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My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

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Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#101

Post by ronaldx »

Tichy wrote: post #54
comex wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One comment: there's a difference between mental arithmetic, which is as useful as ever to be able to perform quickly/effectively, and the pen-and-paper variant (which I assume the cited assignment required), which is not. Everyone should, of course, know how to do the latter, but doing long pen-and-paper operations usually doesn't save time over reaching for a calculator, and is error-prone. Unfortunately, schools (…

Do calculators even routinely work with infinite precision (like (sqrt(2) x sqrt(2) = 2)? I guess you could achieve some results with Mathematia or something like that, but I have my doubts about the average calculator. Sometimes it is still useful to do calculations by hand, also to understand what is going on. (Edit: just tested the OS X calculator, sqrt(2) x sqrt(2) works out by chance, but sqrt(200) x sqrt(200) f…

A current-generation Casio scientific handles this well - the display shows exact numbers such as 1+√(2) which suggest it's doing the precise calculation where reasonable.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#102

Post by m_mueller »

Tichy wrote: post #54
comex wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One comment: there's a difference between mental arithmetic, which is as useful as ever to be able to perform quickly/effectively, and the pen-and-paper variant (which I assume the cited assignment required), which is not. Everyone should, of course, know how to do the latter, but doing long pen-and-paper operations usually doesn't save time over reaching for a calculator, and is error-prone. Unfortunately, schools (…

Do calculators even routinely work with infinite precision (like (sqrt(2) x sqrt(2) = 2)? I guess you could achieve some results with Mathematia or something like that, but I have my doubts about the average calculator. Sometimes it is still useful to do calculations by hand, also to understand what is going on. (Edit: just tested the OS X calculator, sqrt(2) x sqrt(2) works out by chance, but sqrt(200) x sqrt(200) f…

Edit: Sorry, I just noticed that actually I was missing the point - I thought your comment was in response to vacri. Leaving my comment here, just in case.

I think your comment misses the point. It's important to learn when to use a calculator and when to simplify the equation instead. Your example obviously should be simplified first on paper, resulting in 2. This can easily be enforced by requiring the intermediate steps, such that a calculator won't work. The point of parent is, that learning pen-and-paper calculation is of basically no value (except if you go into computer science, where remembering those algorithms can come in handy). Your example is not calculation, it's arithmetics, a necessary step towards algebra.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#103

Post by mistercow »

comex wrote: post #46
vacri wrote: post #24

There are some concepts at odds here. "The measurements included numbers like 78 13/64, and all this multiplying and dividing was to be done without a calculator." is not 'rote learning'/'memorisation without rationalisation'. It's directly exercising an ability. I've had a university-level experience reach for her calculator to multiply 0.2 by 3, and when I forbade her from using it, she just stared dumbly at me. Th…

One comment: there's a difference between mental arithmetic, which is as useful as ever to be able to perform quickly/effectively, and the pen-and-paper variant (which I assume the cited assignment required), which is not. Everyone should, of course, know how to do the latter, but doing long pen-and-paper operations usually doesn't save time over reaching for a calculator, and is error-prone. Unfortunately, schools (…

I have to disagree with this a little bit. The skills you use for mental arithmetic are very similar to the skills for pen and paper. I would view pen and paper as training wheels.

It might be argued that mental arithmetic should also at least be taught, but the only way I know of to do that which will tend to generalize to a majority of students is to teach them to use an abacus (seasoned abacus users eventually stop needing to actually have the physical device). And yes, we should almost definitely be teaching children how to use an abacus.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#104

Post by mistercow »

comex wrote: post #51
Afforess wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once asked a vice principal (way back, 10 yrs ago) why schools started so early when lack of sleep was known to be bad. He said it was so there was time for sports in the evening. If you started at 10 or 11 school would run until 6 and it would start getting dark. Sports are why kids sleep is ruined.

Maybe, but when I was a teenager, at least, starting at 8 or 10 would make no difference to me - I would just tend to fall asleep 2 hours later. At least in some cases, the real issue is the number of waking hours in a day demanded of a student.

The teens are actually a particularly problematic period for humans in this respect, because it's a time when you have the sleep requirements of a child, but the natural bedtime of an adult. Most 8-year-olds can't easily stay up past 11. Most 13-year-olds can't easily fall asleep before 10. Both need at least 9 hours of sleep.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#105

Post by Fuxy »

Holy st people how can you allow teachers to torture your kids like that.

I'm young and I never had this kind of work load hell if i did i would have either gone insane or just said fk it and ignored all that homework.

Yes I'm not from America I'm from Easter Europe. I would never allow this to my children. If this is the state of education I can do a better job.

"If Esmee masters the material covered in her classes, she will emerge as a well-rounded, socially aware citizen, a serious reader with good reasoning capabilities and a decent knowledge of the universe she lives in. What more can I ask of her school?"

