Latest / Raising Daughters / Is It Time to Abolish Homework?

Transcript

Is It Time to Abolish Homework? · Raising Daughters

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to Raising Daughters, the podcast that helps parents learn
0:08
Speaker 1: the best ways to support their daughters as they navigate
0:11
Speaker 1: the high levels of stress, anxiety, pressure, and uncertainties so
0:14
Speaker 1: pervasive in our culture today. Doctor Tim Jordan is a
0:17
Speaker 1: developmental and behavioral pediatrician who has specialized in counseling girls
0:21
Speaker 1: for over thirty years and shed's light on the realities
0:24
Speaker 1: of today's young women in all facets of their lives.
0:27
Speaker 1: This is your opportunity to learn how to better support
0:30
Speaker 1: your daughters, making them feel safe, secure, and truly loved
0:34
Speaker 1: in the midst of life's ups and downs. Here is
0:36
Speaker 1: your host, Doctor Tim.
0:48
Speaker 2: Welcome back friends, Doctor Tim Jordan here. And I'm going
0:53
Speaker 2: to pose a question today and then try and answer it.
0:57
Speaker 2: And the question is this homework really work? Because I
1:03
Speaker 2: see so many girls in my counseling practice and my
1:05
Speaker 2: retreats and things that are so stressed out because of
1:08
Speaker 2: their homework. They're stressed out about a lot of things,
1:11
Speaker 2: but homework is one of the things towards the top
1:13
Speaker 2: of the list. And it's a complex issue, if you will.
1:17
Speaker 2: And but I also think we need to be careful
1:19
Speaker 2: about what questions we're asking because if you say it
1:23
Speaker 2: does homework work? What do you mean by work? Does
1:27
Speaker 2: it help kids get better grades? Does it help kids
1:30
Speaker 2: retain their knowledge? Or the other tac to look at
1:34
Speaker 2: is does it help with they're learning? God forbid, we'd
1:37
Speaker 2: be more concerned about what they're actually learning versus their
1:41
Speaker 2: grades and test scores and those kinds of things. And
1:44
Speaker 2: our thoughts about homework have shifted a lot over the
1:47
Speaker 2: last century. If you go back in time, between nineteen
1:51
Speaker 2: hundred and nineteen fifty, mental health experts pedatricians, they used
1:56
Speaker 2: to say the homework posed a threat to the emotional
1:59
Speaker 2: and mental health of kids. It was a health risk,
2:02
Speaker 2: if you will, because homework deprived kids of a lot
2:06
Speaker 2: more important things and a lot more important elements of
2:09
Speaker 2: their childhood and especially play. Something that I have said
2:14
Speaker 2: before in this podcast, and I believe wholeheartedly that our
2:18
Speaker 2: kids don't have much time for quiet time. They don't
2:20
Speaker 2: have much time to just play. In nineteen fifties, things shifted.
2:29
Speaker 2: Sputnik that Russian satellite went over the US in nineteen
2:34
Speaker 2: fifty seven, and immediately the cultural mantra became, oh my god,
2:39
Speaker 2: we're behind the Russians, and so that our country became
2:43
Speaker 2: obsessed with math and science, and with that became obsessions
2:48
Speaker 2: with more homework. By nineteen sixties, homework was seen as
2:53
Speaker 2: the primary means of increasing academic achievement. Another report came
2:58
Speaker 2: out in eight nineteen eighty three. It was called the
3:02
Speaker 2: Nation at Risk Report, and there were some troubles in
3:05
Speaker 2: the US economy, and it was said in this report
3:08
Speaker 2: that it was due to inadequate schooling and lazy students,
3:13
Speaker 2: and therefore we needed a push to get tough on homework,
3:16
Speaker 2: to have more homework. The nineteen nineties brought global trade wars,
3:23
Speaker 2: politicians warning Congress to mandate more homework. Businesses increased parents
3:28
Speaker 2: work hours, everybody was more busy. In the nineteen ninety
3:32
Speaker 2: four State of the Union address by President Bill Clinton,
3:35
Speaker 2: he even said in his Safe Union Address he wanted
3:37
Speaker 2: to encourage parents to help their kids more with their homework.
