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Parents Fight Legal Battle For Less Homework
Sherri and Tom Milley may be the coolest parents in the world, at least in the eyes of their children. The Milley's were tired of having to help their children with hours of homework each night so they negotiated the "Milleys' Differentiated Homework Plan" with the school. The plan, which ensures their youngest two children will never have to do homework again, was signed by the children, parents and teachers. "It was a constant homework battle every night," Sherri told Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper. "It's hard to get a weeping child to take in math problems. They are tired. They shouldn't be working a second shift."
When I was in fourth grade, I had trouble learning my multiplication tables. So I had to write out from 1x1 to 12x12 (144 problems) 12 times a night. That's over a 1000 math problems a night in fourth grade!
the purpose of homework is just like the purpose of school. Neither of these institutions have any educational objective outside to teach a child how to be a radical conformist. I learned very little in all my years in school; in fact, the pressures of punch clock education only provided a distraction from my efforts to read every book ever written and to educate myself. The prison-camp of school, where you have to ask permission to take a piss, exists to train students to swallow the insane ravings of authority mindlessly assuming it's all for their own good. Eventually I just stopped doing any of the work, to my own betterment. I started inventing my own cirriculum and the teachers went along with it just to keep me from disrupting their lessons. I'm sorry I ever went to school in the first place, thankful I got expelled, and ecstatic that outside of the mainstream "education" system I was able to complete my high school studies in a fraction of the time and got into an excellent college despite the obstructionism of those twits on the school board.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
This is awesome. I remember not having to do homework until middle school (70s). When my daughter started school (17 years ago), I was shocked that she brought home homework from kindergarten! She always had hours of homework every night, all through elementary school. And it was always rote bullshit. I've always hated the regurgitation is education paradigm in the US.
i decided to go back to school to finish what i've begun some 3 or 4 years ago. while the school does have an interesting catalog of courses, it does leave a lot of homework.
i've never been a fan of homework, i don't really know the purpose of it, i don't think it compares to something in the real world, apart from studying for something you want to learn outside the working hours of your job. i don't see any point of doing it, most of the time its dreadful, boring, copy pasted, paper wasting, nonsense. i support the idea of assigning something for reading and then asking someone in class what was it about. apart from that i think everything should be done in the classroom.
Its hard for me to keep up going to school + working + taking care of the house, on top of that school wants to creep into my free time? ...sad
Sure! Don't solve problems, don't read books, don't write essays.
Instead, watch some "Married, with Children" to see what you're gonna become.
Buttheads.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
I can't agree that homework is useless. It's actually a mean of forcing the children to do something they don't like to do - repeat what they learned in school. And repetitions are the only way for most people to really learn something. I'm personally skilled in mathematics and in high school I tended to skip the homework completely because I was to lazy to do it(it was mandatory, but usually wasn't enforced). With this I got around 60 - 65% in tests (it was a class with math as "specialization", so it wasn't THAT bad :D ). The few times I was actually forced to do some homework it usually raised my results up to about 80 - 85%. Also later, in my college days, I had experienced cases where simple lack of practice caused me to perform much below expectations on exams - even though I knew how to do something, I simply wasn't fast enough to complete it and other assignments in a given time.
1) to do projects which are not feasable during the school day, such as interviewing family members to construct a family tree, visiting a city council meeting, etc.
2) to do necessary work the student ran out of time to do in class
3) to develop a value system that education, and by extension, adult tasks like work, are not simply an 8AM-3PM proposition.
Homework, like classwork, can be abused. Assigning meaningless drill-and-practice work to a student who has already mastered the material or telling a student to "do all the problems" when only doing a handful would suffice to achieve mastery is a waste of time.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
They shouldn't be working a second shift
Ha, Ha.
Seriously, How about the second shift teachers put in? I don't wanna hear about your teacher that took a week to get back a paper or was a good for nothing...Teaching is a lot of work. Grading papers, calling parents, extra credit, discipline, etc etc...School would be a lot easier if the students wanted to learn. Yet, they are forced to deal with students who dont care and parents who also dont care.
Did anyone else notice the name of the school? An elementary junior high school? What's that?
Your calculations count 1*x as problems. They shouldn't really be counted as such, don't you think? Even 2*x are still only x+x (where x Even that doesn't take into account that there are other really easy groups (like 10*x in which you just add the zero) or single calculations that are very easy (3*3, etc.).
When I was a kid, I had some trouble with multiplication tables too though I was taught only to 10*10. I have always been overall good at math and now study computer science but I was one of the slowest in our class when it came to multiplications. Even so, it wasn't that the whole table would have been difficult. I remember having particular problems with 7*x and 8*8 but many others (like 5*x) were very easy.
Having to write 12 by 12 table multiple times shows that the teacher just wanted the kids to memorize it completely. I don't know why, though. I don't have 11*12 memorized. If I would need to count it I would go "Well... 10*12 should be easy, then add 12 once more... Ah 132". Trying to memorize them that far seems pointless.
after all, no one ever brings work home from work, learns new skills to advance outside of work, or works through a work assignment they they hate or is hard.
Yes, a lot about school sucks. So does parts of life.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.