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My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#171

Post by arethuza »

madaxe wrote: post #121
girvo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh gosh, I would have been absolutely ropeable if the principal had accused me of "cyber-bullying" in that manner. That is entirely, utterly, disgustingly bullshit. And it doesn't surprise me. Surely it's the bias that is put forward by news media, but the stories that I hear of the American education system scares the shit out of me -- and I went to school in Queensland (which is terrible in and of itself)! Zero-tol…

I had the benefit of attending the British, German, and American school systems. Schooling in America has little to do with education, and much to do with indoctrination. Pretty much the only thing I learned was the pledge of allegiance - over which I repeatedly got suspended, as I refused to recite it along with the rest of the class, every morning. Everything else they "taught" was years behind what I'd been learni…

Worth noting that there isn't a "British" education system - Scotland has it's own school courses, exams and university level course structure (e.g. it is possible to go to university after 5 years in high school so first degree courses are 4 years rather than 3 as in England).

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#172

Post by zanny »

mcphilip wrote: post #40

I was homeschooled K-12. My days consisted largely of 1-2 hours of bible study with my 3 brothers followed by a few hours on my own working through a set number of pages in math, science, literature, etc textbooks. I'd usually get done by 2 and then play Nintendo until friends got home from school. I was never tested in homeschool. There were no grades or report cards. The only accountability was mom checking that th…

Also, you can move at your own pace. I'm sure nobody would work at a company where some terrible nephew who didn't know anything about computing was hired, and where everyone is assigned a random bug report to fix each day, but nobody could leave until the nephew pushed to upstream. So you might finish your daily bug in an hour, but now have to sit around waiting (without Internet access or the ability to leave your cubicle or converse with anyone) until hes done.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#173

Post by alt_f4 »

mcphilip wrote: post #40

I was homeschooled K-12. My days consisted largely of 1-2 hours of bible study with my 3 brothers followed by a few hours on my own working through a set number of pages in math, science, literature, etc textbooks. I'd usually get done by 2 and then play Nintendo until friends got home from school. I was never tested in homeschool. There were no grades or report cards. The only accountability was mom checking that th…

You lost me at the emphasis on 1-2 hours of bible study.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#174

Post by zanny »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #38

Wow. Everyone in the thread seems to have gotten lots of homework in their youth. In my case, I went to both a private and a public school (in Spain) and the homework load was probably like half an hour a day, in both cases. In high school it was a bit more, maybe 45 minutes, the main difference was that in high school studying the day before the exam was usually not enough. I remember that my mother used to be worri…

When I was in High school (especially my senior year) I'd schedule study halls at the end of the day, and spend lunch in the study hall, to do homework on-site so I didn't have any at home.

Pretty much straight A's that year, and I took 4 AP courses I got a minimum of a 4 on.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#175

Post by GotAnyMegadeth »

tptacek wrote: post #137
GotAnyMegadeth wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never saw school as a place to learn facts, but as a place to learn how to socialise and how to deal with life. Learning how to get a good grade is important, but only because people think that it represents your worth as an employee. My parents/TV/books/the internet taught me most of what I know.

I am way, way, WAY more concerned about the ethics my kid learns than I am about whether he gets a B or an A in World History.

Agreed. Though I wasn't saying I cheated to get my grades or that they were artificially inflated, just that I avoided homework. In my school your homework grades never counted towards you actual grades, and if your homework wasn't going to teach you something, what is the point?

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#176

Post by rorrr2 »

lgieron wrote: post #159
rorrr2 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood how the knowledge of the capitals of states or countries is useful in any way. It's meaningless. It can be easily looked up, if you need that information. I can't even imagine a practical scenario when one would need to know it.

It's hard to function in the world without some rudimentary knowledge of it. As for practical scenario, imagine your boss wants to send you to a conference in Paris, and you answer back with "Where?".

1) What does this have to do with knowing Paris is a capital?

2) What's the big deal? I'm sure most people don't know the capital of Mongolia or Canada or Switzerland or Slovenia or Croatia. And these aren't even African countries.

3) What's the practical limitation here? Are you unable to travel to cities that you didn't know the names of 10 minutes before you found them on Google maps?

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#177

Post by knowaveragejoe »

patio11 wrote: post #163
tptacek wrote: post #130

Some quick thoughts, as the parent of a high school freshman: * If you anticipate your child being assigned 3 hours of homework in a typical evening, it is negligent to allow them to start that work at 8:00PM. Instead of allowing his daughter to watch episodes of Portlandia on her computer all afternoon, he could consider a rule suggesting homework gets completed before electronic entertainment; that's our rule this…

Japanese students probably do not work less hard than US students, or to greater effect. Wait wait, people really think American students do more work than Japanese kids? HAH. HAH. HAH. HAH. That's a good one. Seriously: Japanese schools don't assign 3 hours of homework because that would conflict with the 3 hours of "not required but it will ruin your life if you don't do it and then fail your next admissions exam"…

His phrasing was confusing, but I think what tptacek said agrees with you.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#178

Post by meddlepal »

tptacek wrote: post #124
GotAnyMegadeth wrote: post #120

The Author and his daughter haven't learnt the tricks of the trade. I was set 3+hrs of HW a day, but I certainly didn't do that much. First, they need to assess which teachers "Don't mind" if you don't do the homework. This could mean they stand you up in front of the whole class and shout at you, but if they don't give you an after school detention, don't do it. Getting in the teachers good books previously helps wi…

How caustic a lesson to teach your kid, that they should organize to cheat on homework, so they can artificially inflate their grade. I suppose it does set them up for a productive life of investment banking.

Do you really need to teach your kid this stuff even? The smart and smart-enough-but-lazy ones seem to figure it out just well enough for themselves.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#179

Post by aestra »

tptacek wrote: post #130

Some quick thoughts, as the parent of a high school freshman: * If you anticipate your child being assigned 3 hours of homework in a typical evening, it is negligent to allow them to start that work at 8:00PM. Instead of allowing his daughter to watch episodes of Portlandia on her computer all afternoon, he could consider a rule suggesting homework gets completed before electronic entertainment; that's our rule this…

My younger brother who is now in his mid-twenties had to memorize state capitals, in elementary school. I had to memorize a map of Europe in 6th grade. It's somewhat meaningless.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#180

Post by voidfunc »

ja27 wrote: post #138
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.

When I drop my daughter off at 6:45 AM (school starts at 7:30), sometimes their football team is out on the field practicing under lights.

Which is insane. These are kids not professional football players. I like sports, but the entire culture of children and teenage sports in the US is totally whack.
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