3:40
Speaker 2: That's how much it was on our minds. So that
3:44
Speaker 2: mantra our kids are behind other countries. That's been present
3:50
Speaker 2: for a while now, and the education could be improved
3:54
Speaker 2: if there was more of it. More time in school,
3:58
Speaker 2: more time doing homework, more testing, less recess teaching for
4:03
Speaker 2: the test taking, more responsibility for motivating kids with their education.
4:12
Speaker 2: If you look at the research about why kids fail
4:14
Speaker 2: to do homework, oftentimes the most important reason is not
4:18
Speaker 2: enough time, especially in this day and age when kids
4:21
Speaker 2: are so scheduled, and I've talked about that in previous podcasts,
4:25
Speaker 2: So go back to those. I'll try and find a
4:26
Speaker 2: link to put in my show notes. Kids also say
4:31
Speaker 2: that homework is boring, doesn't seem very meaningful. They say
4:35
Speaker 2: it's actually meaningless a lot of times too. In this
4:38
Speaker 2: day and age, it seems like it becomes more complex
4:41
Speaker 2: for parents to be able to help, especially in things
4:42
Speaker 2: like math and science, and those same parents oftentimes they're
4:47
Speaker 2: too busy to help because they're working, they're working more hours,
4:52
Speaker 2: they're working at home. Homework ends up taking longer because
4:57
Speaker 2: kids are tired. They're doing it later in the evening
4:59
Speaker 2: because I don't get home from their activities sometimes un
5:02
Speaker 2: till eight, nine, nine thirty at night. They're up too
5:05
Speaker 2: late to become sleep deprive deprived. And oftentimes today they
5:09
Speaker 2: are not just doing their homework, they're multitasking, which I
5:12
Speaker 2: have also talked about in previous podcasts, and how that
5:15
Speaker 2: causes things to take much longer, with more mistakes. There's
5:24
Speaker 2: been a lot of research in the last fifty plus
5:27
Speaker 2: years about the effectiveness of homework, and most of the
5:30
Speaker 2: studies that I have read, and also I've read several
5:33
Speaker 2: books just on this topic, most of them said there's
5:37
Speaker 2: no good evidence that homework produces better academic achievement. I
5:42
Speaker 2: saw I studied that was done in nineteen eighty nine.
5:45
Speaker 2: It was a summary of forty eight studies on homework,
5:48
Speaker 2: and their conclusion was a homework account for less than
5:50
Speaker 2: four percent of the differences in students' test scores. A
5:57
Speaker 2: more recent study discovered that the extent of that time
6:00
Speaker 2: commitment doing homework was not associated with higher or lower
6:03
Speaker 2: scores of any achievement test. By contrast, the amount of
6:08
Speaker 2: time kids spent reading for pleasure that was strongly correlated
6:12
Speaker 2: with higher scores. At best, Most homework studies show only
6:17
Speaker 2: an association with achievement, not a causal relationship, because a
6:24
Speaker 2: lot of times teachers who assign more homework to students,
6:28
Speaker 2: they do it more so with students who are already
6:30
Speaker 2: achieving better. And it's also that better students simply spend
6:34
Speaker 2: more time at home on their home on their home study.
6:38
Speaker 2: It's also this part this variable being born into a
6:43
Speaker 2: more affluent and highly educated family that is oftentimes associated
6:48
Speaker 2: with getting higher test scores and with doing more homework.
6:53
Speaker 2: Other possible influences on learning, such as the quality of instruction, motivation,
6:58
Speaker 2: which classes students took, but all of these kinds of
7:01
Speaker 2: variables were all entered into the equation about does homework help.
