Film Sparks Discussion About Homework, Student Stress

Are township middle school students and students getting burned out by too much homework and too many activities?

That discussion followed a Thursday night showing at Ridge of the documentary,  “Race to Nowhere,” about high expectations for students and about excessive amounts of homework many high-ranking schools are giving.

The Ridge Parent-Teacher-Organization presented the re-screening of the movie, shown last winter, in the high school's performing arts center. Ridge High School has been regularly ranked in the top one hundred high schools in America and is known as an extremely rigorous school, and was seen as a pertinent place to play the film.

The topic of whether students at a high-achieving school district such as Bernards are becoming overstressed has been a topic at Board of Education meetings for several months. Last month, about whether they felt their children have too much homework, or the right amount.

The film offered the premise that far too many students are subjected an unbearable amount of homework. Experts in the film surmised that excess homework is not actually beneficial to learning, but instead causes increased levels of stress and can deprive students of their childhood. The film also concluded that excessive homework increasingly is becoming a problem for younger and younger students; many students in elementary school were struggling with lots of homework.

The film closely looked at various case studies of students struggling with gargantuan homework loads. One girl profiled had developed the eating disorder anorexia, which she said helped her stay up at night studying. Another student committed suicide after failing a test. More commonly however, huge numbers of students admitted to using Adderall, a drug designed to help attention deficit disorder students focus, and also cheating to help them cope with their workloads.

Following the film, Ridge Principal Frank Howlett led a discussion about the film with students and parents.

Three high school girls spoke what they said were very heavy loads of homework in the high school. Two, in tears, said they had many Advanced Placement college-level courses, as well as participating in sports.

Howlett responded that Ridge is large school that meets the academic and learning needs of a variety of students, from tier-one college applicants to individuals he said can attend courses at the county vocational school.

Some parents asked whether the school should prevent students from signing up for all Advanced Placement and honors courses, which vastly increase their homework requirements.

Howlett stated it ultimately is up to the parents to ascertain the level of academic rigor their students can handle, since Ridge High School has more than 1,600 students and cannot cater to each one individually. He urged parents to do what was best for their own children. “Parent the child you have, not the one you want,” he said.

To counteract the complaints of frustrating homework loads, Howlett said the school is in the process of surveying parents, teachers and students about homework levels.

He added school officials currently are looking at the concept of not having homework over holiday breaks and weekends.

Moreover, Howlett said the high school offers tutorial services that can aid students with their homework. However, he added that state standardized testing will continue to assure a fairly high level of homework in Ridge High School for years to come.

Howlett said teachers are forced to assign adequate levels of homework to endeavor to maintain and raise students’ scores.

Concerned parents were urged to participate in PTO meetings and available surveys to help influence the discussion on whether township schools give too much homework, and how to handle it.