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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."
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.