Hmm. The article alludes to some studies that back up their point, but, anecdotally, I think I got more out of doing homework than I did out of sitting in class...
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More parents, students saying 'no' to homework
51–60 of 295 posts
Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework
#52Hmm. The article alludes to some studies that back up their point, but, anecdotally, I think I got more out of doing homework than I did out of sitting in class...
That's more of an indictment on how bad classes are than how beneficial homework can be.
Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's a disservice to say some other home life takes higher priority than education Schooling is not education, only a facsimile of it.
Perfect is the enemy of better. There is huge room for improvement in our education system, but that doesn't mean we'd be better off with nothing.
There's nothing about perfection or relative improvement here. Traditional schooling is simply not an adequate model for education, but rather persists as a quasi-day care environment for occupied laborers to drop off their children to.
We probably would be better off with nothing. For one, abandoning compulsory public schooling will lead to an explosion in democratic, free, Sudbury and other alternative school models, as well as decrease the regulatory capture for homeschoolers and unschoolers. We are at a far better position than ever before in history to suitably practice autodidacticism on a mass scale, potentially with decentralized study groups, apprenticeships and democratic schools existing to augment and pool one's skills. Private universities will still exist and be able to focus more on research and less on being High School 2.0.
Not to mention such an arrangement would be more organic, in the sense of not constraining people to the uncanny artificial environment of public schooling, which does not mirror any other oft-seen real life institution. It's an odd syncretic chimera of its own.
Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
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"
It's an investment sure and you're right in asserting that childhood is finite. Fortunately, the US is interesting in that they give you the freedom to home school. If knowledge isn't a priority we as a country give you the right to deny it to your child.
In my personal experience (and I suspect yours given you're on this site) my entire livelihood is dependent on my knowledge. For me, this was cultivated on the lattice of the public school system (K-12 to university) but I'll freely admit I was lucky in that respect. My personal dream is that every child gets the same opportunity.
Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
This right here is the core of a world of problems. Data contradicts gut feeling. Data must be wrong.
PS: In response to a deleted post. As a counter argument, doing homework can easily train people to do thing wrong thing which takes a lot of effort to correct. That does not preclude doing. In many cases mixing in 'homework' with class work is probably a much better use of time. AKA ask everyone what 57+49 is give them 30 seconds. Collect answers. Fix errors. Repeat.
I deleted the post because after 30 seconds I thought it was insufficiently well thought out and written. :-)
In many cases mixing in 'homework' with class work is probably a much better use of time. AKA ask everyone what 57+49 is give them 30 seconds. Collect answers. Fix errors. Repeat.
Agreed. My school classroom experiences were mostly passive listening. The few that mixed listening with reading with doing, right there in the classroom, were marvelous. Little if any extra homework needed.
If that would be done? I think that'd be great. But if the proposal is just passive lectures in class and that's it, I remain unconvinced.
Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Giving parents veto power over associated work will not fix the problem that schooling is not education.
EDIT: I missed [lordCarbonFiber](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10459743 )'s comment, saying the same but better.
Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework
#57The main benefit of homework is instilling the habit of working to a deadline without direct supervision, instead of giving in to distractions.
Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework
#58Hmm. The article alludes to some studies that back up their point, but, anecdotally, I think I got more out of doing homework than I did out of sitting in class...
Exactly! This dovetails with the Khan Academy approach, of listening to lecture online, then doing homework in class with the teacher there as tutor. Public school is usually run upside-down from what makes sense.
I don't agree with this comment, but it's a shame that it was downvoted. It seems to me like a productive contribution to the discussion.
Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework
#59I am in total agreement that children have better things to do than homework. Such as learning how to play and interact with others. Learn how to deal with adversity. How to deal with the sadness of a break up or not being included. Learning how to lead a team via Counter Strike or WOW. Learning computers by writing a mod for a favorite computer game. These things taught me far more than a worksheet on a very idealiz…
This is precisely the "flipped classroom" concept that Khan Academy has been championing for a while now:
Re: More parents, students saying 'no' to homework
#60I am in total agreement that children have better things to do than homework. Such as learning how to play and interact with others. Learn how to deal with adversity. How to deal with the sadness of a break up or not being included. Learning how to lead a team via Counter Strike or WOW. Learning computers by writing a mod for a favorite computer game. These things taught me far more than a worksheet on a very idealiz…
My significant other is a teacher and entered the workforce 2 years ago. I now firmly believe that the education system is the way it is because of the teachers, and not in a good way. The few who got into it because "they love children and teaching" are so massively outweighed by those who took it because there was nothing else. It's created a system that is center around Dear Teacher, a frustrated individual upset that they couldn't get the overseas marketing job or field marine biology study position they spent $40,000 trying to attain.
Lecture with assigned homework happens because it's easy. Read a script, send home to mommy and daddy to do the hard stuff. Any attempt to change and you get a strike. There's a fucking strike every year now in Ontario.