Too Much Homework Can Be Counterproductive

Spy der Mann writes "An interesting study made by to two Penn State researchers shows that increases in homework may actually hinder educational achievement (Coral Cache) instead of improving it. The researchers analyzed a large amount of data collected by the Third International Study of Mathematics and Sciences (TIMSS) in 1994 from schools in 41 nations across the fourth, eighth and 12th grades. For some analyses, they used data from an identical study carried out in '99." From the article: "An unintended consequence may be that those children who need extra work and drill the most are the ones least likely to get it. Increasing homework loads is likely to aggravate tensions within the family, thereby generating more inequality and eroding the quality of overall education."

Comments

waiting for...

[Anonymous Coward]

all the 12 year olds who do no homework (and read /. all night) to reply and say they agree

Scholarly researchers?

[Dancin_Santa]

You mean grad students, don't you?

That's like the fox guarding the henhouse.

There is a great amount of discipline that can be learned from doing homework. There is almost a direct one-to-one correlation between doing homework and excelling in classes. Having the ability to trudge through what sometimes seems to be busywork leads to stronger self-control and greater self-confidence when the grade reports come out and all that work has paid off.

If you believe that school is not in the business of molding the characters of students into strong, self-confident, law-abiding citizens, then I could see how you'd rather they did nothing but play.

Re:Scholarly researchers?

[MasterOfDisaster]

While that may be true, if you're going to disagree with an article that mentions not only one, but two studies disagreeing with you, why don't you back that up with a little fact?

Re:Scholarly researchers?

[robbyjo]

Yeah, but if the homework were only boring repetitions, the students will feel like working chore and that's bad in planting the value of discipline. Discipline ought to be fostered through the love of what the student doing and through challenge of the given problems. Definitely not chore. If you ask people who excel in their field, this is almost always the case.

Re:Scholarly researchers?

[robbyjo]

You're talking about motivation, not discipline.

Old adage says: Good discipline always spring out of good motivation.

Re:Scholarly researchers?

[shutdown -p now]

If you believe that school is not in the business of molding the characters of students into strong, self-confident, law-abiding citizens ...

No, it's not. It's about giving them the basic knowledge they need in the modern society.

Regarding your comment. I've been one of the best students in my class back in school, and knew a few others. The general pattern was the following: those who did all their homework were those who also get high marks, but simply because they just memorized a lot. When confronted with an unusual question, they were lost. Of course, since tests usually didn't have any such questions (as they were made by those same people who written the textbooks used for homework assignments), it wasn't a problem. On the contrary, those who didn't do homework but still scored high were usually the students who could actually think for themselves, and find solutions to new types of problems.

Re:Scholarly researchers?

[Terrasque]

There is almost a direct one-to-one correlation between doing homework and excelling in classes.

I stopped doing homework when I was around 12-13 (don't remember exactly), I've almost always been in top 5 of the class (and in logical stuff, like maths and physics and things like that, usually the best).

Having the ability to trudge through what sometimes seems to be busywork leads to stronger self-control

Now there's where the gotcha lies. I have terrible self-control, and really have to push myself to get just about anything done. I even have so low attention span that I often get bored of a movie before the intro is finished and go do something else (and that's MEANT to be entertaining, can you imagine what that will do to boring work?)

So the morale of my tale? Homework isn't neccesary connected with grades, but it's connected with the ability to get actual work done.

Re:Scholarly researchers?

[Chiasmus_]

No, it's not. It's about giving them the basic knowledge they need in the modern society.

What, so you think the government provides public educations for completely altruistic reasons?

The man considered the father of public education - I can't recall his name off the top of my head - declared that there were two reasons for public education:

1. To increase economic growth by providing citizens with job skills and foundations for job skills; and

2. To increase the nation's military readiness by teaching patriotic/nationalistic ideals.

Later, the "military readiness" was expanded upon - it was officially recommended that schools establish a concept of "school spirit" and compete against each other. The idea was that a student fanatically and irrationally dedicated to a school would be more likely to become a citizen fanatically and irrationally dedicated to a nation.

Since then, the purposes of public education have expanded even more - including addressing health problems (e.g. through health classes, P.E., and sexual education) and social problems (e.g. through the D.A.R.E. program, if it worked, and through programs like busing to create interracial schools).

Consider for a moment just how much of what they taught you in high school was "basic knowledge you need in the modern society." By seventh grade, most of us could do arithmetic and basic algebra, read directions and the daily news, and write well enough to express basic ideas. We were fully qualified for the majority of agricultural and industrial jobs, and plenty of service jobs, too.

So we went into high school with the basic knowledge we need in modern society. That's not what we were there for.

Re:Scholarly researchers?

[Chiasmus_]

How could you prove it any which way?

