What we don’t get about homework
When students at Dover-Sherborn High School break for Thanksgiving later this month, there’s at least one thing they won’t have to worry about: homework.
In a change from holidays past, the suburban Boston school district has declared Thanksgiving vacation a “homework-free weekend.” It’s the first of several planned for this academic year, and it’s an unusual change of pace for a competitive school that was recently ranked by Newsweek as the 16th best high school in the country. The move is meant to allow students to relax and spend more time with their families. It’s also part of a broader district effort to reduce stress and anxiety in an overburdened student population.
“We noticed over the past few years an increase in students feeling so stressed out and feeling overwhelmed and not able to cope,” says Ellen Chagnon, director of guidance at Dover-Sherborn. “We had to figure out something better than Band-Aiding the problem. “
The solution the school came up with is a program called Challenge Success that works with school communities to rethink attitudes about achievement and reduce student workload. Denise Pope, the founder of Challenge Success, in August released a book, “Overloaded and Underprepared,” that provides practical recommendations for schools based on years of academic research on workload and achievement. Pope’s book is a kind of manual for how to reconfigure secondary education at a time when many schools are looking for ways to dial back the intensity of high school life.
“We’re challenging that narrow notion of success,” Pope says. “Your value as a parent is not measured about where your student gets into college.”
The effort to improve student well-being at Dover-Sherborn began in June 2014, when the school surveyed students about their daily lives — when they were going to bed, the courses they were taking, how much time they were spending on extracurricular activities and homework. The results depicted a student population that was harried, anxious, and didn’t know how to slow down.
“Our sleep numbers were the most alarming,” says Pam Webb, the parent of a current 11th grade student. She notes that on average, students reported getting 6.4 hours of sleep per night.
After reviewing the survey results, Dover-Sherborn leaders went looking for a solution and came across Challenge Success. The organization is based out of Stanford University, and its approach was inspired by research Pope had done as a graduate student in a top California high school. There she observed students compiling sterling resumes at the expense of their day-to-day well-being.
“The school was working by all outside metrics, but I thought, gosh, be careful what you wish for,” says Pope, who is now a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. “The students were hurting themselves, they were not resilient. I wouldn’t call that working in terms of what you want every school to aspire to.”
Since 2007, Challenge Success has worked with 120 schools, including Needham High School, to rethink attitudes about achievement and reduce student workload. A main target is homework.
Research on the optimal amount of homework is complicated, but there are points of consensus. One is the “10-minute rule,” which recommends multiplying students’ grade level by 10 to get the number What teachers just don’t get about homework - The Boston Globe:
