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Schools Banning Homework?
theodp writes "Alarmed by indicators of student stress like cheating and substance abuse, some SF Bay Area schools are reducing an education staple: homework. Homework is mostly banned at Menlo Park's Oak Knoll School, but some teachers apparently have higher 'expections' [sic]."
I'd be pulling my child out of that school with their "expections," not only due to their poor grammar, but also for their militant view on homework. Or maybe things have just changed a lot since I was in grade school.
:q!
I didn't have homework for most of elementary school. In fact, I remember when we finally did start getting it in the sixth grade, and then it was less than 3 hours a week or so. Is dumping lots of homework on kids these days a new thing or did I just go to some hippie school? I think an important part of my development was to have time to do kids things, and even learn and explore on my own. If I'm spending all my thinking time on the things that they want me to learn, where am I supposed to get any creativity?
"They already do 6 hours of work in school... can't give them more work... blah blah"
How about we wipe their tushies and tell them they won't have to work hard to make something of themselves? Howabout just have them skip college (whole lotta more school work plus paying work)? Just tell them that a real work day is only about 6 hours, and you never have to take some work home with you, or stay late to finish that work so you don't have to take it home?
Why does it seem that the USA is progressively skimping on education? Is it any wonder that India and Japan (I am sure there are others) are surpassing us in general academic, and therefore work, achievement?
And yes, I graduated high school, got a BSEE, have worked in industry for 5 years, am going for a masters, and I did skim the TFA.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Maybe teachers will start doing their jobs now. Too many ended up just not wanting to deal with kids at all, they just told their students to sit down and shut up for an hour and then assigned homework that should have been covered in class.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I wonder how they are going to explain the drop in grades? Probably blame it on the teachers or some such.
Homework exists to reinforce the learning from the schoolday. It is not punishment, and it is not surplus work to keep the devil from taking over their souls.
As much as I hated homework (even moreso because I learned very well during the class), I have to admit that it does reinforce the learning. It's the 'doing' that reinforces the 'learning'.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Kids are under increasing stress to outdo their peers in the rush for university places. I'm feeling the pressure at A Level, and I've no doubt that kids younger than me are sick of it as well. It's not just homework, either, it's all the extra-curricular rubbish they're pushed to do in order to "stand out" from other applicants.
I'd welcome a ban on extra homework - besides what's normal for children that young, i.e. spellings and so on - until they reach Secondary School age. Give them a little bit of time to be themselves before rushing them into a world of hard work and sparse praise.
I think it's ridiculous to restrict the time they have to play when they're all so young, and we'll end up with a generation of robots if all we learn to value is grades.
Homework is not a requirement for learning - practice is. With 6 hours a day of school, minus 1.5 - 2 hours a day for lunch, fine arts, etc... my students need more time to practice long division, work on drafts of their writing assignments, and read about science and social studies. I focus on more interactive learning during my classroom time, so I send reading and practice home as homework.
A better system would give students time each day, or at least a few days a week, in supervised study hall. Staff it with student teachers or assistants capable of helping with questions (which parents often can't). A longer school day with me would work too.
The real issue is that all too often homework is given because it is expected by parents, and is just busywork. The "I had lots of homework as a kid so my kids should too" attitude of some parents is not beneficial. Homework shouldn't be a punishment or given just because teachers are supposed to. The question is, what do students need to learn what they are supposed to learn?
I was about to say this is a good thing because frankly the problem is that teachers don't freaking teach anything in class anymore. Some of you who are older might not realize how bad it is but classrooms have been dumbed down horribly by the lowest common denominator problem. Basically the instructor is lazy or has to explain things really slowly such that any halfway smart kid will just go to sleep. They then make up for it with stupid amounts of homework.
So reducing homework and maybe making teachers actually teach sounds good at first though but then I remembered all the busy work. So how about instead of making our kids waste a full 40 hours a week sitting in class snoozing we give them less school and actually make sure they do their learning at home at their own pace.