Well I know that's supposed to be rhetorical. But, really, it's not an unsolveable problem.

First of all, you can suggest it through correllational research - which is what these guys did. They grabbed and analyzed data from 41 nations, plotted test performance against homework given, and found corellations.

Of course, that's not proof. To prove it, you'd have to run two essentially identical classes side-by-side: one that gets a normal amount of homework (the control group) and one that gets significantly more (the experimental group).

But since we don't generally approve of experimenting with kids' educations like that - the corellational research is enough, at least for me.

Re:Scholarly researchers?

[say]

There is almost a direct one-to-one correlation between doing homework and excelling in classes.

I have lots of anecdotal evidence that this is bullshit. I have better grades than many, many of those who did homework in upper secondary.

Hey, go easy on them ...

[ggvaidya]

They were just doing their homework.

(and no, there isn't a '-1, Corny' moderation option :D sorry)

Nice try.

[TylerTheGreat]

Nice try, but that excuse never worked for me when I was in school.

need better teachers, not more work

[Helix150]

Not a bad study, and having gone through the system I tend to agree with it, but for other reasons.
Kids who are assigned a heavy homework load will more often than not procrastinate and put it off until late at night, at which point they will have to stay awake to finish it and won't get enough sleep. This makes the kid tired in class the next day, so (s)he won't learn as well. Studies DO show that getting a good night's sleep has a large effect on what you learn- sleep helps you lock in what you learned during the day. Think of it like flushing a RAM buffer to disk. Not a step to be skipped.
Lastly- most of the teachers I had (granted this was a while ago) who assigned heavy homework also were not particularly good at their jobs. They did not encourage or develop interesting class discussions, the lesson was a series of objectives on a paper which must be completed. BORING. Better teachers can engage students and make them want to learn, sadly the system as we have it does not attract or keep such teachers...

If you want kids to do better- get better teachers, not more work.

Re:need better teachers, not more work

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree, and yet, disagree.

As a (former) high school student, I can tell you a number of things about homework and its current state in schools.

Facts where I came from:
1) Too much homework is assigned.
2) Very few people do homework.
3) Those that do homework rarely do it well.

1 - Teachers give too much homework, and the problem only increases if the student is in "honors"/AP/GT/K-Level/"upper-level" classes. The alarming misconception is that students who choose to take a harder/more strenuous curriculum need more homework. Regardless, my personal experience had me doing, at times, eight-ten hours of homework a night (granted, I was taking all honors courses). I was spending more time DOING HOMEWORK than I was AT SCHOOL. Granted, those were the especially bad nights that only happened once every two weeks or so, usually when two teachers decided to make two major grades due on the same day. I'd say average homework for a night was three hours of homework.

2 - I was one of the few students who actually completed my homework (yes, I'm your definitive nerd (I mean, I AM posting on slashdot)). Most students simply cheat/copy homework. Usually one friend does the work (usually poorly) and the others simply hand-transfer the answers/work over to their own paper and put their name on it. They easily get away with this because a) the teachers are assigning so much homework that they never bother to actually _check_ any of it and b) its so commonplace that many teachers have gotten accustomed to accepting copied homework.

3 - The ones that do the homework rarely do it well because what is assigned is usually an exercise in tedium (read: "busy work"). Outlining the textbook, vocabulary lists, posters, pointless worksheets. All the work with none of the lessons - the teachers assign something that the student can subsequently complete and it's assumed that both parties are doing their job. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Bad teachers are a huge part of the problem, and most homework is the lazy way of working. Of course, I'm not a vindictive student against work - I acknowledge that some homework is beneficial. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the novels for my English class, practicing my Spanish speaking, learning algorithms for Computer Science, and practicing my instrument for Band. Unfortunately, I have piles of worksheets, summaries, and assignments that have absolutely no bearing on the course or on understanding the subject material.

Having said all this, I don't think the main problem is with the teachers however. Students themselves are the main problem. Day after day I watched people sleep through classes even though they'd just awoken from their eight hour nightly snooze - I've seen countless students copy homework, cheat on tests, "share" projects - I've watched hormones supersede learning as students spend class flirting and holding hands. Today's students are just purely apathetic to the educational system, regardless of the teaching quality. Even the most intelligent, insightful teachers can hardly break the shell of teenagers these days - all the students do is fabricate elaborate ways to listen to their iPods during class or figure out how to surreptitiously change the ink barrel of their pen from red to black (and vice versa).

No wonder the teachers don't feel like teaching when the students don't feel like _learning_. Student discussion is limited to pop culture, with learning experiences coming when a senior finds out that the word is pronounced "conscience" rather than "con-science" (this was in the honors course, by the way). Literature is all but abhored among students - I'd wager that I could count the number of students in my English course that actually finished Dostoevsky's _Crime and Punishment_ on one hand. Shakespeare recieved even less attention and many students were even too lazy to read the Spark/Cliff/PinkMonkey notes. Get the students to care, and maybe the teachers would.

