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

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

#111

Post by hugh4 » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 7:02 PM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #31

thedufer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Sure, commuting, but it's not always practical to move closer to school.

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

#112

Post by protomyth » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 7:03 PM UTC

mmcclellan wrote: post #94

One evening my wife, daughter and I were sitting in the living room. My wife and I were reading and my daughter was doing her Math homework, when all of sudden she asks "Did Heath Ledger commit suicide?" I said "that's a weird question, what brought that up?" and she said they were talking about it at school today with the Dare Police Officer. I said "Oh you had a Police Officer in your class today?" and she said "Ye…

Yeah, time to run for that old school board seat or find someone who can. Three days a week means that family time with you and your wife is being substituted for homework because your child spends time with a D.A.R.E. officer.

I went to school in, shall we say, a less than good-rated school, and we didn't even have that level of foolishness during the "Just Say No" era.

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

#113

Post by unquietcode » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 7:03 PM UTC

Let's not forget that the inhabitants of this website are almost certainly the kind of people who saw through the noise and got their education on their own terms. As we raise our kids we help them tip-toe around all this garbage, but most parents have no tools at their disposal to review and revise and push back against bad practices in their child's education. The issue of education in this country needs to be addressed, but the system has to serve all types, including children who's parents are unable to provide alternative structures and insights and 'hacks' to get by.

That didn't add much (I wasn't trying), but these threads always seem to turn into an echo chamber of "I got by without doing any homework!" because, let's face it, here we are. What is the 98% solution, I wonder, versus the 2% version? Of all that I've seen, it starts with better, smarter, well-paid, un-stressed, empathetic teachers. Students too afraid to think? Too pinned down to discover how best to learn for themselves? I just want to give all these poor kids a hug and tell them how smart they really are--it makes me so sad.

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

#114

Post by ilovefood » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 7:03 PM UTC

After refusing them to get proper vaccination, let's prevent them from getting proper education. Evolution baby!

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

#115

Post by ajuc » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 7:04 PM UTC

dctoedt wrote: post #66

lordnacho wrote: post #37

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…

> ... you can simply ask your kid some enlightening questions. It's probably a lot more interesting for them that way. Part-time (law) professor here. Thinking of enlightening questions is often quite difficult.

Asking about their assumptions on simple examples is a good start. And then asking about situation that break these assumptions.

It's a little evil but that makes it fun:) Example from the time I helped sister clear confusion between accelration and velocity:

- what's acc and vel of a rock lying on a ground (not 0 - a vector 0)

- ... of a car slowing down (vectors that poin in opposite directions)

- ... of a rock swinging on a rope (non-parallel vectors, one of them changing in direction)

I'm feeling for the teachers that have to teach something to 30+ kids without having the time to ask them about their wrong assumptions. Must be frustrating as hell when you see they don't understand, but can't help them with the time you have.

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

#116

Post by adrusi » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

talmand wrote: post #103

mmcclellan wrote: post #94

One evening my wife, daughter and I were sitting in the living room. My wife and I were reading and my daughter was doing her Math homework, when all of sudden she asks "Did Heath Ledger commit suicide?" I said "that's a weird question, what brought that up?" and she said they were talking about it at school today with the Dare Police Officer. I said "Oh you had a Police Officer in your class today?" and she said "Ye…

A Dare police officer, as in D.A.R.E.? Is that program from my childhood still active? Or is that something else?

It's dying out, but still around.

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

#117

Post by protomyth » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

adrusi wrote: post #102

I figured I'd share a relevant anecdote: throughout most of my school (at least by seventh grade) I did virtually no homework. Not with the blessing of my teacher, nor of my parents. But I knew that my parents wanted to shut their eyes and pretend that my grades were improving for as long as they could until the report card came home. I knew that most teachers could be convinced into letting me make up some work at t…

Did you happen to have a job during high school?

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

#118

Post by talmand » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #93

jerf wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The metaphor that resonates with me as a musician, would you expect someone to get better at piano only by attending lessons but no practice at home?" If they were at lessons for 7 hours a day, five days a week... yes! Yes I in fact do.

Except children don't sit down at school and begin a "school lesson". Basic education is going to cover Math, Science, Language, History and hopefully Art. So in a given subject there might be 5 hours of lesson time week. When framed that way, asking for another hour or 2 of practice time for mastery doesn't sound so unreasonable.

Assuming that the homework is "practice" and not "instruction". A good bit of my older kid's homework is continuation of the instruction at home without the benefit of the teacher. Not that I fully blame the teacher for this, I blame the district for it as much, if not more.

But to continue the metaphor, I would expect a child receiving five one-hour lessons a week on piano to be proficient enough to show they have received lessons within a decent amount of time. Without extra practice. But what's the criteria to consider it a success? What amount of time? Do we consider whether the child has a natural talent for it in the equation? Personally, I don't think it's a good metaphor.

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

#119

Post by dudul » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

fiatmoney wrote: post #33

dudul wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_...

Thanks. I don't think it really backs your claim that "[X] students in America do as well or better than [X] students in their home countries on any measure you'd like to name."

but it's still interesting data.

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

#120

Post by Jtsummers » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

a2tech wrote: post #90

The best thing my school did was moving to the 'block' system. Instead of having 6 or 8 classes to go to every day, I had 4 classes a semester. It also meant that my algebra class, or biology, was twice as long as your 'standard' class at another school. The block system meant that the instructor had twice as long with the students and could really dig into a subject. It also meant we didn't usually have homework bec…

The school in my first high school school district did that, and had disastrous results. Too much time between related courses (essentially 9 months between each math class).

I preferred the way my second high school did it. We still had 8 periods a day (magnet school, so the regular schools had 7). Monday was everything, it was a busy day. Odd classes on TR, even on WF. So you only had to do homework for 3-4 classes a night. And you had the benefits of nearly two hours of instruction most days.

It was more like college structure, but with additional courses (where most college students take 4-6 classes a semester, we took 6-8; some of our classes took multiple periods).