More parents, students saying 'no' to homework • Hacker News Board

Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework

#21

Post by zyxley » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #7

The vast majority of homework has little direct value. The real problem is many classes are poorly structured and need to crutch of outside work to cover the material. Even in college I often found reading the textbook was more useful and faster than attending class. PS: I still remember many math classes where attendance took 5 minutes, then 30 seconds of (new idea! yay), followed by 40 minutes of mind numbing bored…

The preponderance of homework in primary and secondary school is striking compared to college, where there are plenty of classes where the entire load of work to be turned in is two or three moderate-length papers.

Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework

#22

Post by samfisher83 » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:17 PM UTC

If you want to get good at something you have to put in the work. I wonder what would have happened if MJ didn't put in time into practice.

Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework

#23

Post by Retra » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:18 PM UTC

cpfohl wrote: post #17

zaccus wrote: post #8

Seriously, parents are complaining about 10-20 min of homework a night? Kids should be spending 1-2 hrs on homework every night, and if they run out of homework they should be working on a personal project or reading. That doesn't have to encroach on their fun time; I'm talking about 2 hrs max. Every night. That's not asking a lot. It's about learning how to manage your time and developing a productive routine. Kids…

College kids will also typically spend a grand total of 12 hours in class in college (assuming 4 classes, each of which has three hours of in-class time). Expecting a college student to then put in another 12-20 hours of personal work makes a ton of sense. Expecting a high schooler who already puts in 30 hours at school, to then also put in 14 hours or more of homework time seriously doesn't make sense.

It also causes teachers to have excessively long work days.

Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework

#24

Post by dudul » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

fiatmoney wrote: post #18

"the notion that America can close the learning gap with China or India..." Indian and Chinese students in America do as well or better than Indian and Chinese students in their home countries on any measure you'd like to name. For that matter the same is true of Mexican students in the US vs. in Mexico, European students in the US vs. in Europe, etc.

Can you provide a source?

Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework

#25

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

fiatmoney wrote: post #18

"the notion that America can close the learning gap with China or India..." Indian and Chinese students in America do as well or better than Indian and Chinese students in their home countries on any measure you'd like to name. For that matter the same is true of Mexican students in the US vs. in Mexico, European students in the US vs. in Europe, etc.

[deleted]

Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework

#26

Post by lordCarbonFiber » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

zaphar wrote: post #11

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #4

I see several issues with the ideas presented here. Firstly, the idea that a parent should have control over homework in any capacity seems like a misguided idea. Secondly, the article dances around ideas but never touches on the importance of the content of the homework. Not all worksheets are created equal and it follows that neither are all hours spent at home working. There are big differences from a pedagogical…

Firstly, the idea that a parent should have control over homework in any capacity seems like a misguided idea Full disclosure I'm a parent so biased. However with that said I know more about my child's workload than the teacher. The teacher knows how much homework they assign for "their" class. They don't know what the other classes assign. What extra curricular activities require or what chores the child has at home…

I'll preface this response with the acknowledgement that the world is not ideal, and there are some fundamental problems underlying how classes are structured (largely due to the fact that evaluations are based on the achievement of the lowest performers) which poses institutional obstacles to efficient work assignments.

That being said, given the (in practice flawed) assumption that the work being assigned is something your child needs, it's a disservice to say some other home life takes higher priority than education. This is especially true given the additive nature of many topics. Imagine, in a contrived example, you veto the addition worksheet despite your child needing practice. How is he/she supposed to keep up in the next week's topic of multiplication?

In practice this falls apart if you have a high performing child, but, campaigning for funding for gifted programs or ,if you're particularly lucky, working with the teachers to get customized work is a far better investment than lobbying for the ability to just ignore the work.

Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework

#27

Post by jsvaughan » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

fiatmoney wrote: post #18

"the notion that America can close the learning gap with China or India..." Indian and Chinese students in America do as well or better than Indian and Chinese students in their home countries on any measure you'd like to name. For that matter the same is true of Mexican students in the US vs. in Mexico, European students in the US vs. in Europe, etc.

the learning benefit could be because of the change of scenery, not because one side is better

Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework

#28

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #7

The vast majority of homework has little direct value. The real problem is many classes are poorly structured and need to crutch of outside work to cover the material. Even in college I often found reading the textbook was more useful and faster than attending class. PS: I still remember many math classes where attendance took 5 minutes, then 30 seconds of (new idea! yay), followed by 40 minutes of mind numbing bored…

[deleted]

Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework

#29

Post by ahallock » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:24 PM UTC

Homework is an abomination. It steals time a child could be spending with their parents, siblings, friends, etc. You spend all day in a classroom, sedentary, which isn't healthy to begin with, and then when you go home, you're expected to sit more. Children need to play and explore the world. Schools are failing if they have this overflow of work that must be sent home.

Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework

#30

Post by gayprogrammer » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:24 PM UTC

I didn't see anything from the side of parents who want more homework. Why are some parents asking for more? Are their children misbehaving? Are their children not learning the material? I am guessing that homework doesn't automatically make up for a school's or teachers' shortcomings.