Of course, students might care if they weren't suffocating under the massive amounts of homework given, but I doubt it.

Re:need better teachers, not more work

[quarkscat]

"If you want kids to do better- get better teachers, not more work."

Bollocks!

If you want kids to do better - get better parents! The push for more homework assignments has the tendency to keep students off the streets and out of trouble. Which is more than many parents are willing (or able) to do. How many of these parents have let the TV (boob-tube) do their babysitting for them, instead of reading a book to their kids, or actually digging in to help them understand their homework? The three R's are the vitally important bedrock of children learning, but how many parents will run flashcard drills with their kids, or sit down and play Scrabble (or some other educational game) with them?

Teachers these days are expected to be teachers, babysitters, truancy officers, and substitute adult role models for their students. If there are not enough hours in the day to cover all these duties, more homework is a partial solution. The USA's public school systems need to break away from the agrarian-based 9 month school year, and switch to year-round schooling. Several short breaks in the instruction cycle are far more productive than a mind numbing 3 month break. Requiring school uniforms instead of rampant competition over name-brand clothing would help, also.

Re:need better teachers, not more work

[MoonBuggy]

Yes, many people need better parenting, but that doesn't mean a good teacher who engages with the class and makes them want to learn can't help the best (or worst) of students achieve more than someone who sits there and dishes out text books. Of course the parents have a large impact, but it's rediculous to say that a good teacher doesn't have a part to play - maybe even a greater part in the case of those who have a gap to fill that their parents left.

I'd also have to strongly disagree with the school uniform comment. As someone who wore a uniform for many years (UK schooling) I have to say there is practically no benefit to it. What most people don't realise is that competition over things like clothing is practically metaphorical - while outwardly a child may be teased for dressing "wrongly", they have actually been singled out because of a personality trait. Whether the bullies realise this or not I don't know, but it's always been the case in my experience. If you look at the classroom, the "cool kids" can dress like fucking idiots and pass it off as trendy whereas the "geeks" could emulate them nearly exactly and be called "wannabes". It's not _really_ what you look like that causes competition, it's who you are - it's just manifested in terms of clothing since that's the obvious thing; if you enforce uniform the same people will be teased, the bullies will just give a different reason.

Uniform also instills some very negative values: conformity is more valued than creativity, personal expression is something to stamped out and you must obey what someone above tells you rather than what you feel you should do.

If you read this, I'd appreciate hearing what you think, because I feel that many people outside of the school system only see how it works superficially rather than how the students interaction actually happens.

That's pretty obvious.

[osrevad]

Too much of anything can be counterproductive

Another example off...

[Mister Impressive]

Scientific Research That Could Have Been Avoided

I feel they're just stating the obvious here - I'm currently a high school student, and I do NOT do homework, unless I feel I need to. If there's subject concepts or theories that I'm already aware of and understand, why do the homework? It just adds more to the pile that I have every night. It doesn't take a grad student to work out doing the work that applies to yourself is more relevant and useful than just doing everything in the book. My teachers also share this view and only collect work that goes towards the report card - if you don't do the work to at least understand it, you'll fuck up the exam, end of story.

However, I'm currently in year 11 and I can work out my own study regime - what needs to be done in years 7-10, is students need to receive a constant inflow work, getting a routine at home happening. It doesn't need to be a truck load, but sufficient enough to keep the student busy for an hour at the least.

Homework sucks - but it's just the beginning of it

[Gopal.V]

Given a choice, I'd rather not do homework at all. But as it turns out that's the least unpleasant choice in front of me - sort of the lesser of the evils. In the long run, it's the easy way to a nice life (and in the long long run, we're all dead anyway).

Homework isn't pretty - but it teaches you how to sit down and do stuff. The real problem is that most homework is the hard stuff - makes some children think and most of them give up. I used to postpone it and do an all nighter , my sister used to finish her homework the day she got it... it sort of carries over into how you handle problems in real life too (unfortunately).

My parents just gave up on trying to make me do homework when I was around 11 or 10 years old. I think it helped me think my way around problems - by the time I was 17 I was ranked in the top 50 students in the state. Unorthodox methods (I remember being kicked out of class for asking the proof of Pythagoras Theorem) and a couple of good teachers pushed me through the indifference barrier that these kids are stuck at (translated as "why should I always be studying ?").

I spent most of my life learning stuff - but I studied around 4 or 5 years. Too bad the world doesn't realize they need problem solvers of a practical nature - not guys who know calculus by heart.

