Second-grade teacher's unique homework policy goes viral

Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher at the school, passed out a letter to every parent at a “Meet the Teacher Night” ahead of the start of the school year to explain her new homework policy -- or should we say, no-homework policy.

“There will be no formally assigned homework this year,” Brandy Young explained in the letter. “Rather, I ask you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early.”

The teacher said homework just wasn’t working for her classroom anymore. So, she decided to make meaningful change.


“There will be no formally assigned homework this year,” Brandy Young explained in the letter. “Rather, I ask you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early.”

The teacher said homework just wasn’t working for her classroom anymore. So, she decided to make meaningful change.

In our western culture, i believe school is one of the most important things in life. I even self quote myself;" Our future begins at the first day of school ". Most of the research say that in primary school; " Homework doesnt really do any good ". If our primary school cant teach in a single day what the kids need to learn, then our system is at fault and not the kids. We dont blame the kids for a system created by people who thinks education is more important than humanity, but yet we do. Its a system based on false premises, its a system trying to divide people into categories. To reward those who fit right in, and punish those who wont..

We dont need more homework in primary school, if the kids cant be kids, whats the point?. If the kids cant learn humanity where they are most of their day, whats the point? We teach them to compete, to be rivals and ideals.. How about we teach them just to be kids, with common sense, about humanity.. Is it wrong? I dont know, i do know. Our school system is broken, cause its created by humans.

I hope this is a start.

Article

a reply to: tikbalang

Incredible story. "Godley Elementary School" is the name of the school too

Texas does it right! This woman is great, I feel like this alone can reverse some of the damage done against the family unit in the past several decades

a reply to: tikbalang

I agree homework does more harm then good. But hell, they might as well have it anyway so the can used to no free time, and always being expected to give up their lives for bull# reasons.

After all once they hit the working world they'll be expected to do the same thing anyways. And seeing your friends or family a rare treat. Better hope you like your coworkers.

Bah # this world, so done with it... I've already quit it anyway... just waiting to get the guts to end it or get desperate enough to sell myself back into slavery again...

Poor kids, they don't even know how screwed they are.

Teacher's right though, too bad no one in power gives a #.

Read together?

That's homework. We started it last year in pre-K for about 10 minutes a night. Over the summer, they asked families to read 30 minutes a night. He'll turn in his log on Thursday, his first day back for his reward.

Well, we will have more homework this year, too. More reading and maybe some writing and math. I don't mind though. It's a change for time together.

a reply to: tikbalang

She's stopped giving homework to kids, now she's giving homework to whole families.

Just the three R's teach, don't tell me how to run my household.

a reply to: tikbalang

Iceland has not given kids homework for years.....as has much of europe.....

a reply to: intrptr

Nope nope nope. Giving home work to the family is stupid

I could have billy Madisoned my way through college spending a few days in each grade and learned just as much as I did sitting for 8 hour days for 12 years. I ended up with a doctorate only because it's required in my field, but as a whole school is a waste of time.

Instead society burdened me with the failings of its lowest achievers and hasn't stopped since.

Thanks Obama.

originally posted by: Aeshma
a reply to: intrptr

Giving home work to the family is stupid

That wasn't clear in my post?

originally posted by: JamesGlad
I could have billy Madisoned my way through college spending a few days in each grade and learned just as much as I did sitting for 8 hour days for 12 years. I ended up with a doctorate only because it's required in my field, but as a whole school is a waste of time.

Instead society burdened me with the failings of its lowest achievers and hasn't stopped since.

Thanks Obama.

Do your home work or repeat your grade school!

If I didn't have homework in school and it went purely by testing I'd have been an all A student. Sadly my school placed way too much emphasis on homework, so I was lucky if I got a C even with such good testing.

In college before I dropped out for multiple reasons I had a 3.8 though, with a 4.0 for a full year.

And meanwhile Japan, Korea, China and other countries will produce students with VASTLY superior academic skills.

School is LIFE to those kids, and those are the kids American companies are HIRING for R&D.

Those are the kids getting into MIT, Harvard, Yale, Cal-Tech and other TOP-TIER American schools. Drive by the MIT campus sometime, its FILLED with foreign students.

It's a CULTURE thing. Those other countries VALUE education almost more than ANYTHING else.

American kids value Pokemon, reality TV, Facebook, and popular culture.

a reply to: DanteGaland

The ones that survive to become adults and don't kill themselves anyway.

School never should have had homework in the first place. It started off as a semi-good thing, where it was a way for kids who fell behind to keep up with the rest of the class . . . but it very quickly turned sinister. Homework nowadays is nothing more than a way for teachers to assign extra needless work in order to make it seem like they are doing more and/or to fulfill BS mandated course req's by the state. Plus am I the only one who noticed that she teaches 2nd Grade? Second graders should never have had homework anyway. Their homework should be story-time with their parents.

Just another example of why homeschool is the way to go.

a reply to: tikbalang
Its really sad that parents have to be told to be parents as a child's homework assignment. I applaud the teacher for the much needed encouragement , but damn, this country has fallen far from what it used to be.

a reply to: DanteGaland

Its a problem with the curriculum and teaching techniques, not a matter of how much homework is done.

originally posted by: DanteGaland
And meanwhile Japan, Korea, China and other countries will produce students with VASTLY superior academic skills.

School is LIFE to those kids, and those are the kids American companies are HIRING for R&D.

Those are the kids getting into MIT, Harvard, Yale, Cal-Tech and other TOP-TIER American schools. Drive by the MIT campus sometime, its FILLED with foreign students.

It's a CULTURE thing. Those other countries VALUE education almost more than ANYTHING else.

American kids value Pokemon, reality TV, Facebook, and popular culture.

Cultural and also regressive left liberal pressure plays a massive part.. In the UK kids here in some schools will never have a spots lesson, how sad is that.. Worth noting that Finland has the highest level of education in Europe and they no longer do homework or even test for that matter.

You also have to look at the people doing the teaching, if a teacher is not motivated then what chance do the kids have, I remember countless times that "lazy" teacher at the school would just say ok turn to page 21 and copy. That was it for the hour...


RA

a reply to: slider1982

Progressive left is part of the issue. Even if you have teachers that are wanting to teach in Sweden many teachers are weak in discipline and it is the policies that makes them even weaker than they needed to be. And I am not just talking about Sweden now since this was already the case 30 years ago and have not gotten better.

Finnish are a bit more disciplined from my point of view.

Even if Japan would not have homework and extra school still there is a cultural difference in discipline that will make Japanese more eager to pay attention.

originally posted by: DanteGaland
And meanwhile Japan, Korea, China and other countries will produce students with VASTLY superior academic skills.

School is LIFE to those kids, and those are the kids American companies are HIRING for R&D.

Those are the kids getting into MIT, Harvard, Yale, Cal-Tech and other TOP-TIER American schools. Drive by the MIT campus sometime, its FILLED with foreign students.

It's a CULTURE thing. Those other countries VALUE education almost more than ANYTHING else.

American kids value Pokemon, reality TV, Facebook, and popular culture.

If foreign kids value education so much, the foreign educational system is so much better while the American system is so bad, then why the American colleges are filled with foreign students?

BTW, some of the people here, who claim homework is useless misspelled the word homework and wrote "home work."

a reply to: tikbalang

I think it's an interesting approach and would be curious to see how it works out.

But I don't remember homework being all that taxing in 2nd grade.

If she were a high school teacher, she'd be out of a job.