If http://www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml/ wasnt bad enough to push the stress limits of an already completely fucked up education system, lets throw in some wild theories about whats causing stress in todays children. Maybe it isnt "homework" but the straight from school to the factory education model we use to teach children today. I've had the unfortunate experience of working as a corrections officer and a factory worker, and I can tell you that there are frightening similiarities between the three. The problem that is well known about the education system is its inability to let children accel at their own pace, when in fact, all the current system does is keep the smartest right in line with the dumbest. At least back in the day before political correctness, the dumb ass of the class was left way behind and the rest were forced to rise to an artificial standard... today we have "No Child Left Behind".... I cant wait for the re-runs "Ow my Balls"...
20th century Marxism is not progress...
I wonder how they are going to explain the drop in grades? Probably blame it on the teachers or some such.
Oh hell no...they'll blame it on being "underfunded."
I agree that balance is key to slowly moving children into the different stages of life, and getting them acclimated to the real world. Ultimately, they will be able to stand on their own as independents.
What I'm curious about, is how have things changed since I was growing up (I'm 35) for an average child, and how much the day-to-day school experience differs from what I was brought up in (I went to private, Catholic schools)?
I will say that I recall having a low work vs. play and recreation ratio in the early years...that gradually changed so that as I matured, I was given more work, more responsibility, and that of course related to homework as well. I mean, I'd get close to nothing in 1st grade...maybe 20-30 minutes of homework in 4/5th grade....then by high school I'd say on average anywhere from none, to 30 minutes to a couple hours each night, depending on the classes I was taking.
The key thing I remember throughout, however, was that from my parents, my teachers, and my peers, there was always an expectation to succeed, to try your hardest, and to do your very best. That environment gave me the support and willingness to push myself harder, and ultimately become a productive and successful person. I think this environment of expectation and support in the different areas (parents, teachers, peers) is key for a young person to develop as individuals and fulfill their potential as people. I think things fall down when there is lack of support in one of those areas, or when the areas don't mesh....particularly from the parent and teacher side.
While I'm at it, I'll also mention that all kids should not only have to do some kind of homework (and get a job when they're old enough...say 12 yrs old)....they should also not all get a trophy just for participating in something. Doing so shows kids that they don't have to work hard for anything, and that they are entitled for no good reason. I think there are way too many parents out there today who think children are somehow adults already, and that they deserve all consideration and entitlement that an adult does....that somehow children possess adult-like intellect and emotions...and that they come out of the womb as 21 year olds. I think this type of parental behavior damages children much more than any possible 'bruising of self-esteem' that everyone seems to concern themselves with these days. It teaches children to become manipulative and difficult.
they just shouldn't GRADE homework, well IMO anyway. One of my favorite profs in college always assigned us homework but never collected it. Why? His philosophy was that he would know if you were actually doing your homework by how you did on the test. He would assign problems then publish the solutions on the web. And when you went to his office hours you could ask him ANY question you wanted to about the homework. Other profs who grade homework would always dance around certain questions because they didn't want to "give away the answer". What BS! I learn as much, if not more, from trying problems and being able to see my mistakes then by making sure I need to do everything perfectly all the time. Profs would usually post answers to the homeworks, but unless I made copies of what I did, I wouldn't get the homework I handed in back until weeks afterwards. By then many of the lessons have already been forgotten.
Isn't grading by both testing AND homework implying that people cheat on homework? If you believe that everyone is honestly do their homework, then the homework should show whether or not they trully understand(not MEMORIZE per se) the material. Or if you have tests then don't collect homework because the students will have to prove their mettle on the test anyway. I think it would be great if classes had either only test or only homework/discussion grades. Each would work better in certain situations, but the whole idea of having to be perfect all the time without being able to consult reference materials or collaborate with others against the spirit of education. Also, it doesn't represent the "real world" at all. I know bridge makers aren't allowed to make mistakes, but all bridge designs have to be signed off by several people and they are allowed to collaborate with co-workers and several people have to inspect the design and put their own reputation and even wallets on the line when they sign off on the design. This isn't allowed on tests or even homework theoretically. So why grade it?