Let me quote Calvin here - They only teach stuff any fool can look up in a book .

It's not easy

[Neo-Rio-101]

The there's also the issue of student motivation to actually study in the first place. Unless you have an active and ongoing interest in a particular topic, you are usually not particularly motivated to study it.
Nobody at home forced me to take an interest in computers and electronics. Nobody gave me homework

You can only thrust so much work at kids, but the REAL learning starts happening when the kids start LEARNING FOR THEMSELVES and feel comfortable coming to the teacher with all sorts of difficult questions. Rather than the current top->down method of throwing facts around, hoping they stick, and asking the students questions they have no motivation to answer for themselves.

The main problem is, at a young age kids aren't motivated to want to slug away at homework... little do they realise that sooner or later their formative years are going to be gone and the workforce will be waiting for them. In a way I guess they have to be forced, but it is not the best way to learn IMHO.

All in all, teaching is not an easy job. Teaching kids to think, rather than giving them all the answers is tricky.

It's not the quantity, it's quality

[Alex Belits]

The "amount" of homework means little when its content is trivial, and does not do anything but repeat something that should be obvious based on what is learned in class. Application of knowledge to a trivial task just doesn't do anything other than insult the student, however the application of the same to something even slightly challenging, is both useful for remembering the material, and good thinking practice in general.

Of course, making homework less of a mindless chore and more an exercise in thinking means that there will be always some students, who will be unable to complete it because of their insufficient abilities and poor motivation. My response for that will be, SCREW THEM! They won't get much good from a shitty homework, either, and if they are going to drag everyone down into the horrors of rote memorization, there is always a short bus for them, and decent education for the rest. Treating everyone like a retard, accomplishes nothing positive.

I agree

[Buster Chan]

I agree totally with the findings. I've got three brothers, and three sisters. Teachers never understood -- and still don't understand -- the dangers of imposing that their students put more priority towards homework than towards family, relaxation, and social obligations.

A good first step would be for teachers who were "only childs" to take classes about the dynamics of life with siblings. That can lead to better curriculums with workloads that each student can adapt within the balance of their lifestyle.

Re:Pfffft

[Shepherd Book]

Politics is really gay.

By which you mean that politics is contemptible. This is bigotry, even if that's not how you mean it. I could be wrong, but I'm guessing you wouldn't put up a tagline that says, "Politics is really black".

Re:Homework sucks - but it's just the beginning of

[arose]

Homework isn't pretty - but it teaches you how to sit down and do stuff.

Speak for yourself, the only thing I ever learned from homework is how to weasle out of work.

Google schmoogle

[sela]

You're missing the point here.

Paying 2.5$ or more for an answer is not the way to egaletarian society. We need a truely affordable service if we want to make such a service accessible for the poor as well, and bridge the gap.

We are in the 21th centuty. We live in a globalized world.

What we need to to harness the power of the global economy. What we need is "Homework sweetshops", where kids in other parts of the world, earning 0.5$ a day, would solve your homework for 0.05$!

Isn't it a fine, nobel vision?

Re:Homework sucks - but it's just the beginning of

[jwdb]

I honestly hope you never get your wish of removing homework from the curriculum.

I went through high school in the US, hating homework like everyone else. Then I moved to Europe for college and discovered what a blessing homework really is. Thing is, my university here has no homework, no papers, and maybe one or two projects in the semester (total, not per class), so your ENTIRE grade is based on a 4-hour usually-verbal exam.
I get 10 weeks of classes and recitations, during which I do jack sh*t in my free time. I then get 3 weeks off to study, which I desperately need, and then 3 weeks to take 6 exams. Let me tell you, those 6 weeks are the most stressful I've ever experienced - by the 4th week I'm usually mildly depressed due to stress.

That's the blessing of homework - it spreads the work out over the year. I'm not sure how you'd feel about this system, but I'd kill for some homework right about now... (I'm in the 3rd week - serious crunch time)

Jw

Re:Pfffft

[Chiasmus_]

I'm guessing you wouldn't put up a tagline that says, "Politics is really black".

And yet most people wouldn't hesitate to put up a tagline that says, "Politics is really lame," despite the fact that technically that's a slur against the handicapped.

And, similarly, while one would get scolded for saying "That guy jewed me out of $50," no one would bat an eye if you said "That guy gypped me out of $50," despite the fact that the latter is every bit as offensive a slur against gypsies as the former is against Jews.

