only twelve.
Treadmill or maze?
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This homework craziness for elementary students has been going on a long time. In 1st grade, my now 28 yr old, had pages and pages per day of coloring with the “correct” colors in specified spaces. Talk about killing a kid’s creativity and self expression. Indeed, “drudgery, obedience, commodification”.
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Makes me think of the conversation I had with my teacher partner about her four year old’s homework packet. Her four year old refused to do it, & kept marking the wrong answers on purpose. My friend said she was torn between being a rule follower & supporting what is developmentally appropriate. Seriously, homework packets in preschool?
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And as a 4th grade teacher, I rarely give homework except reading logs. At my elementary school I’m in the minority. I feel the pressure from my principal & team to give more homework.
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Chicago Public Schools have a formal homework policy – by fourth grade it’s over 30 minutes a day and that is after adding an hour to the school day and then another hour for the after school program. I’m not sure when they’re supposed to read for pleasure or act like children or get sufficient sleep.
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What would be the advantage of being a “rule follower”? To teach the child blind obedience? I’m on the four-year-old’s side here, and I’m pleased to hear someone with some sense. I too would deliberately fill in the wrong answer. After all, what can anyone do about it? Not let him graduate? From preschool?
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A race to what? A race to where? For the sake of the child? For the sake of the country? For the need of a “value added” global workforce? For the sorting of children
like widgets and goods? For the sake of humanity?
Really?!?!????
Competition, greed, fear of losing, on and on and on. So where is the child in all of this?!?
Diane, those of us who have grown to the respectable ages of blessed grandparenting,
but who have traveled the path of education for the sake of the children, have a right
to feel appalled at the misdirection for the sake of those same children that our government married to business have taken. It is wrong headed and abusive!!
We are a country that is better then what we are becoming. This I believe!!!
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My students really like school. There is a balance of learning and fun. We work hard, but I give them the opportunity each day to play. They are in first grade. They build, create amazing and elaborate zoos for their animals (who often take on personas), they role play with my old collection of Fisher Price people and accessories, they create, they choose computer games, they read in cozy chairs, play grocery store with a cash register……. just to name a few things. They look forward to this free time and it makes them happy about coming to school. Sometimes I’m right there down on the floor with them…………even though I’ve taught 23 years and my age is creeping up on me!
I do give a spelling test……a.pre-test on Thursday and final test on Friday (with a bonus word to improve their chance of success). I know what my students are capable of. I like to challenge them but not erode their confidence. I give a reading assignment each night Mon. through Thurs. and the books I assign are at their independent levels. I encourage parents to sit down with their child for this reading time. I don’t have parents complain about this. My kids come to me if they can’t get anyone to read with them at home. I don’t punish them for this. Sometimes it isn’t their fault. If they can’t find someone…….I will. Sometimes it’s me, sometimes a buddy, or sometimes another teacher or staff member. Some kids ask for more homework. They want to be like big brother or big sister!
If I ever have to give up this free time, I think it will be time for me to exit. I know the value of play. I know the value of building relationships with children. I don’t want to be forced to spend that thirty minutes on test prep! I don’t want to engage in activities that force them to stay in a bubble (while preparing to fill one out!)
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Your approach to teaching should be a model. Balancing work and play is so essential-at all ages. You recognize that kids need to imagine, play and grow. They also need to have fun. Yet, you also acknowledge students must be challenged. This can be done while also remembering that every student and family is different and while we want students to advance, eroding their confidence can set them back. I love how you work with the kids whose family can’t or won’t read to them. Standards don’t have to be lowered to achieve this; excellence doesn’t have to be compromised. Instead, I’d say what you’re describing is educational excellence. Thanks for sharing your story.
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OK, Diane, you have at least one grandchild I have 14. I read your blogs and get angry at a lot of the postings. I am a high school math teacher and for my 14 I want to see things change because public education is in deep trouble. My kids as all children deserve the very best this Country can offer and it is not happening. This change must come from the classroom teacher. It is why I started the Russian School of Mathematics.