Monstar L
I just graduated high school last May, so I understand this system of homework. I'm also in the military, so I understand what it's like putting in long hours and a good work ethic. (just establishing my credibility, folks)
Homework, I feel, is essential in some areas, especially in mathematics and science. I found myself earning higher grades on tests and quizzes when I did the homework. It's a great way to practice the material studied in class. What didn't help is my parents did not know the material. I had to go online a lot and research tips and other educational materials on my own to help me understand better.
This may be a little off topic, but I feel it needs mentioning. The school system nowadays, as I have experienced it, are focusing more on getting students to pass the yearly standardized state test. The HSPA (NJ) and TAX (TX) tests were all we were prepared for as well as the AP* exams in my advanced courses. Granted, it is in our best interest to pass, but when you're in AP English IV looking for grammatical errors in sentences for two dittos/sheets, back and front, and you spend two days on the material, all because it's on the state test, there's definitely a problem.
*AP stands for advanced placement which is the equivalent to one college semester of that course; see Advanced Placement, College Board
Homework didn't start until I was in 6th grade. Even then, it wasn't anything time-consuming. There was still ample freedom in my schedule for soccer, playing with friends, having dinner, taking a shower, watching some TV with the family, and going to bed before 9pm.
The amount of work did gradually increase, until high school when there was several hours per day to be completed. But since I was in school during the day for only 6 hours, that still left three hours to finish whatever was assigned before the 'rents came home from work. Larger projects obviously took more time, but that's life. College, naturally, demanded more.
Now, I have two sons. The third grader can read at a sixth grade level, but he was taking home reading material to practice reading 15-30 minutes per day outside of class starting in kindergarten. He was also taking home math and weekly projects, as well as one or two sheets per day that were "required" coloring. The only thing different for him starting in first grade was that the coloring assignments became penmanship assignments. The amount of work has only increased, both in quantity and complexity (I can understand the complexity point, obviously). He spends three hours a day doing homework. He's 8. I didn't do that much work until I was 15.
The younger boy is in kindergarten. He's there three hours a day. My wife and I have sat in on his classes. These kids are busy! They have rotating stations, music lessons, gym class, art class, their time is filled to the brim for those three hours. He brings home enough work with him every day to fill up another two hours if we bother to make him actually do it correctly. We don't. In fact, we encourage him to go out and play more. He's 5. No, he is not as far along as his older brother when that boy was at this point, but then again, neither was I.
Our parents, upon hearing how much our children are doing, simply shake their heads. Both of the grandfathers are engineers. Both of them recall kindergarten as a time for naps and crayons. Reading and the alphabet didn't start for them until first grade. Homework didn't start until high school. They obviously turned out fine. Both grandmothers are college-educated as well.
As for me and the missus, I graduated top of my class in high school and college, and make excellent money working from home. She's a teacher. Both of us are successful, well-adjusted, and intelligent. We didn't have homework in grade school, and we turned out just fine. We see what our kids' schools are doing to them, and we can see the educational benefits. We can also see the stress and anxiety. They don't need to learn that at 8 and 6. There's plenty of time for that when they are older. Their education will not "suffer" if I do my job as a parent and help them learn to slow down and enjoy life when they can, and to work hard when they must.
Oh yeah, let's get rid of homework because the poor kiddies are stressed out.
Hell yes. This article isn't talking about high school, or even junior high school, it's talking about freaking elementary school. When you're 8 years old you damn well shouldn't have to be stressed out every day, and only a sociopath would think otherwise. These are not the ages to start teaching kids about the "real world". They can stress out for the next 70 years of their life, why can't we let them be a kid for just a few years?
