Second-grade teacher Brandy Young's letter to parents explaining her new policy on homeworks has gone viral. (Photo : Facebook/Samantha Gallagher)
A second-grade teacher gave letters to parents informing them of her new homework policy. In her letter, which has gone viral since it was shared by one of the parents, Brandy Young wrote that there will be no formally assigned homework from her for the school year and instead urges parents to spend their evenings with their children doing things that contribute to student success.
Young, who teaches second-grade students at Godley Elementary School in Texas, passed out her letter to parents during "Meet the Teacher Night," ahead of the first day of classes. In her letter, she explained that after much research, she is trying something new and said that homeworks will only consist of work that students were not able to finish during the school day.
Young promised parents that there will be no formally assigned homeworks within the school year, noting that no study has proven that these actually improve student performance. Instead, she is asking parents to spend their evenings doing things that have already been proven to correlate with the success of students. She urges them to eat dinner as a family, to read together, to allow the kids to play outside, and to have their children go to bed early.
One happy parent posted a photo of the teacher's letter on Facebook and it has since gone viral, with more than 63,800 shares and counting.
Samantha Gallagher wrote "Brooke is loving her new teacher already!" as caption to her Facebook photo. Many of the other parents who commented on the photo either praised Young, saying the move is "amazing," or said that they were "jealous." They expressed support for this kind of homework policy.
Gallagher noted in one of her comments that her post has already reached Scotland, Canada, Ireland, Polynesia, Japan, Israel, Australia, and Africa, and pointed that this only goes to show that the issue on homeworks is universal.
Meanwhile, Young told CBS News that homework was not working for her classroom anymore. She said that students work hard all day and have other things that they need to learn from home, too.
Young also explained that that she is trying to develop every student's whole person, pointing out that it is not beneficial for the children to go home and still "do pencil and paper work."
Watch this news report on Young's viral homework policy:
