SOUNDING OFF:District must cure homework epidemic

We in Laguna Beach are lucky to have an innovative school district with astounding parental support, wonderful teachers and dedicated school administrators. And yet many of us with school-age children lament the “homework epidemic” that dominates our home lives and has many kids dreading school just because of its attendant homework.

I was inspired by the district’s last PTA Coffee Break on Feb. 14 at which author Nancy Kalish shared some recent research showing the pitfalls of too much homework.

More than 180 studies have shown there is little correlation between homework and elementary school achievement. Middle school and high school studies also show that too much homework is counterproductive.

In my own education and career, my motto has been “work smarter, not harder.” But much homework these days embodies the opposite of this rule.

As we become aware of the dubious benefits of homework — the myths and misunderstandings — we can take action and save our kids from unnecessary misery and inevitable burnout.

Sadly, many of our national educational policies are established by politicians, not educators.

The No Child Left Behind Act elevates the importance of academic standards and tests at the expense of individualized learning. It encourages an unnaturally linear educational process and textbooks that serve mandated standards above the needs of kids.

This approach can understandably lead teachers to think that racing to complete “the whole book” and do every assignment is the goal of class time and homework. But the real point of any class is to generate understanding and retention while instilling a desire to learn more.

The irony of homework is that if kids understand the concepts they’re taught in class, they don’t really need homework. And if they don’t understand the concepts they’re taught in class, homework isn’t likely to help, because it’s largely unsupervised.

Fortunately, in most school subjects, there are new teaching methods being developed to counterbalance the tendency toward drilling and rote memorization.

In mathematics, which is plagued by textbooks that emphasize repetition to teach concepts (a sure recipe for boredom), kids can now learn a whole new way.

The MIND [Music Intelligence Neural Development] Institute (www.mindinstitute.net), based right here in Orange County and founded by Laguna Beach visionary Gordon Shaw, has come to national prominence as a way for kids to learn high-level math concepts through a fun combination of music keyboard instruction and math computer games.

Kids love it, and their test scores rise by more than 20 percentage points on average after just one year in the program. And guess what? No homework.

We want programs like this here in Laguna Beach!

Given our innovative leadership and community involvement, Laguna Beach Unified School District should create new homework policies, adopt new and proven teaching methods, and set an example for other school districts.

We can teach our kids how to work smarter, not harder, and save them from countless hours of fruitless study, while encouraging them to be innovative thinkers and problem solvers.