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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

#251

Post by mapmap »

kd0amg wrote: post #219
teddyh wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My school improved this by switching to a "block schedule" with 3 rotating classes a day for 2 hours each instead of all 6 in one day. The side effect was that it was easy to wait to do the homework until the night before it was due and forget what was discussed in class the day before.

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

#252

Post by wodenokoto »

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…

> That didn't add much

For what it's worth, I think it did.

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

#253

Post by jrapdx3 »

dcgoss wrote: post #248

I am a sophomore in high school. In fact, I attend the same school as Zach Masterman in the article (Harriton High School), and he is in one of my classes. My one refute to his complaints is that perhaps he would have less homework if he played less games in class. Quips aside, here are my two cents. I certainly do not agree that all out of class work should be abolished. However, I do think there is a threshold at w…

> Where homework plays in that equation is unclear, but take it how you will.

Sure, in the enriched environment you describe students are more likely to have the motivation to make the effort to learn and succeed. I'd guess you and your classmates are engaged with the educational process, ready, even eager to learn. Doing homework would seem the natural thing to do.

By all means it's right to take advantage of such favorable circumstance. The issue for schools and students not so blessed is creating this kind of benefit. The goal won't be achieved by strengthening the factory approach to education. Piling on bureaucracy, "performance" testing, etc. will not help, rather just lead to more discouragement.

I think great examples, like the one you present, give a clue. Find talented teachers (I've known a number of them, they do exist) and leave them unencumbered, let them teach. They will reach some students, and it will begin to inspire others. Perhaps they will assign homework, but then if we offer help to parents and students so they can cope with it better, homework would serve constructive purpose in augmenting learning.

Technology can add to the cause, but by itself is no answer. Used wisely it may play a useful role in evolving solutions, that is, realizing it's a means to an end.

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

#254

Post by agarden »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #172
guimarin wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They'll screw it up anyway. I believe the core issue is just about agency: kids will enjoy and learn from anything and everything if they don't feel forced to do so . The best way to absolutely ruin a book? Make it a required reading in school. The best way to make a totally crap game that is neither fun nor educating? Make an educational game. If you want to kids to learn and have fun at the same time, you have to a…

I wonder if perhaps kids find the assigned work so dreadful because the manner of assignment assumes it will be. "Why should I read this?," asks the kid. "Because it is assigned," comes the answer. At which point, perhaps the child thinks, "Oh, you don't care about this, so why should I?," and the battle lines are drawn.

In other words, maybe the issue isn't whether or not something is assigned. Maybe the issue is whether or not the teacher cares about - and is excited about - the material. If the teacher thinks it is fun, maybe being assigned it is not such a heavy burden to bear.

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

#256

Post by mehrdada »

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…

I've heard this argument many times since I was a kid and I was "fighting" the educational system I was in and later on, and I think this is red herring. Any change in the educational system that seems to target it for the "top" students is pushed back with "this only works for the motivated and we need to take care of the 98% too".

However, it's not at all clear that the status quo is effectively optimized to maximize the benefit for the bottom 98% either. Neither it looks like they are designed by wise, well-intentioned, experts. For the most part, educational systems around the world seem to have been an evolution through design by committee mostly directed by political motives. Since almost everything tried has been quite ineffective at moving the needle for the bottom 98% in any meaningful way, this serves as a good political excuse for not radically moving things around.

Perhaps educational systems should be designed for the top 2% and the other 98% would adapt as time goes by, instead of being crippled with that excuse? (not saying this is true, but it is worth thinking about)

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

#257

Post by analog31 »

mhuffman wrote: post #234
TeMPOraL wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Knowledge and insight is what you get when you take the facts you've been taught (or learned yourself) and internalize them. Schools nowadays focus too much on the first at the cost of the second, because former is easily testable and the latter takes time.

One of the goals of Common Core was to fix that situation ... but then, you know, teaching to the test kind of defeated it.

Interestingly enough, when the schools in my locale started talking about Common Core, I decided to look it up. I found that one or more states had published complete curriculum guides written around CC, and since I like math, I looked through the math curricula.

My impression is that the CC curriculum (neglecting variations that I haven't seen) is so ostentatiously mainstream, that I can't fathom how it became controversial, except that people mistakenly associate it with standardized testing.

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

#258

Post by analog31 »

dgrant wrote: post #190
RogerL wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a pretty wide gulf between no homework, ever, and the kinds of loads being placed on some kids. You talk about "a few" words a week. My friend's kids (I have none) end up staying up until 1am, forgoing family and friend time, just to keep up with the work demands. We invited a family to do something with us - the response was that they might be able to do something in 6 or so months due to the kids schedule.…

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,…

My kids are typical "overscheduled" teenagers. There's music lessons, orchestra, sports, choir, etc. There's going outside before it gets dark.

This is going to sound weird, but we deliberately put some of those things at a higher priority than homework. First of all, the scheduled activities happen when they happen. Second, some activities take more mental focus, it works best for those things to be done first. Third, activities such as music come before homework in terms of their value -- they represent gaps in the school curriculum, that we are filling in ourselves.

So, homework can come last for good reasons. Also, some activities require awake parents. ;-)

Now, about the 1am thing, that only happens roughly once a semester due to an exponential distribution of homework assignments. Each teacher assigns homework, apparently at random, and they don't organize or coordinate it, so the late nights are usually due to a confluence of multiple teachers each giving out multiple assignments at once.

The island of stability in that sea of chaos is math. The math lessons come home at a steady, predictable rate, and none of the work involves a computer, so it gets an early time slot.

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

#259

Post by analog31 »

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.

I'm in my early 50s, and I had remarkably little homework in school.

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

#260

Post by rayiner »

cossatot wrote: post #239
rayiner wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arguably you could cover everything again the next day but thats hardly a graceful solution and doesn't cater to that variance of time needed for homework across different children as contact hours are very limited as it is. Repetition is important. But kids are already at school for 7-8 hours a day. If that is not enough time to engage in adequate repetition, the solution is not to shift work to home hours. It is:…

What do you view as non-essential? STEM? Arts? Social studies? Recess/PE? And how much time do you actually think is wasted on dealing with disruptive students? 10% of the day? 35%? To me, this sounds like a recipe for creating an upper class of uncreative, poorly-rounded conformists and a lower class of people who are undereducated and permanently pissed off at the society that fails to serve their needs. I think it…

I don't think K-8 needs to teach more than writing, reading, and math. Not even science--kids don't really get it and the dumbed-down version you learn at that level probably makes it harder rather than easier to learn "real science" later on.

Misbehaving kids should get an education--they should just get it in a class with other misbehaving kids.

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