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My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

theatlantic.com

231–240 of 347 posts

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#231

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…

This seems horrible, but I upvoted it nonetheless because of its perspective.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#232

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.

Or simply learn how to hack around nonsense rules, that are there just to make the school board like they are doing something useful. The important part of school is learning, all the grades and that are just instruments. Worshiping those instruments as sacred, doesn´t make sense. I guess that kids learning to play a dumb system will on average perform better at a later stages.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* 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 year (for the first time) and it's working better than I thoug…

The author's child is still a kid. I think she's in year 8? Here's my feedback: a. Let her be a kid. b. let her get enough sleep (it's hard to learn without enough sleep). c. Stop taking cannabis. It can lead to mental illness. d. If you are concerned about too much homework, do something about it. For real.

Honestly, whenever I felt like I had too much homework, I just didn't do it. You can always discuss these things with the teachers. Usually they're not complete dicks that want to ruin your life.

Let your kid grow a spine. (continuous) Sleep loss as a kid is very bad.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#234
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitals are the most important part of a country (by definition). What little information could you learn about a country before knowing its capital?

Is Washington DC more important than NYC or any city in Silicon Valley? I'm not convinced that capitals are the most important city. You can talk about the culture, economy, and history of a country without ever talking about the capital. Capitals are usually (not always) where the government sits, but that's only a small part of what you can learn about a country.

It surely has a lot of influence on economy, history (culture is a different thing in a country-continent like the USA, but most countries are the size of a state, not the Union). Is * important to understand the state of *?

Texas City^H^H Austin of Texas

Los Angeles^H^H Sacramento of California

Anchorage^H^H Juneau of Alaska

--

Edited to fix the initial bad example.

--

Screw it, USA states have their capitals assigned to the weirdest cities instead of the largest ones. No wonder that you don't understand why capitals are important to normal countries.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#235
post #150

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…

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.

I think it helps to get a sense of the world - though browsing through an atlas, and getting broader lessons is much better than just memorizing state/country capitals.

I loved browsing atlases as a kid, and ended up visiting close to a third of the countries in the world (ok, so I cheated and went to Europe :P ), so YMMV.

PD: I still want to see the remaining two-thirds of the world :)

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#236

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…

This is great advice (besides the cheating, obviously).

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#238
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Washington DC more important than NYC or any city in Silicon Valley? I'm not convinced that capitals are the most important city. You can talk about the culture, economy, and history of a country without ever talking about the capital. Capitals are usually (not always) where the government sits, but that's only a small part of what you can learn about a country.

It surely has a lot of influence on economy, history (culture is a different thing in a country-continent like the USA, but most countries are the size of a state, not the Union). Is * important to understand the state of *? Texas City^H^H Austin of Texas Los Angeles^H^H Sacramento of California Anchorage^H^H Juneau of Alaska -- Edited to fix the initial bad example. -- Screw it, USA states have their capitals assign…

[deleted]

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#239

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…

I know what A levels are. What does AAAB mean? Does this mean you gave four subjects and scored 3 A's and 1 B? If that is correct, I'm curious what subjects you gave?

Yes it does. I got As in Maths, Physics and Electronics and a B in General Studies which is a joke compulsory subject that tested your writing skills.

Interesting: I would say "I took four subjects", and you say "I gave four subjects". Never heard that before!

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Kids should not be penalized for knowing which is the capital of what, nor which part of Americas grows the most bananas. It is useless information unless the kid loves that kind of stuff. * Focus should not be on memorizing anything, unless they are a building block of something which they will understand later, and better, with the memorization. May be the Spanish language verb forms are one of those, I'm not sur…

> Focus should not be on memorizing anything I have to disagree. At that age the things you memorize get seared into your mind permanently. I can still effortlessly rattle off a few Shakespeare soliloquies a teacher had us memorize, for example. I think having 13 year olds memorize things is a great idea, but the things should be important and useful. I wish we had extensively drilled on mental arithmetic.

Here's what's happen when we focus on memorization:

I suspect the most dangerous habit of thought taught in schools is that even if you don't really understand something, you should parrot it back anyway. http://lesswrong.com/lw/i2/two_more_things_to_unlearn_from_s...

Which more or less directly leads to http://lesswrong.com/lw/iq/guessing_the_teachers_password/

With such a method what will be permanently seared into their young minds, is the idea that it is good and proper to guess the answer the boss is expecting, instead of actually searching for the truth. Those are different goals, which often don't overlap.

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