7:05
Speaker 2: The result is oftentimes puzzling and surprising, because most of
7:09
Speaker 2: the studies find with all of those things, all those
7:12
Speaker 2: variables entered in that homework no longer had much meaningful
7:16
Speaker 2: effect on achievement at all. There's also the question of
7:21
Speaker 2: do we really know how much homework the kids are doing.
7:25
Speaker 2: Recent studies in which the time kids spent on homework
7:27
Speaker 2: that was reported by students that was then compared with
7:31
Speaker 2: studies in which the ESPET was provided by their parents,
7:34
Speaker 2: the results were oftentimes different. The correlation between homework and
7:38
Speaker 2: achievement completely disappeared when the parents' estimates of how much
7:42
Speaker 2: time their kids were studying was used. There's a lot
7:47
Speaker 2: of the research has shown that there's lots of weaknesses.
7:49
Speaker 2: In most of the studies, there's been over dependence on
7:53
Speaker 2: self report as the predominant method of data collection and
7:57
Speaker 2: so that correlates. That causes a problem with the correlation. Also,
8:03
Speaker 2: a lot of homework studies confuse grades and test scores
8:07
Speaker 2: with actual learning, oftentimes the achievement that's measured by scores
8:20
Speaker 2: on tests and that are designed by teachers, grades that
8:23
Speaker 2: given by teachers scores on standardized exams. They don't take
8:28
Speaker 2: into account the destructive effects that grades have on students
8:32
Speaker 2: interest in learning, their depth of understanding, their preferences for
8:38
Speaker 2: challenging tests. Becomes too much about the grade and less
8:41
Speaker 2: about the process. There was a big study done in
8:48
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight by Cooper and his colleagues with both
8:52
Speaker 2: younger and older students anywhere from age grades two through twelve.
8:57
Speaker 2: With the younger students, the effect on rates of the
9:00
Speaker 2: amount of homework assigned showed no significant relationship, and with
9:05
Speaker 2: older students it was minimal. Plus, standardized tests are a
9:10
Speaker 2: very poor measure of intellectual proficiency, but they are good
9:16
Speaker 2: indicators of two other things. The first one is a fluence.
9:21
Speaker 2: Up to ninety percent of the differences and scores among
9:24
Speaker 2: schools and communities and even states can be accounted for
9:28
Speaker 2: without knowing anything about what happened inside the classroom. All
9:32
Speaker 2: you needed to know was some facts about the average
9:34
Speaker 2: income and education level of the student's parents, and we've
9:39
Speaker 2: known that for a long time. The second phenomenon that
9:42
Speaker 2: standardized tests measure is how skillful a particular a group
9:46
Speaker 2: of students is that taking standardized tests, and how much
9:50
Speaker 2: class time has been given over over to preparing them
9:52
Speaker 2: to do just that, you know, teaching them how to
9:55
Speaker 2: take tests, teaching for the test, which doesn't give you
10:01
Speaker 2: much medical information about the quality of the students thinking,
10:05
Speaker 2: or even about the quality of the school. There are
10:09
Speaker 2: no studies that I saw that even address the question
10:13
Speaker 2: of whether homework enhances the depth of students understanding of
10:15
Speaker 2: ideas or their passion for learning. We don't study that,
10:20
Speaker 2: but isn't that important. Homework appears to work better quote
10:25
Speaker 2: unquote when the assignments involved wrote learning and repetition rather
10:30
Speaker 2: than really real thinking. If research has told us anything
10:36
Speaker 2: about homework is that even when achievement gains have been found,
10:40
Speaker 2: they've been minimal, especially in comparison to the amount of
10:44
Speaker 2: work expanded by teachers and students and oftentimes parents. After
10:51
Speaker 2: decades of research on the topic of homework, there's no
10:55
Speaker 2: overall positive correlation between homework and achievement by any measure
10:59
