Toronto's public school students may be leaving their book bags at home the next time they go on holiday - and education experts are lauding the proposed new policy as ahead of the curve in this country.
"School boards across Canada need to follow the [Toronto District School Board's] example," said Lee Bartel, an associate professor at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, of the revamped homework policy before the school board today.
The proposal tackles the hot-button issue of overload, proposing the abolishment of homework altogether for kindergarten, reductions for all grades and a ban on assigning homework the day before a holiday.
Dr. Bartel points out that students in European countries such as Denmark and Finland fare better than Canadian students, with less homework, fewer school hours and school starting later in the day.
The holiday ban addresses a common complaint by parents. "If adults need a break, so do the kids," Dr. Bartel said. "I'm not a fan of second graders going home with a turkey to colour at Thanksgiving. That's pointless."
The policy's suggestion that five-year-olds should be playing and reading instead of sitting down with even 10 minutes of formal homework, the benchmark set in 1999, was also greeted with praise.
"In the early years, children learn more from free play than from other activities," says Paul Cappon, president of the Canadian Council on Learning in Ottawa. "The evidence for the value of homework is for the later years."
But those would undergo a tweak, too. The TDSB wants to drop its previous benchmark of 10 minutes of homework a day per grade year. Instead, it's suggesting some independent work at home from Grades 1 to 6, but mostly in the later years. By Grades 7 and 8, one hour or less across all subjects would be appropriate. And in high school, a hard cap of two hours is the goal, with special attention paid to the transition year of Grade 9.
"They're trying to shy away from time because time is a problem. One-size-fits-all doesn't work," says Dr. Bartel, adding that 20 minutes of homework for one child could equal an hour for another.
The policy emphasizes homework that reinforces lessons learned rather than introducing new information. "That's what drives parents to distraction, when they have to teach their children," says Dr. Cappon. And with a recent report from the council that 72 per cent of parents are stressed because they can't do their kids' homework, Dr. Cappon says, the policy's message that parents should not do their children's homework bears repeating.
For little ones, the proposal encourages reading and even cooking dinner with parents instead. "That's an incredible project - you can talk about environmental issues, food chain issues, energy issues, you can read the recipes, measure ingredients," Dr. Bartel says.
If the policy is approved, though, how will teachers implement it? They're already caught between policy and parents, says Dr. Bartel, who is conducting a national survey of teachers. For one thing, it appears that teachers report assigning less homework than parents and students report, he says.
But in upper grades in which kids have many teachers, there's little co-ordination. "If every teacher gives an hour of homework, then students could have three or four hours of homework," Dr. Bartel says.
Teachers' attitudes are crucial, he says, because they are best situated to read the connection between homework and achievement. Yet, thus far, 60 per cent of the teachers say their school has no homework policy and many teachers are reporting the effect of homework as "neutral."
"So why the heck are you giving it?" Dr. Bartel asks. "The answer is because the school and parents expect it. We need to rethink this."