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Please excuse the very long posting…
Perhaps having been a TA [first bilingual, then SpecEd] and working with so many different teachers is not a complete drawback on this blog…
🙂
I found points of agreement and delight in both the online article and in almost all the 25 comments. And some points of disagreement and dislike. Yes, among so many sharply conflicting opinions!
I am not “splitting the difference.” In my work in schools it didn’t take long for me to see that teachers—just like students and parents and administrators and support staff—are not interchangeable widgets. *No offense meant to the data-driven Impatient Optimistic Bean-Counters who take offense to the notion of human individuality.* What might work for one experienced effective teacher might not for another—I noted this in practice, and usually tried to respectfully communicate my POV to each teacher with whom I worked. However, to be honest, after establishing a good working relationship with a teacher I might [every once in a great while] hear a bit of criticism of another teacher I had worked with/was working with.
Everyone who has been in a classroom will understand that I didn’t join in because it would ruin what should be a professional relationship, not a personal one. After all, if I engaged in making critical remarks with one teacher, then people would have assumed that I did that with everyone. That undermines trust. When I did respond, it was usually to comment [here one has to be completely honest] that so-and-so seemed to find a way to make such-and-such work for her/him, or that students and parents can have different reactions to every teacher they deal with so that’s why so-and-so was able to deal with that problem when no one else in school could, and so on. That is, try [not always successfully] to focus on what we [teachers, support staff, administrators] could do as a team, not what individual staff members couldn’t.
With all due respect to many of the posters on this blog: what made a very strong impression on me was how limited were the worksite perspectives of most administrators and teachers. Lots to do, not enough time, occasional but persistent interruptions and annoyances, work to finish and deadlines to meet—not much time to be paying attention to what anyone else is doing, except as it impinges directly on what that one teacher or administrator is working on at the moment. So, for example, what seemed perfectly clear and obvious and correct to one teacher I worked with might seem quite the opposite to another.
Yet they could both get the job done. The differences, the individualized bundles of strengths and weaknesses and experience and inexperience, with every variable of background mixed in, were not—IMHO—weaknesses, but strengths if you saw the school staff as a team working together to accomplish a critical mission. Cooperation, collaboration and consensus-building are NOT overrated.
Of course, what did/do I know? I was/am just one KrazyTA.
🙂
But I end on this: schools should celebrate and draw on the unique talents and strengths of their staffs, not eliminate those differences [by eliminating effective experienced staff] through dumbed-down, one-size-fits-all, micromanaged instructional straitjackets.
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I am 60 years old and still have my Spelling notebook from first grade in which I took my Spelling tests- complete with stars and grades. This is not a new phenomena. It’s called learning about the language we speak and write.
As a former first grade teacher, I gave just a little bit of homework in reading, math, spelling each night- yes, even Fridays. Why? So students could have a little independent practice and review and parents could see what their child had learned in school each day. Math homework often consisted of one page of what we had done in class and one page of extending their thinking using the skill. Trust me, there is not much on a typical first grade practice sheet. Spelling homework might be a find-the-word puzzle that I made from the week’s words. Reading homework was most often learning sight words, at their own pace.
In all of my 20+ years of teaching first grade, no child ever left my class not knowing how to read (at his own developmental level) and parents routinely told me their kids loved to read when they left my class. Of that I am most proud and gratified.
Why am I saying all of this? I disagree with most of the awful things happening in education so-called reform today. We spent our class time learning, not testing, testing, testing and preparing for more tests. We often learned outdoors on discovery walks or pouring water into various containers to learn liquid measurement in math, or sitting out in the sun reading books, etc. We took in baby birds and squirrels that had fallen from their nests, hand-fed them, named them, read about them, learned about the value of life. We put up a snail crossing sign so peope would be careful walking on the sidewalk outside our classroom door when we had an invasion of snails one year.
