That’s not something you hear everyday, but the parents of Damion Frye’s ninth-grade students in Montclair, NJ, must be getting quite an earful at the dinner table. Confused? I was too when I began reading the New York Times editorial titled “Spreading Homework Out So Even Parents Have Some“. But it’s no joke. Frye’s unconventional method of assigning his students’ parents weekly homework is the real deal–and his students’ grade may depend on it.

Alright, not really. In three years of assigning homework to parents, only once has he had to mark down a student for parental non-compliance (and even then it wasn’t enough to change his final grade). But I’m sort of getting ahead of myself here, aren’t I? Your probably still wondering why the heck this crazy teacher would do such a thing, and how the heck he gets away with it? Enough questions already! I’m getting there; here’s the skinny:

“So far (four weeks into the semester), Mr. Frye, an English teacher at Montclair High School, has asked the parents to read and comment on a Franz Kafka story, Section 1 of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.”

Frye instructs the parents to write their responses on a blog post he’s created, but that’s not the best part; his students finish their homework in class. Oh what sweet, sweet irony it must be for all those students who’d been berated in previous semesters by Mom or Dad for not keeping up on their homework. But what’s the point of all this unorthodox lesson-planning? Frye says:

“[The point] is to keep parents involved in their children’s’ education well into high school. Studies have shown that parental involvement improves the quality of the education a student receives, but teenagers seldom invite that involvement.”

I must admit, at first I was a little resistant to the idea of assigning parents homework, but it’s hard to argue with his logic here. The kids obviously get some much needed reprieve from what I’m assuming is an otherwise homework-packed curriculum. Parents may know the answer to the question “What did you learn about in school today?” without having to pry it out of their dissident little teenager one excruciating “nothing” at a time. More than this, it will give them a real common ground to talk about around the dinner table. Maybe I’m wearing rose-colored-lenses on this, but I can picture little Billy having a meaningful conversation with his Mom about existentialism in Whitman’s poetry. One mother went as far as to write in her blog entry:

““Searching for meaning in literary works is like stretching brain-cell-taffy in this household of literal interpretations and men of few words.”

It sounds to me like she’s getting as much out of the exercise as her child, but not all the parents are so eager to accommodate Frye’s assignments. One mother complains that she doesn’t have the time to deal with this sort of exercise, but she does it anyway in spite of her busy life. I’m not sure how to feel about this sort of situation. If it truly is too much to ask of some parents (and I believe in some cases it is), do the ends still justify the means? As I’ve discussed in the past, if homework (of any kind) begins to interfere with the family dynamic, or somehow take away or detract from the precious little family time that families have together, then I think that’s where you have to draw the line. However, Carol Jago, the incoming vice president of the National Council of Teachers of English, said:

““With 10th graders, the parents often really did tell me that it was the one place where they could talk with their student without fighting, without arguing about their hair.”

Family dynamic aside, what I’d really like to know is how well the students benefitted academically from Frye’s model? If I had to venture a guess, their probably not getting as much out of the experience as their parents. Having said that, Frye’s assignments still intrigue me as an alternative to assigning overworked students more homework.

Kelly, Tina. “Spreading Homework Out So Even Parents Have Some“, The New York Times. October 4, 2007.