Speaker 2: for students before middle school or even in many cases
11:02
Speaker 2: before high school. In high school, they oftentimes find a
11:08
Speaker 2: small difference in the learning, But again, what do they
11:12
Speaker 2: mean by learning. I also saw some studies that showed that,
11:25
Speaker 2: you know, the kind of homework that kids get is
11:27
Speaker 2: really important. If it's just mandatory, reflexive homework policies created
11:32
Speaker 2: at a school district level, then a lot of that
11:34
Speaker 2: ends up being busy work, and students feel like it's
11:37
Speaker 2: a waste of their time. And oftentimes by middle school
11:41
Speaker 2: that low quality homework of that kind begins to take
11:44
Speaker 2: its toll on student's motivation. But research has shown that
11:49
Speaker 2: when it's thoughtful and well designed and probably a little
11:52
Speaker 2: bit less frequent, that take home work can deliver some
11:55
Speaker 2: good outcomes. There's a twenty twenty four study of nearly
12:00
Speaker 2: one thousand and fifth and sixth grade students, and the
12:04
Speaker 2: researchers found that high quality homework, which I'll describe in
12:07
Speaker 2: a moment, high quality homework that asked students to extend
12:11
Speaker 2: their thinking rather than just repeat what they got covered
12:14
Speaker 2: in class, that led to better emotional and behavioral engagement.
12:18
Speaker 2: Compared with the normal wrote homework tests. In the study,
12:23
Speaker 2: teachers assigned homework that was more elaborate, more worthwhile for
12:26
Speaker 2: students to complete, things like preparing a mini lesson on
12:30
Speaker 2: the topic to present to the class. There's something really
12:33
Speaker 2: valuable about teaching what you learned. I remember hearing about
12:37
Speaker 2: that from Stephen Cuvey, the author of the Seven Half
12:39
Speaker 2: was of high effective People years ago. At the end
12:43
Speaker 2: of the school week, his kids were all and he
12:46
Speaker 2: had a lot of kids. By the way, his kids
12:48
Speaker 2: were all all had to sit down on Fridays and
12:50
Speaker 2: they had to teach their parents what they learned that week.
12:53
Speaker 2: That's a great way to measure whether not kids are learning.
13:00
Speaker 2: Also had students do things like researching a topic and
13:03
Speaker 2: then having a debate in school. Those kinds of things
13:08
Speaker 2: created more interest in the students. They felt more important,
13:12
Speaker 2: it was more applicable to real life. So I think
13:17
Speaker 2: it depends upon the kind of homework. There's also been
13:25
Speaker 2: some recent research that reveal that excessive homework also just
13:28
Speaker 2: places activities that can support healthy development, things like sleep,
13:34
Speaker 2: family time, having hobbies, time with your friends, down time,
13:39
Speaker 2: being bored, and having time for creativity. All those kinds
13:43
Speaker 2: of things significantly increase unhealthy stress levels if they don't
13:48
Speaker 2: have those and all that takes its toll on students
13:51
Speaker 2: engagement and their mental health. So if they don't have
13:54
Speaker 2: things like hobbies and sleep and family time, their mental
13:57
Speaker 2: health decreases. Also, remember that not all students have equal
14:03
Speaker 2: access to the tools that you need to complete homework assignments,
14:07
Speaker 2: especially since things have gone so much online. There's some
14:11
Speaker 2: kids whose neighborhoods don't have Wi Fi, their families don't
14:14
Speaker 2: have homework computers, and it's different when you don't have
14:18
Speaker 2: those sorts of tools. Homework and the workload around homework
14:24
Speaker 2: rank high on stress charts, so when kids are evaluated
14:27
Speaker 2: for why they're so stressed, some of the things that
14:30
Speaker 2: pop up at the top of the list are things
14:32
Speaker 2: like being sleep deprived, not having down time, no time
14:37
Speaker 2: for borderm and creativity, and homework. There's a twenty twenty
14:43
Speaker 2: five Challenge Success survey of more than twenty eight thousand students.