Teachersand Homework

[Sollord]

My younger brother is in 7th grade about to go into 8th grade he isn't the smartest fish in the sea but he isn't stupid either but his teachers assings 3 or 4 hours of homework every day (with some help) and then he gets even more homework every monday do at the start of the next week. My mom is about to go crazy with all the homework they give... Then they have projects... This week my brother has to build a fing kite that work 30% of his final grade... WTF... The teachergave detail instruciton and a list of point deduction for everything that isn'texactly as they have shown. It took my dad 12hours to make the thing and he's really good with building project and tools. I'd like to know how the hell teacher expect kids to build this crap... Homework is supposed to help the student study for tests not make the parents spend there time building worthless crap. My parents hate just about every single teacher my brother has because they love to assing complex projects that are way about his grade level with extremely detailed requirments with insanely show amount of time to do it in and don't bother checking if other teachers are gving project in the same time period...

Homework is just bad!

[johansalk]

Some countries banned it, and I entirely agree, there should be no homework, just schoolwork. There's absolutely no rational reason why schoolwork must be done at home; children can learn just as well in school. In such countries the kids would do all their schoolwork before leaving school, or, if you must use the word "homework", they do their "homework" at school(!), and once they're out for the day, that's it, they can be kids, as they should be, free for the day, and free to enjoy their afternoons and evenings.

I still remember from my childhood the frustration of getting "homework" from 5 different teachers, each oblivious to the demands of others, and even when made aware, just simply doesn't care!

Homework belongs back to the days when corporal punishment was okay in school. Corporal punishment, and often collective punishment of an entire class, was easily abused, with no real evidence that it actually was of any benefit or necessity overall, and so is homework, a relic of a bygone era that still persists.

Yes and no - experience in Taiwan

[t482]

After I graduated from college I decided to take a year off and went to Taiwan to teach young kids. Most of them were about 8 years old and went to school from 7AM until 6 PM and then went home and did 3-4 hours of homework. Weekends were made up of bushibans of math, science and english.

Does repetition work? Yes mostly. Learning to write Chinese is best taught by repetition. Any sport is best learned by repetition.

Being a brilliant scientist is that learned by repetition? No. The important thing seems to me is to leave some time for creativity and that is one thing Asian schools (assuming Korea/Singapore/Japan are similar) don't seem to get.

Understanding patterns, applying information from another part of your brain and another field to the task at hand etc. This is where creativity comes from. I don't think it can 100% be taught - but I think it can be inspired by good teachers.

Where are the Asian Nobel prize winners? How come Taiwan can take 60% of the US Electrical Engineering Phds (90s stat) but not produce top line physics research? That is probabably a question for another day.

Actually, you do illustrate just the point

[Moraelin]

You have studies saying "but assigning more homework made no difference", then just looking through this thread you just see two dozen answers saying basically "hah! I didn't do any homework back when it was less of it. They can't make me do it. The teacher was soo funny getting all upset and foaming at the mouth about it."

Well, gee, maybe it's not homework that's causing the bad results, but _lack_ of actually _doing_ that homework. Yeah, I can see how the Japanese can do better on less homework... if they actually _do_ that homework and _study_ for it. Yeah, big surprise there, than someone on 1 hour a week of maths homework does better than someone who basically did _zero_ hours a week of maths homework.

Or what's the article's thrust? Basically "but some parents are too busy to help the kid with that homework." Well, gee, maybe it's the _kid_ that should learn how to do some work and study? Yeah, I can see how 2 hours of maths homework done by the _parent_ still leaves the kid behind someone who did only 1 hour of it, but did it personally.

Or in the article itself, "homework may not be cordially received, especially by parents of small children" or "Parents might sometimes see exercises in drill and memorization as intrusions into family time." So basically, forget even peer pressure from other kids. The message that the child gets even from the _parent_ is basically "oh, screw the homework, it's just getting in the way of other stuff you could do in that time."

Well, gee, maybe it's not the homework that's the problem. Maybe what they describe there is a massive cultural failure. It's a culture which basically discourages any attempt at personal responsibility, study, or academic results. A culture where being called "Einstein" in high school is actually an _insult_. A culture where (as reflected in another recent /. article), having the genes to be a slightly asocial genius instead of an air-head chatterbox, is proposed as a reason for abortion. (Now I have nothing against abortion, but just saying that it's put on the same undesirability level as carrying the genese for some fatal diseases.)

Maybe _that_ is the real failure.

And blaming homework for the lack of results of people who _didn't_ do that homework... well, seems to me just bloody stupid.

Re:Actually, you do illustrate just the point

[Slime-dogg]

I didn't do much of the assigned homework in high school, and I didn't suffer all that much from a lack of education.

The problem with the education system isn't that we have a fear of being branded as Einstein, rather, it is the pragmatic system that we've instilled that was thought up by Dewey. Everyone is different, and they learn in different ways. We can not apply the same method of teaching to a pile of kids, and expect that they all learn the same stuff.

