Before Samantha Gallagher sent her daughter, Brooke off to second grade last week, she was prepared for nightly homework that would interrupt dinner and downtime with the family.
However, during a Parent-Teacher night prior to the start of the school year at Godley Elementary School in Texas, her daughter’s teacher, Brandy Young handed out a letter to parents explaining her new homework policy.
According to MSN, Gallagher shared the letter with Facebook friends, which soon went viral.
“Brooke is loving her new teacher already!” Gallgher captioned the phone of Young’s letter, which stated the following:
There will be no formally assigned homework this year. Rather, I ask you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early.
Young explained in the letter that she did her own homework this summer on the pros and cons of sending kids home to do more work after school.
When she was unable to find research that improved a student’s performance in the classroom, she made the decision to allow her class to enjoy life outside school when they’re at home.
“[Students] work hard all day. When they go home they have other things they need to learn there,” Young explained to CBS News. “I’m trying to develop their whole person; it’s not beneficial to go home and do pencil and paper work.”
The letter has been shared nearly 72,000 times, and Gallagher has marveled at the interest garnered by this one simple change.
“Ive have been messaged and told the letter has reached Canada, Scotland, Ireland and Polynesia!” she wrote on Facebook.
“Just goes to show how universal this subject is!….and now Africa!”
Young credits the school district for allowing her to come up with this idea.
“Our superintendent really encouraged us to be innovators,” she said.
“Whether or not it’s popular, I just wanted to see if it would work. You can’t know if it’s gonna work unless you try it.”
Getting kids outside after school and encouraging them to spend more time with family? Sounds like it just might work.
