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More parents, students saying 'no' to homework

philly.com

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

#211

Post by sevensor »

dgrant wrote: post #129

This is crazy, I don't know where I would be today if I hadn't done homework. Homework was where I really and truly learned. Independent work is so important, and it's totally different than doing something with a bunch of students in a classroom setting. Sure, the education system probably could be improved a lot. But you can't just remove homework from the current system and expect there will be no negative consequ…

My kids (in preschool) _love_ Bedtime Math (the book) and often request it instead of bedtime stories. It's hard to tell if it's having any pedogogical effect --- my oldest is starting to be able to add, sometimes, if both numbers are less than or equal to five. But maybe that would have happened anyhow?

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

#212

Post by malcolmgreaves »

I learned the most from _good_ homework assignments. These assignments were always multi-week (1-2) affairs. They were big, complicated, and covered a lot of things. But, since they weren't due within a day, they gave me the time to really work at them. To rack my brain against their problems and discover, on my own, how to solve them. Of course, I almost always needed to talk with my TAs, professor, and fellow students multiple times throughout the assignment. And this made me become pro-active about seeking help, which I use on a daily basis in the real world.

Worksheets? Yes, I never learned a damn thing from these time wasters. I feel that mini-projects are the way to go.

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

#213

Post by guimarin »

pippy wrote: post #209
unquietcode wrote: post #113

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 addr…

And to compound this pressure standardized testing is putting teachers under the thumb. There's an obscene amount of paperwork required and it takes the focus away from students. In today's environment standardized testing is a step back, in the 1950 it would have made sense. A better approach would be to emulate the Finnish curriculum which is ridiculously fluid. And it works, they're currently one of the highest ac…

A conspiracy seems overly suspicious. It's more likely that the people putting in place standardized testing believe that data should drive compensation and results. They don't seem to be understanding the implication of such a garbage in garbage out policy though. In private schools there is also standardization and testing, and the data is often good HS and thereby good colleges.

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

#214

Post by dgrant »

sevensor wrote: post #211
dgrant wrote: post #129

This is crazy, I don't know where I would be today if I hadn't done homework. Homework was where I really and truly learned. Independent work is so important, and it's totally different than doing something with a bunch of students in a classroom setting. Sure, the education system probably could be improved a lot. But you can't just remove homework from the current system and expect there will be no negative consequ…

My kids (in preschool) _love_ Bedtime Math (the book) and often request it instead of bedtime stories. It's hard to tell if it's having any pedogogical effect --- my oldest is starting to be able to add, sometimes, if both numbers are less than or equal to five. But maybe that would have happened anyhow?

It definitely helps. We were at that stage, where all my daughter could do was questions that involved summing numbers that added up to 5. She would do them on her fingers. Now she can do those in her head and also memorized what 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 looks like on fingers, and can now recognize 6, 7, and 9, 10 on fingers. Can't do 8 yet... Keep at it!

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

#215

Post by jinfiesto »

bweitzman wrote: post #88
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 latt…

I know a few people who've been home schooled. You would never be able to tell unless they told you (which is how I found out in every case)

I suspect the parent is referring to the nearly epidemic levels of religion driven homeschooling we have in the US. It's apparently totally acceptable to pull your child out of school and teach them dinosaurs didn't exist and that evolution is probably wrong.

Source: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oii/nonpublic/statisti...

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

#216

Post by Rayearth »

guimarin wrote: post #136
guimarin wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your comment about better teachers. Teachers are simply a conduit for learning. They don't scale, which is why there is still a power-law distribution in educational outcomes despite tons or research and data and training and testing that should combat that. Basically rich people get richer because all rich people who are generationally consistently rich have one thing in common. They are autodidacts.…

And just to be clear. The answer for children is to make learning to love learning play. And the way to do that in a way that scales is through a video game. That is the future of education. Games for children that teach them how to learn, that they then use to set their own educational path. With teachers, schools, mentors, and advisors helping along the way.

I've come across two outstanding examples of this:

Kerbal Space Program in AP Physics (https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1jcnyl/...)