Kids have to be handled on an individual basis. There is also no reason why they can't learn what they need to learn within the span of time that they spend at a school. If we followed a Montissori type system instead of the current one, we wouldn't be having the problems that we have now.

Lastly, school should not invade the home, just like work should not invade the home. Home is for the family, which is a far more educational experience (and a completely different one at that) than school will ever be. I imagine that we'd have fewer psychological problems in general, if people were encouraged to just spend time away from the burden of the world, and spend that time with their families.

Re:Actually, you do illustrate just the point

[nomadic]

(In addition, kids can be very lazy, particularly when they are unmotivated).

Why SHOULD they be motivated? They're being forced to do it.

Re:Actually, you do illustrate just the point

[CaptDeuce]

Well, gee, maybe it's not the homework that's the problem. Maybe what they describe there is a massive cultural failure. It's a culture which basically discourages any attempt at personal responsibility, study, or academic results.

On the contrary, the homework model is a product of cultures that give members of their society every opportunity to falter knowing full well that many will.

Students have been blowing off homework since it was invented. Short of breaking out the racks and thumbscrews, nothing will significantly change: kids will fail to do their homework. End of story.

I have yet to see a reasonable explanation of why homework is a Good Thing(TM). For instance, what is the analog of homework in real life? How many people in the work force have homework? Not a lot. Outside of teachers, business owners, and (presumably) well paid white collar workers, very few.

If homework (as in the task that's supposed to be done, not where it's done) is supremely important, why isn't it done in school where it is more likely to be completed, and even more importantly, noticed when students are having trouble doing so they actually get timely assistance?

I could offer some suggestions but I'll leave that as a homework exercise -- which we all know the vast majority of you won't be doing ...

If the purpose of homework is to instill discipline in students, wouldn't it make sense to impart it in such a way that isn't doubly disastrous? As it is now, the system allows them fail to learn the material and fail to learn discipline.

Our education system is severely ill-suited to accomplishing what many think it's supposed to do: give everyone some good book learnin' so they can become successful and productive, and what it was actually designed to do: teach the masses enough that they can become productive and indoctrinated members of the working class while floating some of the gifted on through higher education and life in the upper classes.

In other words, our education system was designed to allow students to fail (though preferably not too badly) and homework is a wonderful tool used to accomplish that end.

Re:Actually, you do illustrate just the point

[Feyr]

i remember one teacher in college (math class mind you), he was positively the best teacher one could have. and he had a very particular way of giving homeworks.

after each class he'd give 10 or so numbers to do (doing these normally would take anywhere from 2 to 4 hours). now each "number" would have multiple problems. he was more than content if we did 2-3 of them if you understood what you did (or was it every other? it's been a while). homeworks were down to about 20-30 minutes, but you actually learned the stuff because it wasn't such a pain in the ass. no one likes repeating just for the sake of repeating. and of course, if you didn't understand what you were doing, you were encouraged to do all the tasks.

Re:Actually, you do illustrate just the point

[blahplusplus]

"And blaming homework for the lack of results of people who _didn't_ do that homework... well, seems to me just bloody stupid."

I think people not wanting to do homework is a bit more complicated then being lazy, I wanted to learn somethings in highschool but some of the classes, materials and teachers were so substandard and out of date I skipped the classes entirely because I knew they were a waste of my time and the publics money. Think UNISYS icons, and basic, and a network of 8088's with TURING programming language which had teachers of which, no one was qualified to teach it so we just ended up dicking around the entire semester and this was in _highschool_. If schools can't afford to keep their curriculum and teachers up to date, then thats a real problem that isn't the student's fault. Schools are better now then when I went to school, but they still have those transitional problems that last a lifetime for the students caught in times of small budgets and lack of quality of teachers and teachig material in their eduction. I was one of the unlucky ones.

Let's face it though education as it is currently practiced is pretty unscientific, we do not really understand how the brain works and how people learn different things make those connections between memory elements that makes them "see" and understand something.

Most importantly making work interesting is difficult unless you really like to grind. Why should people want to be forced to learn ever more increasingly complicated crap that they aren't going to remember the bulk of next year anyway? Once you're out of school, how much do you really remember? I mean truly, without an encyclopedia of math equations or references to look up stuff you've forgotten or simply because there was too much stuff to keep all in your head?

Re:Homework sucks - but it's just the beginning of

[aaronl]

Sounds a lot more like a school or set of schools who just decided to take the opposite extreme. You need a balance. Homework is about giving students a check that they know the material. It shouldn't be mind numbing repetition and fourty of the same exercise.

When I was in high school, I hated homework; it was the same drivel over and over. So I just stopped doing it. If I thought I didn't know the topic, then I would try a few and see. Lucky, my teachers weren't idiots and didn't try to cause me trouble for some stupid thing like homework. I knew the topics, I tested excellent, so I suppose I "got away" with it. I got to college and was screwed, because I adopted a policy of not needing to study or do homework.

