My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me • Hacker News Board

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#251

Post by mkr-hn » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 1:57 PM UTC

TuringTest wrote: post #234

mkr-hn wrote: 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…

We definitely have an odd way of assigning importance to subdivisions of land. I live in an area where one of the "cities" is a mansion rented out for events with a few businesses and homes built to support it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl,_Georgia

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#252

Post by graeme » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 1:57 PM UTC

I teach the SAT. My impression is that children are too busy to learn.

I learned a LOT from reading random things outside of school. Students have no time for that these days. And when they do need to learn something new, such as math on the SAT, they have no time to learn it.

The schools also don't seem to be focussed on learning. The emphasis is on covering 'the curriculum'. So I'm dealing students studying trigonometry who can't multiply 7 * 6 without a calculator.

Needless to say, they don't actually understand trigonometry either. Memorize, not rationalize is sadly very true.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#253

Post by mathattack » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 1:57 PM UTC

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…

This homework issue is peculiar in New York City. One issue is that parents do so much prepping to get into the elite gifted and talented programs, that kids are there who don't belong. What is challenging to a gifted kid (the programs are competitive) is overwhelming to someone not quite as advanced.

Many private schools face the same issues. Riverdale is one of the few elite uber-expensive schools that is bucking the trend on overwork. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/magazine/what-if-the-secre...

It's worth noting that the author of the original article is an acclaimed multicultural writer, and not just a US-centric hack. Of course if he wants to keep his daughter off of pot she's in middle school, he probably shouldn't have outed himself.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#254

Post by cac04 » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 1:59 PM UTC

joe5150 wrote: post #149

rwallace wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sympathize but would urge you to reconsider. There are activities where "properly or not at all" is a good policy, but raising children isn't one of them; had such a policy been universally applied, nobody now living would be alive. Those who were never born are just as dead as those who were born and then died, and surely your children would be much better off dealing with the imperfections that are an inevitable…

"Those who were never born" doesn't strike me as a concept with much logical positivist value.

Logical positivism doesn't strike me as a concept with much logical positivist value.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#255

Post by pseut » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 2:00 PM UTC

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?".

From memory, please list the states for which its state capital is one of the three most important cities.

Hell, you can google it if you want. Good luck!

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#256

Post by grandalf » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 2:02 PM UTC

This article reminds me of being in school (some high school and surprisingly many college classes). I simply didn't do the memorization homework. I turned out OK but my GPA was definitely lower than it would have been if I'd spent all those extra hours memorizing.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#257

Post by aestra » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 2:04 PM UTC

loup-vaillant wrote: post #247

einhverfr wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that so many free speech cases were pioneered by the Jehovas Witnesses.

Not really. Pure self interest can explain this. As far as I know they were (and still are) underdogs. Free speech is one of the things that favours underdogs, and is not easily openly attacked.

The thing a lot of people don't understand about free speech is the kind of speech that needs to be protected is the unpopular kind; the kind that very few people agree with. Popular speech needs no defending.

I don't understand a lot of Americans who run around talking about "America the free" and then try to pass laws to limit the expression of anyone who doesn't live exactly like they do. Freedom means some people aren't going to agree with you, and you're going to have to accept it, and allow them to express themselves too.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#258

Post by loup-vaillant » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 2:08 PM UTC

aestra wrote: post #257

loup-vaillant wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Pure self interest can explain this. As far as I know they were (and still are) underdogs. Free speech is one of the things that favours underdogs, and is not easily openly attacked.

The thing a lot of people don't understand about free speech is the kind of speech that needs to be protected is the unpopular kind; the kind that very few people agree with. Popular speech needs no defending. I don't understand a lot of Americans who run around talking about "America the free" and then try to pass laws to limit the expression of anyone who doesn't live exactly like they do. Freedom means some people…

Spot on.

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#259

Post by Goronmon » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 2:08 PM UTC

jon-wood wrote: post #245

Goronmon wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mode of homework time appears to be 3 hours a night during weekdays, this is considered unbearable/a lot? Growing up this was the norm for me. The school in question runs from 8:00 AM to 2:20 PM with a 45 minute lunch break, recesses and homeroom included. With 3 hours of studying that brings you to a total of 9 hours - breaks (I couldn't find a schedule). Assuming 8 hours of sleep, 1 hour for dinner, 2 hours of…

What the hell? By my reckoning that makes a 16 hour day. Any time an article about working hours like that pops up here the overwhelming opinion seems to be that its unsustainable and results in bad things happening, and yet there are countless people defending the US school system.

And I actually missed some time. In 8th grade I was taking the bus to school, so shift the timeline up 40 minutes or so to handle that (was over a half a mile to my bus stop).

Re: My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me

#260

Post by rayiner » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 2:09 PM UTC

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.

I think kids should be taught to perceive the mechanics of any system and leverage those mechanics, within the bounds of ethics and fairness. They should ignore what people say and focus on what they do.

I absolutely don't condone lying or cheating, and I think it's a huge problem in schools today. But kids aren't the only ones that lie. American education is predicated on a basic lie: that it's about learning. In fact, it's about sorting.

In law school, I had a lot of friends who wrote organized exams with good grammar and coherent structure. This is what school taught them was important. I wrote these horrible, rambling, repetitive exams with poor grammar and spelling and no structure other than conforming to what I thought the professor's grading checklist would look like. Ironically, I now have a job where I get to really think and learn and write, but I couldn't have gotten it without playing the sorting game.

Learning is great. But learning is what you do while researching Hacker News posts. School is no place for it.