The Price of Too Much Homework

One of the most worrisome trends in today's schools is the assigning of too much homework. Although what constitutes "too much" varies from child to child (and parent to parent), a good rule of thumb is that if a student has little or no time for outside activities and appears continually stressed, the homework load is too great.

An illuminating book published some time ago by Stanford lecturer Denise Pope, "Doing School": How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students, depicts just how great a toll the burden of too much homework can take. Pope spent a year following the lives of five students at an affluent public high school in California. The pressure of too little time and need for top-notch grades severely compromised both the students' love of learning and the quality of their lives, not only during high school but in the years after graduation. Other disturbing findings included health problems and rampant ethical transgressions such as cheating and "playing" the system.

Pope went on to implement the Stanford Stressed-Out Students (SOS) project—now expanded and renamed as Challenge Success—aimed at educating schools and parents about the consequences of too much pressure and competition and need for a broader vision of what constitutes "success."

Challenge Success provides conferences, workshops, and other ways for educators and parents to become involved in helping to effect much-needed change. Perhaps most important, it offers hope that reform is possible—and evidence that, at least in some schools, it has already begun.

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