I went to second grade in the Menlo Park school district, the location of Oak Knoll School, which is described in the article. I went to Willow School. I don't know how much has changed since 1973, but back then, it was a low-income area, with really horrible schools. I remember learning to flake loose paint off of the buildings with a pin at recess. They had a government-subsidized breakfast program, and my parents offered to pay for it, but the school thought they were just being proud, and told them it was really OK. There was not much learning going on. The teacher would play records, read books to us, and give us toys and comic books as prizes for good behavior. There was no homework. One big reason we moved after that year was to get me out of that school. However, even though the next place we landed was much more affluent (I went to Forest Grove School in Pacific Grove, Ca.), there was still no homework.
Today, I have two kids in grade school, and I do think they get too much homework. (A lot of it is busywork, like word searches, or 50 arithmetic problems when 10 would have done it.) My impression is that the school assigns a lot of homework because the parents expect it. Real estate has tripled since we bought our house here, and I think large amounts of homework reassure affluent parents that their kids are getting a good education. Also, the area is majority Korean, so the culture leans that way too.
Find free books.
It prepares kids for 10x the stress levels that they'll receive once they're on their own. Homework is also good - it keeps kids off the street and off the TV. Life's hard, little folks. Deal with it.
US public schools suck as it is. If they also abolish homework they'll be even more of a laughing stock for the rest of the world and in 10-15 years US of A will be paying dearly for this decision. I bet kids in China, India and Russia don't dare to open their mouths about getting too much homework.
By assigning units to the number 15, you stifle the individuals self-determination and possible hurt the individuals self worth, which is not the goal of the San Francisco area schools. Students attending San Francisco area schools should not have standards in place that can make students feel that they are unsuccessful. To that end, requiring specific units such as sentences, words, minutes, letters, seconds, etc., can only hurt the self-esteem of those who cannot achieve the 15 unit minimum.
First, I am not a proponent of unneeded homework. However, in all seriousness, I lost all respect for the San Francisco Bay area schools in the mid-nineties. At one point, there were complaints that the schools had no standards for graduation. The schools came up with standards such as "Graduates shall be able to solve problems through compromise", without any hard, measurable standards, such as being able to read, write, add, or recite any history. I remember thinking "Wow, if one kid thinks 2+2=4 and one thinks that 2+2=6, do they compromise and select 5 as the solution?" Around the same time, the teachers across the Bay were trying to get Ebonics recognized as a language so that more teachers could collect an extra 10% salary for being bilingual. And a professor at Berkley was seen on the news protesting against a bill for removal of minority hiring preferences, saying that she would not have "gotten the job" if it wasn't for those preferences. I was happy that I was moving soon, so my newborn daughter wouldn't be raised in that educational environment.
Hopefully, those educated in the Bay Area can tell me that I just heard all of the bad press, and the schools are much better than I believe.
All through high school, one of my teachers kept saying, "If they did away with homework, and both shifted the start time and extended the day by an hour, we'd get so much more done." - And it's true. We could have finished the curriculum maybe a month or so earlier than expected, which would pave the way for either more advanced subjects or more time off between study periods, which equals rested and ready students.
Of course, this is the high school level I'm talking about, an age group that generally doesn't "wake up" until midday anyway. I know *I* was a zombie until about 10:30 AM. Actually, I still am...
But anyway, the only "homework" I can see as being necessary is studying, and learning to study, which is absolutely necessary when the college/university level hits. When I went through school, I don't think - or at least, I don't recall - that it was ever actually taught (or it was taught in a backwards way), and as a result, I never developed good study habits - I'm guessing my classmates, excepting those who developed their own, were in a similar boat.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
But there is nothing to get better at! Once you've done a couple dozen multiplication problems, you can do multiplication perfectly. Calculating a 15% tip is easy, you move the decimal point over one (to get ten pecent, if you're not too concerned about precision you just drop the last digit) then you halve that number (to get 5%) and add the 2 together. Anyone who reaches for a calculator to do that is just being lazy. There is nothing even remotely hard about that problem. Multiplying by 7 is rougher to do in your head, but still no big deal. What exactly are you going to practice? There is nothing to get better at. Maybe instead of spending 1-2 hours per day for months in 4th grade on multiplication, they could move on to division, fractions/decimals and then into basic algebra and quadradic equations etc. But instead they make you practice to improve a skill you can already do perfectly.
