Let's examine the study just a bit.
... in countries where they spend more time on homework, the achievement results are lower.
Could it be that they're spending too much time on social brainwashing rather than eduction? Hmm, doesn't seem to have been included.
The amount of homework is a really critical issue for kids. If they are overloaded they are not going to be happy and not going to enjoy it. There are other things kids want to do that are very valuable things for them to be doing.
So what they learn is to do only what they enjoy - that will really help them in their college and working careers!!
... the majority of 10 and 11-year-olds - 59 per cent - do less than two hours of homework per week
Less than two hours per week isn't homework - maybe the real problem is that they're not doing enough!!
I review resumes everyday and the quality is appalling (misspelled words, incomplete sentences, etc. - even with spell check!). I guess it should come as no surprise if this is any indication of what they learn (if you can call this learning).
I didn’t read the article except what you posted - but I was waiting for a part to say that in countries where kids are IN SCHOOL longer, there are better results, which would take care of both the homework, and the more practice time.
This is just more liberal claptrap to allow teachers to collect more tax monies while doing less. Educator work ethics are being pawned off on the kids, and the do-nothing generation grows.
I had 2-4 hours of homework a night when I was in high school. I was in AP classes beginning in my sophomore year, and I was taking college prep calculus and science courses by the time I was a senior. I graduated summa cum laude from college thanks to the hard work ethic instilled in me at a very young age.
Nowadays, kids aren’t learning how to do anything like we used to do it. Simple math using columns to add/subtract have been replaced with this fuzzy math garbage that teaches kids how to break up numbers. It’s mumbo jumbo if you as me. I tried to teach my 9 year old cousin how to do long division, and he says to me, “That’s not how we learned to do it in school!”
I said, “Show me how you learned to do it.”
I was aghast at what they were trying to get these kids to learn. I’ve done three-dimensional calculus with less effort. Kids don’t like homework. Period. That doesn’t mean we should just stop giving it to them!
Let’s make some assumptions. Let’s assume some primary school teachers can teach their students what they are supposed to learn in the classroom during class time. These teachers would have no reason to assign homework, as the kids have learned the material.
Then there are the teachers who can’t teach. But the kids in their class have to learn the material. So what to do? Send it home to Mom and Dad and have them do what they should have done in the first place!
I was homeschooled. Didn’t spend more than three hours a day on schoolwork until highschool - which I started early - and never ever ever had “homework”, everything got done during the school day.
Only senior students in Years 11 and 12 benefit from after-school work,
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Does he say how you will get kids in grades 11 & 12 to do homework if you don’t make them do it in the lower grades?
As an ex-teacher, I tend to agree.
Respectfully disagree, jda. There’s lots of learning that can go on at home that isn’t school directed. I DO agree that if readin’ writin’& ‘rithmatic were the focus during school hours, students wouldn’t need to be doing hours of additional work every night.
It would be interesting to compare the hours of “formal” instruction in the public schools vs. those of home-schooled kids.
btw, I’m a product of the public schools (grade school) in the 50s, but I would definitely be home-schooling if I had little ones.
Finally, limit the use of electronic gadgets & get the kids ouside!
Homework works IF they stick to one area and not jump around. You can’t set a child to doing long division, when his teacher has not taught him all his multiplication table first.
BTW the state of GA has done away with CURSIVE reading and writing teaching. My 12 year old granddaughter is cursed to live in that state, and has NOT learn how to read CURSIVE, much less write it, and it caused her great shame at Christmas when she could not read the hand cursive written note that went with her very special Christmas present.
Then you have Head Start a totally worthless program, it is more of a BABYSITTER than an educational program. That we the TAX SLAVES are forced to pay for.
Are we assuming that kids are doing their own homework or is it possible they are having it done by a sibling or friend? Sorry, I didn’t read the whole article.
