Momversation!
I am really excited about getting involved as a guest panelist with this site Momversation I have a lot to say about parenting, having raised 4 kids. And the biggest thing I have to say about it is that everyone has their own opinion and there are definitely many ways to the right answer…the right answer being a happy kid who knows their parents love them. I think Momversation captures that perfectly, allowing parents to have conversations on all sorts of parenting issues from homeschooling (my kids are not homeschooled) to circumcision (my son is not circumcised) to homework, which is the topic a started a conversation about.
My son just started 6th grade and he has 2 hours of a homework a night which I think is completely bananas. Whatever happened to study hall? What happened to family time? What happened to after school activities? I can tell you what happened to after school activities: when we went in for orientation this year they told us to strongly consider eliminating after school activities so that the kids could get their homework done before dinner. That’s ridiculous but in LA the school my son goes to actually assigns less homework than other schools so I feel like I don’t have much of an option outside of homeschooling which is not an option for our family.
Being subversive I still have Leo in woodworking and a fitness class after school and my ex husband often plays racketball with him in the afternoons. I guess we are just rebels 
So here is my Momversation episode about it.
Two hours in sixth grade sounds ridiculous.
I switched schools from sixth to seventh grade. My previous school, three hours was not unheard of, and most of it was typically busy work (copying definitions, etc.).
My new school I’d have 30-60 minutes max and I definitely feel like I got more out of the experience being able to do things with my own time.
Some homework, like problem solving in Math, reading literature, or writing critically (e.g., an essay) makes sense, but I never understood the homework for the sake of homework assignments like copying definitions
My granddaugther gets homework in sk. That is silly. Kids today get so much homework that they loose interest real quick. As Adults we work eight hours then come home. We do not sit down and do two or more hours of work. (besides housework etc.) Is it any wonder that they get fed up with school when they have possibly a ten hour day or longer.
Love your pictures, your beautiful. Take care.
Hi, Annie,
I completely share your feelings about homework–when my son was in fourth grade, in a highly ranked Irvine public school, he was basically working all the time. We took him out after that and moved to the Seattle area so he could attend a private school whose philosophy seemed much more in line with what we were looking for. His fifth- and sixth-grade years were wonderful–stimulating and challenging, with almost no homework; this year, in seventh grade, he has quite a bit more but so far is coping with it. I think it’s really hard to find good schools these days where the amount of homework isn’t a problem. I have several posts about this on my blog, Edupinion (http://www.edupinion.com), including five in-depth ones about what we went through in that fourth-grade year. There are also links to other sites that address the homework issue. (By the way, I was in Penn’s psych program too, though not when you were.)
Hi Annie – I too am not happy about the level of homework. It even starts in Kindergarten. And, as a two parent working household, I’m particularly bummed to have to hire a tutor to help my 2nd grader with homework. (It’s a no-win if we try and do it after dinner.) But I’m trying to practice more of what I preach to my daughter which is to stop complaining, put on our patience hat, and focus on the homework. Seems it’s in part due to low state/fed funding that shifts the burden to the parents, and it’s just the increased competitiveness worldwide. Many other countries expect much more from their educational systems, the parents and their children.
hey! is it true you had all your children at home? was it an incredible experience?
Could not agree more!!!