I am not only not against this, I back this! Let the education system of not only Toronto but all of Canada slide down the pit! Let the rest of the West follow!!! Then my fellow Americans having mastered learning in spite of our own sucktastic system of shit we will be ahead of the curve!Canada's largest school board is considering banishing homework during holidays and long weekends, the centrepiece of a proposed policy that is sparking calls for other boards to review their practices and counter a growing backlash against a "culture of homework" that critics say is ruining family life.
The Toronto District School Board's draft policy is believed to be the first of its kind in Canada to instruct schools to lighten the load, adding to a raging international debate.
"We've entered a culture of homework that needs rethinking," said Lee Bartel, a professor at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. "It has become homework for homework's sake."
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The policy also calls for the for elimination of homework for kindergartners, banning penalties for incomplete work, and getting rid of a time-honoured rule of thumb that teachers should hand out 10 minutes of homework per grade per night - meaning that a Grade 4 student would have 40 minutes of assignments.
Bartel recently co-wrote a study concluding that too much homework can be counterproductive, particularly in the early grades.
Bartel and co-worker Linda Cameron surveyed 900 Canadian parents and reported that Ontario students spend an average of 40 minutes per night on homework, compared to 33 minutes in other provinces.
Chris Bolton, a Toronto school board trustee and former school principal, said the revamped policy was sparked by complaints from parents and students that they were being overloaded with hours of homework daily, cutting into family vacations and forcing children to stay up too late to complete assignments.
"We all need a break and kids are no different," said Bolton. The proposed policy will be debated Wednesday night and the board will conduct a final vote this month, he said.
Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said Tuesday that a lot of the Toronto board's plan "makes sense" and she called on other boards across Ontario to review their policies.
However, many boards in Ontario and elsewhere leave it up to individual schools or even teachers to decide how much homework to assign, said Bartel, a practice that he said has created a national patchwork.
Toronto parent Jacqui Strachan, who has sons in grades 6 and 9, said she would be "just as happy if they never had homework." While her children each spend less than one hour daily on homework, she said she knows of families where it dominates their lives.
There has been a growing backlash against homework in some quarters, fuelled by recent books such as The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Are Getting Too Much of a Bad Thing. Author Alfie Kohn cited one U.S. study the amount of time that children aged six to eight spent on homework doubled to 118 minutes a week between 1981 and 1997.
Statistics Canada reported last year that students spend an average of 9.2 hours weekly on homework.
The federally funded Canadian Council on Learning released a large-scale survey four months ago of 5,361 Canadians, with 72 per cent of those with school-age children reporting that homework is a major source of household stress. However, more than 80 per cent agreed that homework develops good work habits and enhances learning.
Parent Malkin Dare, of Hamilton, Ont., said she has no problem with spending time on homework, but she is appalled by all the "bad homework" that teachers hand out, such as mammoth projects that require extensive parental help and have little educational value.
Economy Strength shall return YAY!