My idea of using homework is to assign it, provide answers, review it in class. However, you never let it have anything to do with your grade. Build that with projects, papers, tests, etc. This lets kids that don't like needless repetition do something more productive with their time.

Re:Pfffft

[DenmaFat]

Funny, I took it as a fist in the air:

"Politics is really gay [so get used to it]," or

"Politics is really gay [and we vote]."

Japan and homework

[Ogemaniac]

This article made me laugh. Yes, Japanese kids aren't given a lot of 'homework', because they are expected to study outside of school on their own - and they do. Most Japanese students have a two hour club of some sort after school, followed by a trip to 'Juku', or cram school, where they prepare for upcoming placement tests for a few hours. Many college-bound seniors drop their club activities so they can spend even more hours in Juku. They also spending about 60 days more per year in school than American kids (240 to 180). My Japanese coworkers about blew a fuse when I told them that I did homework exactly twice in my four years of high school, and did no serious studying outside of the limited time I spent in class. (Yes, my teachers assigned trivial homework, which I could always finish in class, between classes, or before school).

Re:Homework sucks - but it's just the beginning of

[NardofDoom]

Weaseling out of work is one of the most valuable skills in the workplace today. As are successfully estimating and putting forth the minimum effort required of you.

It's about time

[dtfinch]

I've been saying that since elementary school. Kids today have too much homework. It's too repetitive and uninsightful to be of any use.

I gave up on doing homework around the beginning of high school, except for the minimum needed to pass, and everything turned out fine. I got into college on test scores, and made strategic use of the grading options so that the classes with the most homework would have the least effect on my GPA.

Re:Pfffft

[Slime-dogg]

It has turned into a derogatory term, and has been for a number of years. I suggest that you get over it and get on with your life.

Re:Yes and no - experience in Japan

[JJ]

My experience in Japan directly contradicts this study. The high school students there got far more than 1 hour of math homework per week (which is what the study lists as the average.) Like Taiwan, they did spend a great deal of time in bushibans and their homework load was often what I considered excessive. My students (I taught mostly at a junior college) seemed to have their brains completely drained of creativity; when I told them to 'make something up' they'd look at me as if I had square eyeballs. I was able to coax creative ideas out of them, but free expression never happened. As far as turning in a 'rough draft' they were clueless. They'd write something once and be done.

Not everyone is created equal.

[i41Overlord]

When I was in school, I hated homework and didn't do it. I was able to get straight A's on my tests from the lessons in class, so I felt that I didn't need to do hours of brainless, repetitive work at home.

The teachers' flawed reasoning was that it wasn't fair to the other students that I was able to get A's on tests without doing homework, while some of the other students had to work very hard to get C's.

Honestly, though, is that my fault? Should I be held accountable for the poor performance of the other students? My responsibility was to make sure that *I* learn and prove that I learned by passing the tests, which I did. And the other students' responsibility was to make sure that they learned the material and passed the tests. If they need to do more studying to get the grades, that's what they have to do... but it's not what I had to do.

You need to grow a thicker skin.

[i41Overlord]

There are plenty of things in this world that you could find offensive if you were that weak minded.

You can either act like a wilted flower and take offense at things as trivial as people's sigs, or you can be a (real) man and laugh at it.

Oh, you're full of it.

[koko775]

I'll probably be modded down because I'm responding angrily to a BS post, but...

As a 16-year-old student at California's top high school (API statistics and quite literally the best AP Physics class in the world), who gets mostly A's and sometimes a B, I can verify that too much homework is really screwing things up. It's no lack of responsibility that I can't do SEVEN concurrent projects equally well. It's no lack of personal responsibility or lack of study that causes my grade to lower. It's the fact that I DON"T HAVE THE TIME TO STUDY EVERYTHING! When was the last time I came home with very litte homework, enjoying extra time to do what I love (programming)? Virtually NEVER! Two hours of math a week (from the article)? Ha! How does an hour a day sound?

Can you really say that just because I spend anywhere from five to seven hours on homework that I'm "just going through the motions" when I really try to think and put effort into my projects so they aren't just another piece of uninspired crap the teachers see all the time? Are you saying that I don't try to learn from my work? That I deserve SEVEN concurrent projects, four of which are blatantly busywork, and two of which are genuinely useful? That I can't be learning more about my subject of interest, programming, by spending more time learning about it? AND that my effort in school is wasted (I "go through the motions" and don't learn), as you so dismissively label so many students?

