Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Curriculum Night

I just got back from "curriculum night," at my daughters' school, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The girls' main (grade 6) teacher spoke at some length about having decided to adhere as closely as possible to the Toronto District School Board's homework policy, which I reviewed in a guest post on Sara Bennett's now sadly defunct StopHomework site (see here and here). The teacher explained that his goal this year is to attempt to cover the bulk of the curriculum, especially the overstuffed math curriculum, through in-class work. To that end, he has scheduled double math periods a few times a week. He noted that according to the revised 2008 homework policy, work completed at home cannot be assigned a grade, but is reported on only in the (non-graded) learning skills section of the report card.

In the two weeks since school began I had noticed that the girls were not bringing home much homework, just the occasional math problem that they hadn't managed to finish in class. But I was surprised at the teacher's admission that this was a conscious change of practice on his part. Last spring I interviewed the principal of our school for my post about the homework policy, and she told me that she fully supports the revised policy, and that at the beginning of each year she reviews it with the teaching staff. I'm wondering if our "chat" last spring, had anything to do with the changes I'm seeing this year. If so, it gives me hope that as a parent I can effect change, even by doing something as non-confrontational as writing a blog post about a particular policy. Nonetheless, I have to give credit where credit's due. In a handout the teacher distributed to parents, he further explained his position this way: "I have a young family and believe that spending time with your own children is very important. Spending less time on homework should allow children to do more of their preferred educational activities at home." How refreshing!

4 comments:

  1. northTOmom, can I post this to the Coalition for Kid-Friendly Schools? Pretty please?

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  3. Good for you for speaking up against excessive homework. Last year I felt a little hostage to the amount of homework my son had, and that those endless worksheets got in the way of us reading "borrow-a-books" together, which was what my son really needed. I was happy to hear that his current teacher seems to embrace the official TDSB policy. He seems much happier and our evenings together are much more pleasant.

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  4. Thanks for your comment, Brandie. Last year I felt that our family was held hostage to homework as well, which prompted me to check out Sara Bennett's blog (she's the author of The Case Against Homework), which then led to my guest post there reviewing the new (2008) TDSB homework policy. As I said in my post on Sara's site, it is a good policy, but it is frequently not adhered to. If your son is young he should be receiving virtually no homework. I'm glad for you and (him!) that his new teacher is complying with the policy.

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