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

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

#31

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

thedufer wrote: post #19

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…

Not being a parent, I don't know what it's like now, but high school was by far the busiest and most stressful time in my life. I saw an average of 2-3 hours of homework per night, after 1.5 hours commuting, 8 hours at school, and 2-3 hours at sports practice. On an average day, that leaves an hour for breakfast/dinner and 8.5 hours for sleep; multiple nights in a row of 4-5 hours of sleep and no other breaks were no…

If only there was something in there that could be easily cut and is significantly less important than homework...

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

#32

Post by mayneack » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:25 PM UTC

jsvaughan wrote: post #27

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

Or because they select for people that are able/willing to make a choice to move across the world/border.

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

#33

Post by fiatmoney » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:25 PM UTC

dudul wrote: post #24

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?

By country:

http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2012/pisa2012highlights_...

By ethnicity in the US:

http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2012/pisa2012highlights_...

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

#34

Post by vezzy-fnord » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:27 PM UTC

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #26

zaphar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 someth…

it's a disservice to say some other home life takes higher priority than education

Schooling is not education, only a facsimile of it.

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

#35

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

This issue seems to go back and forth. Here's an argument in the Atlantic a few years ago arguing for more homework (for kids who struggle in school).

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/poor-st...

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

#36

Post by munificent » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:28 PM UTC

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…

> In my opinion the whole issue stems from lack of standardization in education in this country.

I think the real problem is a lack of standardization in humans in this country. If all children were identical in form and function, as well as all parents, it would be dramatically more efficient to teach them.

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

#37

Post by lordnacho » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:31 PM UTC

The problem with homework is it's used as a form of accountability. My French teacher used to joke when collecting papers : "Ou est votre dette a la societe?" (Apologies for missing accents.)

Of course what it should be is like at university. The professor can't spend all his time with you, so you get a rough list of what you should know about. It's then up to you to judge whether you need to read a bit more or a bit less.

The point is judgement. You can figure out when you understand something. You don't need a whole page of quadratic equations, in fact you don't understand it if you get to the end and think you need more. OTOH, if you only do the first two and you think you get it, you might be enlightened when you look at some further questions.

As a parent, it means instead of asking the teacher for more homework, which will annoy them, you can simply ask your kid some enlightening questions. It's probably a lot more interesting for them that way.

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

#38

Post by omnius19 » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

sotojuan wrote: post #15

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…

I really hate how so many of my classes in college have mandatory assistance. In a lot of my classes the professor just poorly summarized the textbook. I think some courses could take inspiration from my English classes. In them, we had to read (novel or literary criticism paper) by ourselves, but in class we only asked questions, discussed the works and got help with our writing. I don't know if this can be applied…

Oh it can definitely be applied to computer science classes. At my college, most computer science classes had optional lectures and were heavily project based. Some of the slower or less experienced students went to lecture (usually less than 1/3 of the class) but most students skipped it. Instead, we would work on our projects and go to office hours for one on one assistance with a ta or prof if we needed help. This was expected behavior and they made tons of hours open to the students so it worked great.

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

#39

Post by michaelbuddy » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #26

zaphar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 someth…

you're losing me with this. Parents, exhausted after work, kids already 7 hours of school, then there's this new set of chores to deal with instead of enjoying life, you know life, the finite thing that runs out.

that AND this goal of "education" you seem to have is not the actual goal for most people. My goal for me or my kids is not to "be educated" Just like a goal of a society is not to "have laws"

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

#40

Post by lycidas » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 5:34 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.

Chinese and Indian students in America also have the benefit of being from some of the highest socioeconomic groups in America [0]. It is more a factor of the group's average wealth rather than the fact that they are foreign.

[0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...