"Einstein" is no insult -- it's the people who irresponsibly blame their social situation on a characteristic they can't change. Blaming culture is nice, and sometimes useful, but honestly -- if the you think that the Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is exactly the problem, then I think you're misguided or unfamiliar with the amount of work today's best students have to do. The problem with attitude is at most HALF the problem. The problem with culture is usually a non-issue (unless you live in a really, really, really bad area and can't cope).

The problem with having too much to do and too little time to do it is you don't get the chance to find what you love to do and actually do it.

How much of my free time, how much of my waning childhood, how much of the free time I can enjoy are you going to metaphorically take away by justifying all of my homework?

Re:Homework sucks - but it's just the beginning of

[egburr]

My idea of using homework is to assign it, provide answers, review it in class. However, you never let it have anything to do with your grade.

One of my teachers had a great solution for this. Homework never counted towards a grade and was not checked. All the answers were in the book anyway, but not the steps to reach the answer (other than the general steps in the lessons). Homework solutions were discussed in class after it was turned in.

The catch was that if you did your homework and turned it in on time and did poorly on a test, then you could request that the teacher check your homework and he would give some extra credit if the homework was done correctly.

This gave everyone who needed to do the homework the incentive to do it, and did not penalize the people who did not need to do it.

The funny thing is this was my calculus class and was the first math/science class where I actually felt a need to do the homework to be able to do well on the tests (not for the extra credit but for the practice).

I knew the topics, I tested excellent, so I suppose I "got away" with it. I got to college and was screwed, because I adopted a policy of not needing to study or do homework.

Likewise for me, except my first year of college was basically a repeat of my senior year of high school, so it was my second year of college when I suddenly discovered a need for study and homework outside of class, and I did not have the skills or habits for doing that.

Just giving homework does not teach good study habits, especially for people who learn the subject easily and have no need to do the homework.

Difficulty of tests

[orim]

And you know what... people don't do homework because the tests in the US are so fucking easy.
For my senior HS year, I went from an East European country, a pretty good high school, to a public HS in Wheeling, WV.

The tests were so formulaic, they were all multiple choice... the teachers practically gave you the questions before hand.
The problem with the US is that kids don't fear the tests... Tests should never be multiple choice. You should never tell kids precisely what'll be on it, down to each problem. Tell em one sentence: "it's what we covered in class, kids." Have essay questions for just about everything (not for math, but social sciences/history cannot be tested with punching holes in the paper). Have oral exams, for kids to understand that you cannot just barely know the material and give a convincing on-the-fly answer. You must *gasp* study for it! You have to own the material to do that!

Back to my point - it's not that kids don't fear failure, they do. But if they know they can't fail the class as long as they take the test, the motivation for studying will be minimal.

Tough love, you know.
Now, I know it's not like this in the entire country. There are tough, good high schools. But what I went through is what the "heartland" is learning. No wonder this country isn't leading shit anymore. Except in dropping bombs on people's heads, and being violent pricks overall.

personally

[argStyopa]

I'd rather see the school day extended to match real-life work hours (0800-1700) with a minimum of homework outside of that.

1) it gets kids conditioned to what they should expect in real life.
2) the school day is only about 30% (or less) actual work right now, most of it is mindless and useless repetition. it's not like this extension of the day would be grueling
3) IMO the time between the end of school and the end of (parents') workday is when you have the most 'issues' with school-age children
4) teachers could work a full day. I hear a lot of teachers complain that they need 'prep' time - well, most of the schools around here are DESERTED by 4 pm, and if you did year-round school teachers could use the 1 wk/mo or 2 wk/quarter to do their 'prep' instead of painting houses all summer.

Homework is useful - absurd class times are not.

[ccevans]

I would say that the perceived problem with homework in primary/middle/high schools in the USA stems not from the homework itself, but from the absurd amount of time students spend in classes. Homework allows students to work on subject by themselves, and to show that they understand the material, which is something that usually cannot be effectively done in lectures. But when students are compelled to spend around thirty to fourty hours a week in classes/lectures, they are often too exhausted to then go home and do hours of homework. Since homework is usually assigned every day in many classes, teachers are usually too busy to create useful homework assignments.

By contrast, most universities I know of have students take far fewer hours of classes, and professors usually give homework which, as it is not usually given out every day, can be better thought out. In this situation students spend more time studying and doing homework than in class, and are thus, in my opinion, able to understand the material better, since they are spending significant amounts of time working by themselves, which allows them to find out which concepts they do or do not understand. These things are much more difficult to do in class.

Most universities, at least in the USA, do not allow students to take 30 or 40 hours of classes a week without special permission. Most forms of employment do not entail the employee working full time and then going home and working for 2-4 more hours. The only explanation for the difference that I can think of would be that primary/secondary/high schools in the United States are not designed to teach, but instead to provide childcare for parents working full time, and to teach only as a secondary objective.