Even kindergarten children are in school for 6 or more hours, yet, my homeschoolers rarely spent more than 2 hours in formal study. In the early grades ( kindergarten to 4th) it was 30 **minutes** to an hour and sometimes less.
These schools are wasting a **LOT** of time. There is absolutely **no** reason why any child should need to do homework. NONE!
Let's call “homework” what it really is: AFTERschooling!
The **real** educators are the parents who make sure the AFTERschooling ( misnamed “homework”) is complete, understood by the child, and neatly worked! The real educator is the child, himself, in the HOME, who reads the text, answers the questions at the back of the chapter, makes outlines of the material, works all the examples and problems, does the reasearch project, and then thoroughly reviews the material for an exam.
By the way... There is absolutely no evidence that institutional schools teach anything. Really! NO studies have ever been done to separate out what knowledge is acquired in the classroom as compared to that accomplished in the **home**. If you like I can send you a e-mail from a Stanford education professor that plainly states that these studies have **never** been done!
It is my anecdotal observation from working with several thousand families over 30 years in my clinic that there is **no** difference between the home habits of successful institutionalized children and successful homeschoolers. And....BOTH successful homeschoolers and institutionalized children are spending the **SAME** amount of time at the kitchen table ( or desk) in the **HOME**!
I go so far as to state:
I you know an academically successful child, that child has been AFTERschooled or homeschooled.
Yeah! I am shouting. Please forgive me. I am exasperated. Our county just spent 70 MILLION dollars on a new high school and no one can prove that this 70 million is really helping the children learn.
I hear you, FRiend. Imho, our public school system should be dismantled.