Practice does help, up to a certain point. With the simple math you encounter before middle school 50 problems per night on a concept you understand is unnecessary. Maybe 10 simple, and 10 complex enough to test your understanding of the concept then to test your ability to apply it should be enough. 200 multiplication problems PER NIGHT is to much. Especially when they are the brain dead simplistic kind.
Learning the scales is partly to help you learn finger position and help you give you speed when moving between keys. If you can;t do that without think about it then you can't play a song right because you have to THINK about where that key is. If you can hit a free throw on instinct you can make one because no one will give you time to shoot that basket in the middle of a game. With multiplication all you are doing with huge amounts of homework is memorization of certain combinations of numbers. Something that was really useless once I hit my upper level math and physics classes.
The truth of the matter is that people learn at different rates and people learn in different ways. Some people don't need that homework other do.
Reps help brains, new and interesting material does a better job than reps. Like with muscle tone and size are different but important.
You mad
if I did math homework I would get grades in the 80s or 90s. If I didn't, I would barely pass a test or even fail.
....Don't get me started on the worthless "grading" in college these days.
Homework works for you, that's great. Homework was a waste of childhood for me. If I could do the last three math problems (always the hardest) why did I need to do the other 30? If I got an "A" on the test who cares how much or little of the homework I did? And if some child does every last bit of the homework but bombs the test, they are still not learning the material, and need a different way to learn it. We need to get rid of any attachment of social value to grades and get back to teaching the kids the skills need to get along in the world.
We are all just people.
her biggest problem is dealing with boredom at school.
That was a problem for me in school as well, however for me the boredom manifest as discipline problems because I didn't respect my teachers, because they were assigning me (in my perspective at the time) remedial work. It lead to huge amounts of anger, frustration, etc. for me, my parents, and my teachers. Life would have been much better for everyone involved if could have spent that time in class learning something. I don't mean to tell you how to raise you kids, but I know what a difference it would have made for me if I had been allowed (or even encouraged) independent study during the class times that I was "bored".
We are all just people.
Anyone who learns by rote instead of breaking down into simple problems is taking the soul out of whatever they are learning.
Education (especially math education, I think) should not be about learning isolated chunks of data, but about understanding concepts. All a person gains by memorizing that 15% of 61 is 9.15 is a bit of saved time. That's great if what you want to do is do well on tests or save a bit of time when calculating the tip in restaurants, but if your goal is to actually learn, it's better to just understand the general concepts and then figure out how to work your way down to the particular facts from there. It saves time and allows one to cover a broader scope of knowledge.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
Okay, but where do you end all the memorization?
.15? How about by .151? Or by .1551? Eventually, you have to say they need to break it down and figure it out rather than doing it by wrote.
The dinner bill for the dinner party was 1234.56. Do you expect kids to memorize that by multiplied by
Anyone who delves into breaking down simple problems instead of recalling from rote learning is just being lazy.
NOT breaking down problems into simpler problems is just being silly. This is a key method in problem solving.
Seriously. Memorizing anything beyond 1x1 to 9x9 for general use is mostly a waste to precious education time that could be spent on something else. Once you have 1x1 to 9x9, you can break down any two numbers and multiply them together.
Now, using that "general method" do multiplication can take a while so having "tricks" that get you there is common in engineering and other problem solving. Instead of calculating out the tip on that dinner, it's easy to see that 10% is 123 (just dump a digit), and 20% is 246 (double and drop a digit). A decent tip is somewhere in the middle there.