My only beef concerning homework is the lack of coordination between teachers. I’m not sure how early it starts, certainly by middle school, when a student has a different teacher for each subject. The amount of homework can pile up very fast when 6-8 teachers assign homework on one day. I know my son has been swamped at times when a paper is due, a project is due and a big test or two are scheduled for the same day. Plus the school district eliminated study halls several years ago. It was rare that I ever took a book home, now I’m buying used text books so my son has a copy at home and doesn’t have to lug 50 lbs. of books home all the time.
The major benefit of homework in my view is teaching the kids self discipline.
The sooner in life kids learn that there are things in life that you may not like to do but can do the better.
I have/had my kids practicing reading and math nightly since preschool
I remember doing two and three hours of homework a night when I was a third-grader, mostly math drill sheets. It was ridiculous. I still remember the sensation of drowning in a sea of arithmetic, the utter drudgery of grinding through page after page of hand calculation. The teacher mostly didn't even grade them... she put a check mark on it to verify that it had been done. At the end of the year the teacher tried to fail me on the basis that I hadn't turned in over half of my homework assignments... she didn't realize my mom had saved every last one of those puppies, complete with the teacher's check mark showing they'd been received.
My time would have been much better spent building furniture in my dad's workshop, browsing through the World Book encyclopedias they'd bought for me (and which were kept in my room), building plastic model cars (a hobby I was just getting into) or learning electronics (by third grade my dad had already taught me how to solder).
Or just reading. I loved to read. If it hadn't been for the good books I had access to, I don't know what I would have done.
I can tell you for sure, though... in high school, homework had benefit for me. I did some important work in the trenches in high school, practicing my English composition, learning how to do proofs in Euclidean geometry and (later) exercises in trigonometry and calculus, and heaven help me if I hadn't done my homework in Mr. Tomlinson's Spanish class... but my homework in elementary school was a hell of boredom from which I benefitted nothing, and would have given almost anything to have escaped.
I see this problem all the time when reading comments by readers on Internet sites including Free Republic. One particularly annoying trend is the use of "there" in place of "their" and "they're"--even among seemingly intelligent writers.
It’s self-evident that the more you work to learn, the more you will know, and it’s human nature that you can’t hold someone focused on a single thing beyond a certain point.
If we have a problem, maybe it’s that our students have too many distractions and don’t see the value of their classroom subjects, and so are unable to stay focused on their schoolwork long enough to learn the stuff.
Agreed. It’s more than the homework. It’s the discipline to sit down, undistracted, and get it done, on your own.
Unless your kid is unusually smart, they just don't absorb what they need to know during the few hours they are in the classroom.
Are the liberals trying to “level the playing field” by dragging down the kids who do well and who's families value education down to the level of those who don't? By not having homework, there is no opportunity for parents to help their kids. That seems to be what they want. They want to deliberately dumb down America (if it is possible to get any dumber).
“Research reveals...”
I stopped right there.
In other words, that “research” is on a par with “climate research”.
Dennis Prager claims he never did homework, and he graduated from Columbia.
Completely understand the relationship between fractions and percentages;
Long division;
Multiplication;
How to calculate square roots and cube roots;
Completely understand plane geometry to include the differences among squares, rectangles, circles, cubes, cylinders, parallelograms, rhombuses, radii and diameters.
Enough English to know the differences between "differences between" and "differences among."
In short, I learned everything I need to hold a job because I did my homework in grades 1 through 10.
I’ve never been a believer in homework. People need time away from studies.
I never did homework, except for special projects like papers. Neither did either of my children and they both graduated National Honor Society and 4 year A averages.
Unless you are in some field that requires extra hours, most workers do not have to take their work home with them. In fact, it’s detrimental in many cases to do so.
In other cases, it’s avoidance of family life, like standing out in the yard holding a hose, or lying under the car.
There was always a hour study hall when I was in school and that sufficed for any assignments I had. I admit I was smart (in a dumb kind of way).
Schools today don’t do as good a job because of poor teachers (teachers unions) and having to deal with difficult children.
Of possible interest ping.