Diplomacy [the Avalon Hill boardgame] in 12th Grade Humanities (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/386460/diplomacy-classroom-...)

The second example is particularly fascinating. We can expect games to apply and reinforce studies in a technical field or to stimulate interest in history, but using a game to teach rhetoric and its ability to express and manipulate is something else.

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

#217

Post by orless »

learc83 wrote: post #192
Dowwie wrote: post #184

"Let kids be kids" means something different for each household. In mine, that meant video games and sports, but mostly the former. Not sure what's going to come of any no-homework generation while this happens elsewhere: "Teens in Shanghai spend 14 hours a week on homework" http://qz.com/311360/students-in-these-countries-spend-the-m...

When I was in elementary school in the 90s, they used to try to scare us into working harder by telling us stories about how Japanese kids went to school half a day on Saturday. When my parents were in school it was about keeping up with the Soviets. These days, it's kids in Shanghai doing 14 hours a week of homework.

We actually had 6-day studing week in Soviet Union in the school. There were normally two schifts, one ca. 8-13 and the other one ca. 14-19. After school or before school we had a few hours of homework every day, I'd say between 2 and 3 hours. More in the later classes as we were preparing for the university.

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

#218

Post by douche »

ashark wrote: post #205
douche wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame video games for making me into a history buff. And maybe Legos, combined with the History Channel before it was the RedneckAliensJesus Channel. Civilization, Lords of the Realm, Caesar II, Robert E. Lee: Civil War General, Close Combat, Total War, Pirates!, Anno 1602, Europa Universalis/Crusader Kings/Victoria/Hearts of Iron, Age of Empires Or to go way back, Math/Word Rescue, Treasure Mountain, Midnight Resc…

Same story, nearly the same list. I'd throw in Shadow President, which taught me the names and locations of all the (cold war era) countries by third grade or so, and gave me a good sense of global and regional balances of power. If you haven't played "Civil War Generals 2: Grant, Lee, Sherman" you should. It's Robert E. Lee: Civil War General but with the brokenness fixed—there's a victory point system that's in par…

CWG2 was fantastic. I scoured bargain bins high and low for a couple of years before I found a copy. Lord knows how many hours I lost refighting Gettysburg or marathon custom scenarios on the ridiculously big Manassas, Harper's Ferry and Cross Keys/Port Republic maps. It's too bad it wasn't more popular; I'd have loved to see a Napoleonic or Franco-Prussian expansion. I remember a couple of total conversion mods that sort of worked, but it was not a particularly mod-friendly game, unfortunately.

Too bad that the only real option to play it these days is still 800x600 on a Win98 VM. If GOG ever offers a version that works on modern operating systems, it will be a "Shut up and take my money" moment for me.

Someday, I want to build a medieval/ancient set game with the same general mechanics...

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

#219

Post by kd0amg »

teddyh wrote: post #199
dgrant wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like another commenter said... I wonder what the kid's evening actually looks like. Staying up until 1am sounds/smells a lot to me like the kind of household where homework gets pushed until the end of the day. I sort of speak from experience as someone who constantly was up late during my university years, and it started in late high school. It all had to do with me not doing my homework right away, putting it off,…

You sound like you’re assuming that today’s kids get about the same amount of homework which you did. My impression is that the amount of homework has increased enormously since you were a kid.

When I was in high school, the general attitude was that an hour of homework per night was reasonable. Your English teacher agreed with this idea, so you'd get an hour of English homework. Your math teacher agreed with this idea, so you'd get an hour of math homework. Your science teacher agreed with this idea, so you'd get an hour of science homework. Your social sciences teacher agreed with this idea, so you'd get an hour of social sciences homework. And so on. I knew a lot of caffeine addicts in high school.

So I generally didn't finish it all in the 90 minutes or so between arriving at home and dinner time.

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

#220

Post by Macsenour »

As a SCRUM teacher, I do 2 hours of talking, with Q&A, and then 3 hours of practical where we put the LEGO version of the Daily Bugle together.

I learned LONG ago that my students learned so much more by DOING than by lecture. As children, why would it be reversed with homework? If anything, I should reduce the talking and add more Lego fun for kids.

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