14:47
Speaker 2: Homework and overall workloaders ranked as one of the top
14:50
Speaker 2: sources of stress for middle and high school students, surpassing
14:54
Speaker 2: a dozen other sources that include things like time management, sleep,
14:59
Speaker 2: worries about the future, So it can become a big
15:03
Speaker 2: stressor for kids, especially as they get into middle, high
15:06
Speaker 2: school and later when they have these ap classes and
15:09
Speaker 2: things who put more homework assignments on them longer, harder,
15:13
Speaker 2: and as they get older they have more time with
15:15
Speaker 2: their activities. If they're on us on a club team,
15:18
Speaker 2: they have such such little time to do homework until
15:21
Speaker 2: you know, until the evening or the late evening. So
15:27
Speaker 2: I saw I saw some research that also showed that
15:33
Speaker 2: or they also suggested that in high school, the school
15:37
Speaker 2: related activity should never take up more than forty hours
15:39
Speaker 2: a week. That includes time in school time doing homework
15:45
Speaker 2: and even you know, like school sports. Forty hours a
15:49
Speaker 2: week is you know, the standard for like an adult job,
15:52
Speaker 2: if you will. A lot of kids spend a lot
15:54
Speaker 2: more time than that when they have you know, two
15:56
Speaker 2: three hours of homework every night. It adds up pretty quick.
16:02
Speaker 2: So what can we do? What are some solutions to this?
16:05
Speaker 2: One of them is we need to step back, and
16:07
Speaker 2: the school districts need to step back, and parents need
16:09
Speaker 2: to step back and look at is this really helping
16:12
Speaker 2: and working? And we need to redefine what working means.
16:16
Speaker 2: Is it really helping kids learn better and learn deeper. Schools,
16:22
Speaker 2: for instance, could use the last hour of their school
16:24
Speaker 2: day for in school homework, doing reviewing, answering questions. We
16:31
Speaker 2: also need to recognize the inequalities in our culture. There
16:35
Speaker 2: are kids without computers that they're in their homes. There
16:38
Speaker 2: are kids whose parents work in the evening so they're
16:40
Speaker 2: not there to help help out. There's less books in
16:43
Speaker 2: the home. If we didn't pour on homework, it would
16:49
Speaker 2: allow more free time at home for parents and kids
16:53
Speaker 2: to develop their own priorities for how their family lived,
16:55
Speaker 2: for their family life. Parents would take more control over
16:59
Speaker 2: their own life lives and their family life. God allow
17:04
Speaker 2: parents more free time at home to develop their own
17:07
Speaker 2: priorities right. It also would give kids more freedom to
17:11
Speaker 2: structure their own time and explore their own interests. And
17:14
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about scrolling on social media sites and
17:17
Speaker 2: you can discipline that. I've told you before that my
17:22
Speaker 2: son TJ. Was bored with school and he was early
17:27
Speaker 2: like I think it was maybe freshman sophomore in high school,
17:30
Speaker 2: and so on his own he picked up a guitar
17:33
Speaker 2: that was my wife's from when she grew up. He
17:35
Speaker 2: downloaded tabs, he downloaded music, he downloaded YouTube videos and
17:39
Speaker 2: he taught himself to play guitar. And that kind of autonomy,
17:45
Speaker 2: that kind of disciplined that took for him to teach
17:47
Speaker 2: himself and learn himself that can be translated to everything
17:52
Speaker 2: in his life, and it was his thing. I always
17:58
Speaker 2: say in these podcasts, when you see kids do things
18:00
Speaker 2: like that under their own initiative and working hard and
18:03
Speaker 2: staying with it, that that, to me is a kid
18:06
Speaker 2: who's going to do well in life. I also think
18:11
Speaker 2: the school involves what seems to kids like useless, meaningless
18:15
Speaker 2: work with phony rewards. Right, grades are kind of phony rewards.
