Cognitive Therapy for Kids

Timers, Homework, & the Industrial Revolution

October 16th, 2008

As I read through an article from the July 08 issue of the Atlantic, I was struck by a segment where they discussed Frederick Winslow Taylor. A man who changed how people worked through a series of timed experiments. Taylor went into the factories in Philadelphia, broke down the tasks people were doing into steps, timed each step, and then set up expectations for the steps based on the data. While the employees weren’t thrilled, the production dramatically increased. This same idea makes sense for homework! While not exactly fun, I’ve worked with several kids where we: outlined the homework, broke down the steps, and figured out an approximate time for each step. The kids significantly reduced the amount of time they spent on their homework.

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