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

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

#291

Post by civilian » Wed, Oct 28, 2015, 9:14 PM UTC

isolated wrote: post #182

I graduated from high school recently. Homework was the true bane of my existence. It gnawed at my every waking thought and put a tinge of anxiety to my every moment. Am I doing it? Did I forget some? What do I need to be doing that Im not? The entire school experience is a depressing prison of course but homework is how it goes from an seven hour affair to a twenty four hour project. More than anything else it makes…

I'm with you. I'm 28 now, working as a software engineer, and I'm loving my life. I roll into work at 10:30 and yesterday I got a raise without having to ask or negotiate for it. I have the time and money to pursue hobbies, but I also genuinely enjoy my coworkers.

But high school was _rough_ for me. My grades weren't especially good, but I did a lot of AP classes. I constantly had the anxiety of homework looming over me. Looking back, I realized that I got into the state where I'd be behind on a lot of things, and once I had 5 different things on my plate it'd be really hard to prioritize them and I'd just stress myself out trying to balance them.

I'd like to have children someday, but I know that there's a chance they're going to inherit my style of thinking. (My dad is the same as me-- he also graduated college just barely, also procrastinated too much in high school.) I'd really like to find some alternate form of school that still challenges my kids, but does so in a way that doesn't explode their stress levels.

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

#292

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 1:45 AM UTC

avemg wrote: post #289

TeMPOraL wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That people whine about kids spending time doing some thing instead of the one they're supposed to do, while the kids are just choosing the thing that is not total bullshit and is actually useful for something.

> while the kids are just choosing the thing that is not total bullshit and is actually useful for something. This assumption borders on absurd.

Does it? Or maybe the assumption that children aren't naturally curious beings with agency and emotional life, but just a hard drive to write on (or slate, if you like) is something that borders on absurd.

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

#293

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 2:19 AM UTC

Latty wrote: post #285

fsloth wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The best way to make a totally crap game that is neither fun nor educating? Make an educational game." My 5 y. daughter is completely enthralled by a spelling and reading game on IPad. This leads me to disagree and claim instead that a crap game is not made good by educational goals but a good educational game is provably plausible - it just needs to be a good game.

It's about making a game that is educational, rather than an education tool that's a game. The vast majority of 'education games' are simple quizzes, barely even a game. One of my favourite childhood games (Logical Journey of the Zoombinis) was all about maths, logic and problem solving, and I credit it for a lot of my early interest (and success) in those areas. As a quick plug for something I loved - they recently…

> It's about making a game that is educational, rather than an education tool that's a game. The vast majority of 'education games' are simple quizzes, barely even a game.

Yes, exactly that.

My biggest problem with the education ecosystem is that adults try to bullshit kids instead of facilitating learning, and at the same time they forget children have perfect bullshit detectors - they haven't yet learned to question their intuition that something is pointless, or lie to themselves to get through drudgery.

Games are not made by just colorful graphics and telling a story. Kids can tell when you try to trick them into doing something they think is pointless, and it also erodes their trust quickly.

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

#294

Post by Overtonwindow » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 2:53 PM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #154

Overtonwindow wrote: post #144

I think homework is necessary for some subjects, like math and physics, because practice is where the learning comes from IMHO. In other subjects, homework is anachronistic. I think we should extend the school day like Japan, and build homework and social networks into the school setting.

You want to _extend_ an 8 hour day even further?

Absolutely! Asian and European schools have longer days, and the social activities of the kids are based in and around the school. I think it's safer, promote learning and socialization in a structured environment, and it takes pressure off of parents to worry about their children at home alone, while they're still at work. Just add an hour to the school day. Use that hour to review with the kids what they did in school that day, any questions they have, and get them started on reviewing that learning.

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

#295

Post by ashark » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 4:48 PM UTC

thro1237 wrote: post #250

ashark wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Any games that will be enjoyed first graders?

Nothing I can think of that isn't primarily intended as edutainment, e.g. Math Blaster, Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail. Oh man, and Number Munchers[1]! Those were good around that age. Not many games that were only incidentally very educational that I could handle at that age. I'd expect most of the ones on that list to become accessible to a kid in 1st grade now over the next 2-3 years, though.

I remember loving Microsoft Dinosaurs—a wikipedia search for it redirects to a list including that and a bunch of similar looking titles under the Microsoft Home label—and Explorers of the New World, which even the Internet apparently barely remembers judging from the google results. They'd be OK for a 1st grader but those weren't even games, really.

Main issue is they're all old. A few are hard to run. Some are only available on used CDs. Not sure how they'd keep a modern kid's attention. I gather there are some good games like this on tablets and such, but my kids aren't quite old enough for that stuff yet, so I can't recommend any.

Side note: I'm pretty sure playing Doom, Dark Forces, Wolf3D, and other FPS games with confusing maps from young age is ~20% responsible for my wicked-high scores on spatial reasoning tests (Building lego sets from the instructions can be credited with the other ~80%) so, there's that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchers

[EDIT] wold3d -> wolf3d