I work at an "academy" in Korea. There are thousands of these schools in Seoul, and each afternoon, brightly coloured buses trundle through the streets carrying children to their lessons in English, Math, Chinese, Taekwondo, etc. The "academies" are open until 10 or 10:30, and many children attend classes that run 3 times per week. Often a child will attend more than one academy. Add to this the crushing homework load assigned by both school AND the academy, plus the fact that the kids go to school on Saturday, and you have some genuinely exhausted students.

It's depressing to be in this "industry" (and believe me, it's about pleasing anxious moms and dads with pleasant reports and inflated grades, not about genuine education) and I intend to make my exit soon. Memorizing long lists of English words or Chinese characters by rote is mind-numbing work for these kids. Most parents aren't satisfied by anything less than a 90% score. Academies publish the marks and ranks of each student, visible to parents and children alike.

In my position, it's hard to find too much sympathy for children who are given creative (albeit silly ) assignments and have their parents to work alongside them for only an hour a night. I doubt that my Korean students are learning critical thinking or genuine communication skills in their long evenings, but I'm certain they know how to put their nose to the grindstone. They astonish me with their dedication and diligence.

North American culture does not accomodate this sort of ruthless self-sacrifice, but I think it would be wise to tolerate the dreaded "homework hour" for the sake of future viability.

I am the mother of two boys who are in first and third grade. This academic year I cut back on my already part time job and their after school programming in order to be around more to supervise homework. Working for me is not a luxury item. To compensate for the loss in pay we have stopped eating out (not even Friendly's), cancelled cable and Netflix and any activites that cost money.

I am now home 4 days a week right after the bus arrives. Both of my sons are having a tough time learning to read. I find practice is helping them so, we do a combination of homework and mom assigned work. I split their work between before and after school with the goal being half an hour of work a day.

At my fall conference with my first grader's teacher, I talked to her about the additional work we were doing at home. She wanted us to add reading early reader books to our schedule. I made it politely clear to the teacher that we were already spending about half an hour a day and that I would be happy to take her suggestion, but was not willing to add to the total work load. I had her choose one of the regular tasks to cut and replace with her suggestion. I figured she was the ceritified teacher so she should know best what work should be done, but that I am the parent and I get to decide how much.

One of the strongest points I took from the article was to SPEAK UP. When Ayelet went to the teacher and said that the homework took to long, the teacher told her how many minutes should be spent and that her child could then stop (assumedly unpenalized). It is unfair to expect a child to be able to speak up for themself to a teacher. That is your job as a parent. When the homework is too much, call or email the teacher and talk to them! Be a grownup and stick up for your child. If necessary call a meeting with the teacher and principle.

Even with all this, about twice a week my older son breaks down in tears while trying to do his homework. He is exhausted and overwhelmed by the many tasks expected of him. Typically I have us stop, have a snack and a rest and then discuss what he needs to do and return to his work.

Part of my son's difficulty is that everything is reading based. He excels in math, but is weak in reading. All of his math work is word problems. Once the actual math is teased out of them, it is below his level. In second grade his math homework was taking forever, not because of the simple addition in it, but because he couldn't read the problems. I called his teacher and explained the problem. Her instructions were that math homework was for the math, so I should read the problems to him. Again, talking to the teacher was a big help in solving the problem.

Now I am off to call my younger son's reading teacher about a problem we are having with a new book. Lucky her :)

I've got three kids - ages 13, 9, & 5 and Ayelet is right on the money. First, these kids are in school from 8:30-3:00 5 days a week. I work five days a week from 8:30 -4:30 unless I am in a crunch period and need to work longer. Usually when I get home I am not in the mood to start a second shift of magazine work. Why should my nine-year-old?

My five-year-old brought home coloring pages that the teacher had written "Handed in Late" in bold red marker. Can you hand in coloring late? When I asked him about it he said "but she told us not to go fast, she said to take our time." Poor kid, he believed what she told him.

I do not know how old the angry letter writers are or where they went to school. But I can tell you this: My husband went to the crappiest public schools in rural Colorado in the 1960s - in good weather they hiked after lunch from @ 1-3. Evidently the teachers were finished for the day around 12:30. I have no memory of doing any substantial homework until 7th grade. My husband has a PhD from an ivy leagaue unviersity and is a professor of history. I have an undergrad degree from a good private college and edit a magazine. Our futures were not compromised by playing after school. Our parents never even checked our homework or even knew what we were supposed to be doing and both of us appear to have good work habits. Our experiences are not unique. On the contrary this was public school in the 1960s and 1970s at least in eastern Penn. and Colorado. Futures were not destroyed by lack of homework.

Most of my kids' homework is make work. We did not have this. They are being killed by work sheets. Every year we ask the teachers how long homework should take and every year they say 15-20 minutes a day. And then they promptly assign an hour's worth of work for my grade schoolers. Forget my 7th grader. She and her friends work on average (according to discussions with their moms) @ 5 hours a night. How many of the nasty letter writers work 11-hour days five days a week.

It also presupposes that children have no lives other than school - no family obligations, no chores, no church obligations, no hobbies.

That the U.S. is lagging behind in science and engineering is not because kids are shirking their work or are being coddled by yuppie parents.