18:21
Speaker 2: It's like a one size fit all model. I always
18:25
Speaker 2: think in the end that everything that kids produce in
18:28
Speaker 2: school ends up in a trash can. And that's really cynical,
18:34
Speaker 2: but it's kind of true. Right, maybe they have a
18:37
Speaker 2: painting or something, Okay, i'll give you that, or a
18:39
Speaker 2: sculpture or something, but all that paperwork, all that busy work,
18:43
Speaker 2: it's in a trash can. I think we need to
18:46
Speaker 2: remember that it may not be as meaningful as we
18:48
Speaker 2: make it out to be. I think we need to
18:51
Speaker 2: challenge our beliefs about competition in school and the reward
18:56
Speaker 2: punishment model that's used. There's so much rewarding in school
18:59
Speaker 2: for behavior, it's so externally motivating. We need to challenge
19:04
Speaker 2: our beliefs about motivation. I've talked about that in previous podcasts.
19:08
Speaker 2: We need to also challenge our beliefs about what comprises
19:12
Speaker 2: a quote unquote good education and what we mean about
19:17
Speaker 2: things like homework does it really help? And get clear
19:20
Speaker 2: about what are we trying for it to help? What's important.
19:25
Speaker 2: I love it when I hear kids that I work
19:27
Speaker 2: with talk about independent study projects that they get to
19:30
Speaker 2: choose and work on community service apprenticeships. I always encourage
19:38
Speaker 2: young people to meet with adults and people of all
19:40
Speaker 2: ages out in the real world of work and ask
19:42
Speaker 2: some questions about their lives and how they got to
19:46
Speaker 2: where they are and advice about what do you think
19:49
Speaker 2: I should do, what kind of studying, what kind of
19:51
Speaker 2: experience do I need to be successful out in the
19:55
Speaker 2: real world. I was talking to a girl less Spring,
20:01
Speaker 2: and she's in an all girl high school and in
20:04
Speaker 2: her school, seniors get to do service projects for I
20:07
Speaker 2: think like six weeks or eight weeks in their senior year,
20:11
Speaker 2: but they do them like in the middle of the year,
20:15
Speaker 2: and I said, wouldn't it be more beneficial for them
20:18
Speaker 2: to do it the last two months of school when
20:20
Speaker 2: they're burned out, they're totally not there, they've already gotten
20:23
Speaker 2: accepted into college, and they probably put more into it
20:27
Speaker 2: because women be worrying about tests and things coming up.
20:31
Speaker 2: But I think those kinds of things are valuable, invaluable.
20:35
Speaker 2: I think it'd be also valuable for our daughters and
20:38
Speaker 2: sons to study how great men and women educated themselves.
20:44
Speaker 2: I've read and I think it's pretty true that most
20:46
Speaker 2: of our greatest inventions were not discovered in a university,
20:50
Speaker 2: in a school laboratory. Most of them end up being
20:53
Speaker 2: being created and discovered in people's basements. Think about Edison,
20:59
Speaker 2: think about car, Think about Benjamin Franklin, think about Steve Jobs.
21:04
Speaker 2: You can go on on on. Oftentimes it's people doing
21:07
Speaker 2: independent things. It wasn't about them doing homework and they
21:10
Speaker 2: sully discovered electricity. It was when they were on their
21:12
Speaker 2: own pursuing their own intellectual passions. I think we could
21:20
Speaker 2: use the elderly as teachers, people who have had years
21:23
Speaker 2: of experience to reflect on. But what they've seen and
21:26
Speaker 2: what they've experienced, and what really matters. I think the
21:30
Speaker 2: elderly would be really patient at giving our kids some
21:34
Speaker 2: feedback and give them some different ways of looking at things.
21:38
Speaker 2: Our kids need time for boredom and daydreaming, to follow
21:42
Speaker 2: their interests, in their passions, to question things and to
21:46
Speaker 2: look for the answers. They need solitude. They need balance,
21:51
Speaker 2: and a lot of kids that I work with feel
21:53
Speaker 2: out of balance because of all the activities, all the pressures,
21:57
Speaker 2: all the worries about their future. I think we also
22:01
Speaker 2: need to create a lot more alternative choices for kids
22:04
Speaker 2: after high school. We so overvalue college in this culture,
22:10
Speaker 2: and some kids just aren't meant for college. And it's okay.