No she will emerge as a well informed drone with good reading skill but no desire to do so because she is reminded of the amount of reading forced upon her and very weak reasoning and deductive skills.

“Memorization, not rationalization.”

What the point of that? If you don't understand what you have memorized it is useless not to mention a lot harder to remember.

Cyberbullying really? Is that person a complete idiot? Why would i ever let my child learn from a person who would attempt to threaten me with some ridiculous accusation in order to make me back off from my opinion.

It is manipulative and instead of addressing my concerns they are trying to make me go away.

From what they are telling the parents the teachers are just a bunch of drones following instructions sent by a higher power.

Exactly what they are teaching the students to become.

Where's the critical thinking where the opinion and power of the teachers to teach in a manner that they see fit?

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#106

Post by ronaldx »

belorn wrote: post #59

> But when I ask her what the verb tener means (“to have,” if I recall), she repeats, “Memorization, not rationalization.” I wonder where she got that from, or if it was something she figured out by herself. It just sound so soul crushing that the goal for children is not learning, but to memorize something until the test is done. Memorization should never be used when rationalization could do better. Sure, there exi…

I recall that most people can manage 4 hours of intense concentration per day. If you are doing 5 hours of homework per night (after a full day of school), memorization is more effective at completing the workload - since you don't have time/energy to spend on rationalizing.

But it does seem likely that she's repeating this phrase from a teacher. Worrying. A positive interpretation is that the language teacher intends this to mean exactly what you say - languages are best learned through use, and can't be learned rationalizing the rulesets of grammar.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#107

Post by mistercow »

nja wrote: post #16
pnathan wrote: post #7

This is the official guideline from my local school district on average homework times: K Occasional 1-2 15 minutes (M-Th) 3-5 30-60 minutes (M-Th) 6-8 30-90 minutes (M-Th) 9-12 60-120 minutes (M-S)

Per class?

Surely it can't be per class. Depending on the class schedule of the school, that would be suggesting that 8 hours of homework for a high school student was "within acceptable parameters".

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#108

Post by mistercow »

AmiiJewels wrote: post #2

I do not understand the authors conclusion: 'The more immersed I become in Esmee’s homework, the more reassured I am that the teachers, principals, and school-board members who are coming up with this curriculum are earnest about their work.' when his own Daughter's strategy boils down to :" Memorization, not rationalization" - She isn't learning, she isn't becoming "well rounded", she is memorizing information that…

It will be useless far earlier than that, because this type of memorization leads to about 0% retention past the point of one or two weeks. And of course the situation completely precludes the possibility of using an effective memorization strategy, like spaced repetition, because there's no time to add that for every class on top of everything else.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#109

Post by comex »

Tichy wrote: post #54
comex wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One comment: there's a difference between mental arithmetic, which is as useful as ever to be able to perform quickly/effectively, and the pen-and-paper variant (which I assume the cited assignment required), which is not. Everyone should, of course, know how to do the latter, but doing long pen-and-paper operations usually doesn't save time over reaching for a calculator, and is error-prone. Unfortunately, schools (…

Do calculators even routinely work with infinite precision (like (sqrt(2) x sqrt(2) = 2)? I guess you could achieve some results with Mathematia or something like that, but I have my doubts about the average calculator. Sometimes it is still useful to do calculations by hand, also to understand what is going on. (Edit: just tested the OS X calculator, sqrt(2) x sqrt(2) works out by chance, but sqrt(200) x sqrt(200) f…

Well, I was talking about basic arithmetic, addition/subtraction/multiplication/division of integers. Doing algebra (which is usually where you'd find square roots) on paper is certainly still useful, but usually the numbers aren't very large, so it's essentially orthogonal to the type of work mentioned here. Algebra and more advanced math has multiple ways to go about dealing with an expression and requires understanding to proceed, but long multiplication or addition is just rote application of an algorithm.

(I suppose the fraction in the problem in the article makes it a bit trickier, but I suggest that the dilemma of ordinary four-function calculators not being able to do exact fractions is not a common real world problem, or they would be able to do them.)

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#110

Post by mistercow »

rwallace wrote: post #72
GabrielF00 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow high school dropout I sympathize with what you're saying, but I don't think it can be the basis for effective public policy. How many Americans have the ability to teach their children math, science, writing, history and civics at a high school level? How many American families have the time to provide children with anything close to the amount of hours of instruction available in schools? And what happen…

Having an adult constantly looking over your shoulder is neither necessary nor desirable, particularly in the twenty-first century when a vast wealth of information is at your fingertips free of charge.

Exactly. We spend, on average, over $10,000 per student per year on public education. For that, you could easily hire a private tutor to teach each child for one hour per school day, helping them with anything the parents can't handle. For everything else, there's the internet.

And on that note, just how in the hell is the teacher:student ratio as low as it is in public schools today?

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