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Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kids' homework

economist.com

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Re: Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kids' homework

#71

Post by [deleted] »

scubaguy wrote: post #58
maire wrote: post #38

Ideally, parents shouldn't spend any time on their children's homework. I can understand answering occasional questions and giving encouragement but nothing more. Children learn by figuring out homework on their own. Otherwise, why have homework?

You can spend time on homework in many ways: Getting your children to think about problems from different angles; Understanding where they struggle and should spend more time; Understanding where they are fine and let explore on their own; Learning how to set the appropriate guidelines to foster good study habits. It is amazing how even two kids from the same parents can vary greatly in personality and how they learn…

[deleted]

Re: Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kids' homework

#72

Post by potatote »

vezycash wrote: post #64
haihaibye wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the 2 biggest countries on earth should count more than your personal experience?

Results from two countries should be generalized to every country in the world? If you travelled a little bit like I have, you'll discover a few things. E.g. The poor are usually uneducated. Meaning they can't help with homework. Even in poor black American communities, house work is often more important than school work. More important, the poor tend to work longer and harder on mental jobs. They most impoverished b…

> E.g. The poor are usually uneducated. Meaning they can't help with homework.

> Even in poor black American communities, house work is often more important than school work.

You pretty much nailed what I wanted to described earlier. My mother works from home and although she has a bachelor's degree, since the education system (esp. in her times) was poor, she is not even at the level of a high school grad in terms of knowledge regarding math, humanities and science. This is not to mention that she (nor my more educated, late father, who was a doctor) wouldn't be able to help her/his children with their homework due to lack of knowledge/education or time.

One thing I remember though is that after finishing homework, my mom would expect us to help out with house chores like sweeping the floor, collecting clothes from clotheslines, buying small grocery items, etc.

Re: Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kids' homework

#73

Post by bg4 »

josephorjoe wrote: post #60
CannisterFlux wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, I think that argument is made by people who don't have kids (with homework). It's not leisure for me at all. While I worry about being branded a terrible father for this comment, I will admit that I am a terrible teacher. I have no patience for it. My kids mess around, constantly want breaks ("Well I've written a line! time for a 10 minute break!"), waste hours doing shit that should take them minutes... When the…

Exactly. And on top of all that, you're lucky if the teachers even look at the homework they assigned. My kid's teacher doesn't bother -- she emails photos of the answer sheets to the parents because I guess we are supposed to review the homework too? Maybe this isn't obvious... but if I wanted to homeschool my kid, I would homeschool my kid.

Yes, plus my kid's elementary school has a dress up day or fundraiser of some sort almost every week for the entire year.

Re: Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kids' homework

#74

Post by DoubleCribble »

mjburgess wrote: post #4

It's important to add here that homework has never been shown to improve grades or educational outcomes generally, and it's a very well-studied topic.

Not true at all. There's a large part of brain development that comes from simply practicing handwriting.[0] Putting pen to paper is a huge part of language mastery. In most educational situations, that practice is going to occur outside of the classroom as there is simply not enough time in the typical school day.

Even in the study mentioned in a previous comment [1], the authors disagree as, "we find additional homework to be most effective for high and low achievers".

[0]https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/why-handwriting-is...

[1]https://www.binghamton.edu/economics/research/old-working-pa...

Re: Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kids' homework

#75

Post by watwut »

liberte82 wrote: post #55
watwut wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it is not. I mean, that would be like saying that argument can be made that sky is green - argument can be made, but is rarely true.

In Japanese, blue and green are considered the same color, just different shades. So is true in some places.

I did not used Japanese words, I used English words. And unless you are strongly colorblind, they are diferent looking no matter what your maternal language. So no, it is not true that they are same, that is frankly incredibly bullshit statement.

For that matter, light green and dark green are shades too, but they are not the same color and are not used intercheably.

Re: Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kids' homework

#76

Post by dhimes »

CannisterFlux wrote: post #37
lighthazard wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An argument can be made that doing homework with your child is the leisure.

Ha, I think that argument is made by people who don't have kids (with homework). It's not leisure for me at all. While I worry about being branded a terrible father for this comment, I will admit that I am a terrible teacher. I have no patience for it. My kids mess around, constantly want breaks ("Well I've written a line! time for a 10 minute break!"), waste hours doing shit that should take them minutes... When the…

So your 17 year old is just like mine.

(j/k it gets better.)

Re: Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kids' homework

#77

Post by dhimes »

bunderbunder wrote: post #69
CannisterFlux wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, I think that argument is made by people who don't have kids (with homework). It's not leisure for me at all. While I worry about being branded a terrible father for this comment, I will admit that I am a terrible teacher. I have no patience for it. My kids mess around, constantly want breaks ("Well I've written a line! time for a 10 minute break!"), waste hours doing shit that should take them minutes... When the…

It's really too bad the inverted classroom model hasn't become any more popular. In a nutshell, the idea is to take the traditional breakdown of what is done in class and what is done at home, and swap it: Kids do their readings and watch recorded lectures at home. And then they work on problem sets and projects in class, typically in groups. It's a really clever idea. Compared to the traditional model, it has so man…

I don't buy the 'level the playing field' argument, but it nevertheless might result in better learning.

Re: Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kids' homework

#78

Post by dhimes »

madengr wrote: post #68
CannisterFlux wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, I think that argument is made by people who don't have kids (with homework). It's not leisure for me at all. While I worry about being branded a terrible father for this comment, I will admit that I am a terrible teacher. I have no patience for it. My kids mess around, constantly want breaks ("Well I've written a line! time for a 10 minute break!"), waste hours doing shit that should take them minutes... When the…

Ha ha, same issue with me last night. My 3rd grade boy brought home some horribly long reading comprehension homework. He HATES English homework. I do too. Fortunately my wife took over as I was becoming frustrated. I do enjoy helping with math & science homework, but that’s it. My 6th grade daughter is total opposite; never had a B student, science fair winner, violin & cello player. My son a video game & skateboard…

Revenge of Your Parents!

Re: Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kids' homework

#79

Post by emodendroket »

liberte82 wrote: post #55
watwut wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it is not. I mean, that would be like saying that argument can be made that sky is green - argument can be made, but is rarely true.

In Japanese, blue and green are considered the same color, just different shades. So is true in some places.

In some contexts, that's true. In most, people can and do distinguish between ao and midori (and for that matter, sora-iro, kon, mizu-iro, and various other shades of these two colors). If you said "sora wa midori de aru," literally "the sky is green," nobody would nod their head yes.

Re: Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kids' homework

#80

Post by meric »

oblio wrote: post #15
meric wrote: post #2

National income is correlated with percent of population in workforce. Poorer countries are correlated with lower levels of total employment. Assuming all else being equal then parents with less time involved in employment will have more time for other activities, including spending time with children. Is this right?

> National income is correlated with percent of population in workforce. Poorer countries are correlated with lower levels of total employment. How did you draw that conclusion? Do you have any data for this? Intuitively I'd expect poor people to work more since they still need a baseline amount of money (food, rent, etc.) and it takes them longer to get it.

Two parents working have more income counted in GDP than one parent. Higher GDP is thus correlated with more parents working. More parents working means less parent hours available. In the table the bottom countries have highest number of parents working and the top countries, lowest.
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