We worked hard, were focused, and had fun and laughed while doing it- the students and ME! I often told my students that I was tricking them into learning while they thought they were playing. They liked that.
Nowadays, teachers would be rated ineffective if anyone dared had fun and laughed. It is so sad and a discouraging commentary on the direction our society is headed.
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What ever happened to Piaget and the stages of development. Kids are ready to learn different concepts at different times. One of our aims as teaches is to develop a love of learning, not create a human computer. We are to foster the desire to investigate and seek answers, to experiment with our environment, to see the relevance of history to the present. TEST THAT.
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Great job Robert. But, I wouldn’t want your homework on a Friday and I’d throw it straight in the trash before I took my 1st grade son out to play, or to visit a museum, or maybe even read a book together that I chose. I’m a parent and I’m an educator too. I don’t want you or any other teacher invading my family time. I really don’t think you get it. Some parents may invite you into their family time–I and many others wouldn’t. I’m sure you were a caring teacher, but your approach is not what we need. Every child is different, you are not my child’s first teacher–parent’s are, I am! Please try to understand this.
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That’s your choice and I applaud your wanting to spend quality leisure time with your child. The little bit of homework I gave didn’t take much time on 1 school night so I figured that same little bit of time spread over 3 nights and 2 days of a weekend would be negligible. It sounds to me like it’s the principle of it that bothers you. As a reading teacher and yes even a literacy expert, I would recommend letting your child choose the book to read together.
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I think my tone was a bit harsh, though my views about homework mostly remain. I think you’re right; it is the principle that bothers me, and I’m working through that. I should confess that I just had a bad day with my son’s homework–which clearly inflamed my words. After reading your whole post more carefully, it’s clear that you’re a very good and loving teacher. I love your outside activities and the snail crossing. sign. I can see that you really love your students and that you respect parents. This is what really matters. Also, thank you for your suggestions about letting children choose their books. I agree 🙂
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Also, since you’re a literacy expert, what can you tell me about the latest “word study” trend, dolch words, and the phonics and whole word approach to reading. Any recommended reading? My 6 yr. old son doesn’t seem to enjoy reading as much as he did before he started school. Thank you.
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Yes. There was a time when students may have taken IOWA tests but no one made a big deal out of the results. No hype. No days and days of drill and prep. No pep rallies to remind kids to try hard. No slogans taped to the walls. Districts didn’t spend thousands upon thousands on tests. No newsletters prepping parents. No grades for schools (A-F). It’s all crazy. When will it end?
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It will end when it’s not financially profitable OR when enough parents say STOP! The parents have the power – the say-so. It is a mess for sure.
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Mr. Tellman,
You are a breathe of fresh air. Wish my grandchildren could have a teacher like you:) Thank you!
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Thank you, and I happen to be a woman who has to disguise my identity because of where I now work.
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Yes. Many people live in fear these days. Very sad.
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:):) Ms. Tellman:):)
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“Killing Childhood”. This may well be the explanation for the almost catatonic middle schoolers who enter my classroom every year. What we do, just in case there is any life remaining, is spend the first THREE days of school reading ALOUD the entire code of conduct. Teachers are instructed by administration exactly which pages to cover during each block of the school day
As a consequence, those whose childhoods have not already been killed, are bored to death.
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I substitute in an inner city school. I ‘taught’ mostly in the kindergarten room. The students were not allowed to have recess, no play time, no stations or no fun. They were suppose to complete worksheets 6 hours a day, and master the dibels assessment. I watched another substitute, who was in retirement from a wealthier district, shake her head in disappointment. She stated kids were suppose to play, have fun, enjoy life! My days of kindergarten involved making alphabet cookies, playing in the sandbox, and singing some really fun songs. I loved my kindergarten days, because I really had fun! And, yes I learned how to read.
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Yes. I remember learning how to share, etc. It was enjoyable. What you’ve desribed is nothing but a test prep factory. They are chasing test scores instead of a well-rounded learning experience.
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