22:13
Speaker 2: There are so many jobs out in the real world
22:16
Speaker 2: that are important and valuable and pay well that are
22:20
Speaker 2: not about college, and they're in great need carpenters and
22:24
Speaker 2: plumbers and things of that sort. I also think that
22:28
Speaker 2: we should focus a lot on just daily at home reading.
22:33
Speaker 2: Studies have shown the effectiveness of that with kids and
22:36
Speaker 2: their intellectual development. That kind of daily at home reading
22:41
Speaker 2: can deliver meaningful, long lasting benefits to literacy. It's something
22:47
Speaker 2: you can also do together with your kids. I used
22:50
Speaker 2: to read to my kids a lot when they were
22:52
Speaker 2: growing up. I got a lot of the classic books.
22:55
Speaker 2: My daughter liked them a lot. We would read books
22:58
Speaker 2: like Robinson Caruso and Mary Poppins and that those uh
23:05
Speaker 2: what was the five Little Somethings that I can't remember
23:08
Speaker 2: all the books we read, but Tom Sawyer huck Finn
23:11
Speaker 2: we read those classics, and it was first of all
23:14
Speaker 2: was time together. But also that that kind of listening
23:18
Speaker 2: to reading together is invaluable for kids in their intellectual development. Also,
23:25
Speaker 2: don't go to Loane. I think most parents get frustrated
23:28
Speaker 2: with how much homework their kids have and how little
23:31
Speaker 2: time they have, and how stressed out there their daughters are.
23:36
Speaker 2: So meet with other parents at school, get involved, create
23:39
Speaker 2: a plan to go to the principal, go to the
23:41
Speaker 2: school board, work with the school about let's create a
23:44
Speaker 2: different kind of policy where our kids are going to
23:47
Speaker 2: get some benefit with anything they have to do at home.
23:49
Speaker 2: But let's be more mindful of bond so we're just
23:51
Speaker 2: not knee jerking assignments because that's what we've always done.
23:56
Speaker 2: So I would encourage you to get involved. I also
24:02
Speaker 2: think that I think that homework is just a part
24:06
Speaker 2: of an overall lack of being out of balance in
24:10
Speaker 2: our culture. I've talked before in my podcast about how
24:14
Speaker 2: we're all so desperately trying to keep up with the
24:17
Speaker 2: Joneses' children. We're not keeping up with the Joneses anymore
24:20
Speaker 2: because they have a refrigerator or a new car. We're
24:23
Speaker 2: keeping up with their children who are seemingly getting farther
24:27
Speaker 2: ahead than our kids because they're getting a tutor, or
24:29
Speaker 2: they're getting an enrichment class, or they're getting a softball
24:32
Speaker 2: coach or something. We need to step back from that
24:37
Speaker 2: and see that as part of the problem. This over
24:40
Speaker 2: emphasis on club sports and winning and being the best,
24:44
Speaker 2: this over emphasis on overvaluing grades and test scores and
24:50
Speaker 2: getting into a top college and the big picture of life.
24:53
Speaker 2: Those things are not that important. Good grades in high school.
25:00
Speaker 2: We'll give you more choices for college if you're going
25:03
Speaker 2: to college. That's true, But that doesn't mean that we
25:07
Speaker 2: should overemphasize top colleges because there's a lot of research,
25:10
Speaker 2: which I've talked about in previous podcasts, which shows that
25:13
Speaker 2: it doesn't really matter where you go to college. It
25:15
Speaker 2: matters why you're going, and it matters how you go.