Plus, the idea of dividing by 10 and adding half again, while it appears to be a "trick" or gimmick, it actually demonstrates a certain dexterity with the numbers and a deeper understanding of how things fit together.
Who says it's a left/right wing thing? Who is to say the school board isn't just relenting to demands from parents that their children face no possibility of failure?
If that's the case, you could have both a teacher and a parent who want to turn the middle east into glass, regularly lynch homosexuals and abortion doctors, and think that FDR destroyed the country, but the parent says "Fuck you, you're not failing my kid, I'll get you fired and make your life hell if you even try", and a teacher who says "Fine. It's not my kid. I don't care if your bloodline goes to the trailer park because your kid is illiterate.
It's been a long time.
This makes me think of Aristotle's philosophy of virtue. Vices are extremes; virtues are the middle way between them. Thus the opposite of cowardice isn't courage, it's rashness. Courage is the midpoint between cowardice and rashness.
This applies to the issue of drills. It is true that drills help, but only up to a point. Focus on more "big picture" kinds of work helps -- to a point.
I once heard this piece of advice from an experienced coach. If you want an athlete to reach his potential, you have to find the balance between repetition and stimulation. Ideally, working on basic skills and working on new skills reinforce each other. The basic skills provide the vocabulary in which new skills are described and acquired. The new skills inspire a sharper, more purposeful focus on basic drilling. This came back when I heard Nadia Comaneci interviewed for one of those "where are they now" articles. If you remember, she was the first Olympic gymast to get a perfect score in competition. The journalist asked, "How do you go about getting a perfect score?" Comaneci answer that you did it by working on a routine that is difficult and risky. Do a routine that is too easy, and your mind wanders and you make mistakes in little things.
That's what works for athletes, and a student is simply a mental athlete.
Watching my kids do school, I am struck by how much more project oriented work they do than I did in the 60s, which was very drill oriented. There is much more focus on projects and collaboration, which is a overall good thing. But this can be taken to an extreme, where it becomes a vice. Sometimes teachers make an attempt to replace drills with more "fun" projects, and fail. They end up assigning pointless work, which is actually more dull than doing a moderate list of drills and are flabbergasted when the students don't find them "fun".
The problem of homework should not separated from the issue of the quality of homework.
If a student was in the right zone, then a marginal increase of quality homework tends to produce a reasonably corresponding benefit. If the homework is bad, then doing more of it only wastes more time. The significance of this is what the time would have been used for. If the time would have been used for watching television, then there's not much loss. But kids education does not begin and end with school work. The other things they do have educational value, even its just hanging out with friends.
My fifth grade daughter is an avid reader during vacations. But her teachers are very bad at budgeting their homework time. She often has three or more hours of homework a night, which means she doesn't get to read much, or do her other hobby which is making jewelry. This year we cut out music lessons and sports to make room for homework. One night I caught her up at 10:30, working on homework. She was coloring an extremely elaborate drawing of a scene from a book which had been assigned by her reading teacher. I told her thta she probably didn't have to color it, and she assured be she had to. I suggested she didn't have to draw every single individual rock in the fireplace, and she told me that if she didn't show sufficient effort, her teacher would keep her in from recess until she had done it over again, and recess was the only time she got to do anything with her friends -- because they have so much homework.
Now this drawing wasn't assigned by the art teacher. It was assigned by the reading teacher. Why is the reading teacher assigning art? Because it's easy for her to grade (which seems to be a huge factor in a lot of homework). Allegedly this is supposed to be "fun" for students, although it takes two of my daughter's favorite things in the world -- reading and drawing -- and turns them into pointless drudgery.
So finally I put my foot down: I got a conference with the teacher and told her that I was capping homework at 90 minutes a night, and that if there were ever
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
But you have to know how to play to win, right?
Incidentally, this is a great part of what is wrong with American thinking these days. That play-to-win attitude fosters cheating on exams, lying during interviews, taking steroids before participating in athletic events, etc. Morality and integrity lie dead on the side of the road traveled by the winners.