25:21
Speaker 2: We've also got this lack of balance when it comes
25:23
Speaker 2: to competition and who's the busiest and who's the most stressed,
25:28
Speaker 2: and who's getting the least amount of sleep. Kids are
25:30
Speaker 2: constantly comparing that to each other. It's a competition. I
25:34
Speaker 2: think we need to become aware of that and step
25:37
Speaker 2: back from that and say is that really in our
25:39
Speaker 2: best interests? So get involved, step back. We need to
25:45
Speaker 2: rethink this whole thing about homework, and we need to
25:47
Speaker 2: look at the studies to show that it really isn't
25:49
Speaker 2: that valuable. There's some value in high school if I
25:52
Speaker 2: think how they do the homework, what the homework is about,
25:55
Speaker 2: is really important. It's not just a busy work kind
25:58
Speaker 2: of thing. I think if we can do that, we
26:02
Speaker 2: might be more mindful of it. Also free up more
26:05
Speaker 2: time at home for us to have time together half
26:08
Speaker 2: family time to read books and to take walks and
26:12
Speaker 2: to take hikes and develop their own interest and their
26:14
Speaker 2: own hobbies and their own passions. All that is so
26:17
Speaker 2: important for their long term development. I will have a
26:23
Speaker 2: couple of books listed in my show notes. One of
26:27
Speaker 2: my favorites is a book called The Homework Myth Why
26:32
Speaker 2: Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing by
26:34
Speaker 2: Alfie Cohne Kohn. I read a book an article called
26:41
Speaker 2: The Pros and cons of Homework. Also, there's another book
26:45
Speaker 2: called The End of Homework, How Homework disrupts families, overburdens children,
26:49
Speaker 2: and limits learning. I read that book several years ago.
26:51
Speaker 2: And this one other book I'll put in the show notes.
26:53
Speaker 2: It's called The Game of School, Why we all play it,
26:57
Speaker 2: How it hurts kids, and what will take what it
27:00
Speaker 2: will take to change it? By Robert Freed. Again, I'll
27:03
Speaker 2: have all those in my show notes, and they're all
27:05
Speaker 2: great reads, and it will give you more of a
27:07
Speaker 2: background about me. What is this whole issue about, and therefore,
27:10
Speaker 2: what is my stance as I'm parenting my children. I
27:15
Speaker 2: appreciate you stopping by here every week. I always appreciate
27:18
Speaker 2: you passing the zone to other people. Contact me at
27:21
Speaker 2: my website and a n n E at Dr Tim
27:26
Speaker 2: Jordan dot com. If you have questions, if you have
27:29
Speaker 2: concerns about the podcast, if you have IDAs about future podcasts,
27:32
Speaker 2: I would love to hear those. I'm always looking for
27:35
Speaker 2: new things to talk about, especially if it's something that's
27:38
Speaker 2: on parents' minds. Also, all my resources are there, all
27:42
Speaker 2: the books I've written. And all the podcasts that I've done.
27:46
Speaker 2: There's three hundred and fifty ish of them, as well
27:49
Speaker 2: as some other things as well as our camps and
27:50
Speaker 2: weekend retreats. All those things are on that website at
27:53
Speaker 2: Dr Tim Jordan dot com. I will be back here
27:56
Speaker 2: in one week with a brand new topic for you.
27:59
Speaker 2: Thank you again for starving by.
28:07
Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Raising Daughters.
28:11
Speaker 1: Hopefully you've learned something useful about girls and young women
28:14
Speaker 1: and how to help them navigate the pressures, challenges and
28:17
Speaker 1: opportunities of modern life. If you want to become a
28:19
Speaker 1: more effective parent, keep listening to the show at doctor
28:23
Speaker 1: Tim Jordan dot com and let the conversations shape you.
28:26
Speaker 1: Build that one of a kind connection with your daughters
28:29
Speaker 1: in the most profound and meaningful ways possible, shaping them
28:32
Speaker 1: into strong, confident women of the future. That's all for now,
28:36
Speaker 1: see you next week for another episode of Raising Daughters.