Posted on 08/23/2016 3:43:43 AM PDT by Zakeet
A teacher in Fort Worth has gone viral after she sent home a note to parents outlining her new homework policy for the year.
In the note, Mrs. Brandy Young says, "After much research this summer, I am trying something new. Homework will only consist of work that your student did not finish during the school day. There will be no formally assigned homework this year."
[Snip]
The note ends: "Research has been unable to prove that homework improves student performance. Rather, I ask that you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child early to bed."
(Excerpt) Read more at walb.com ...
My grandson was bringing home homework by the third grade and I thought that was a little much. He is still today even as a sophomore a book worm as far as reading books go. He has the concentration and yes he does play video games. My oldest grandson who didn't do much homework graduated with honors and got a full ride scholarship for college to begin preparation for his goal becoming a surgeon. Both grandsons are honors students and neither one did that much homework because they finished it at school. With teachers asking for and getting Block Scheduling meaning 90 minute classes that really should be enough study of a subject for a day.
All of that said I am not against voluntary advanced classes or courses where more intense studies are offered requiring homework if that is the intellectual interest of the student. My reasoning is the students interest will motivate the additional homework. Most students are not college bound yet our education systems gears itself to try and make all kids college prep and by doing so meaning in many cases learning to take test rather than acquire and retain practical and functional knowledge that will actually help them in life and the job market.
Signed,
Former Sweat Hog
Kids below 4th grade don’t need homework. I couldn’t believe the amount of busy work the schools saddle my kids with. By Middle school - yes, they should have homework, but not in kindergarten.
“Sorry, you and your school system are more wrong than right and have been for many decades. It’s time to turn back to something that works and actually educates kids.”
You don’t have to be sorry.
And I’m not defending any school system. I am saying that homework is over rated.
Homework was result of sputnik but schools teach less than they did 100 years ago.
“As a high school math teacher in the 50’s and 60’s I assigned homework regularly. The concept taught in the classroom needs to be practiced and learned with exercises. Whatever you want to master, you need to practice. In mathematics we call it homework.”
As a former math teacher, I can say that the argument for math homework is stronger than others, particularly math facts.
In general, there is still too much homework and the net result appears to be nada.
The education research studies get treated like hard science yet they are designed and may be manipulated to support a certain predetermined belief.
I understand where many of the people posting here are coming from regarding children spending time with their family. However let me make an analogy here. Let me say we have a basketball coach for a children’s team who wants the parents to like her so that the principal of the school will favor her and she Will keep her job. So she writes the parents a letter saying their child Will not have to spend time outside of practice conditioning or shooting baskets. The entire off-season should be spent doing things with family and The family should not worry if their student shoots any baskets in The off-season. How is this team going to do when they play a team where the players did conditioning outside of practice and put extra time into shooting baskets and practicing their game at home and in the off-season? Also where the team they are playing had their players play against their parents one on one at home to get extra practice. Who would win, the “no homework is great team” or the team that went the extra mile?
Kids now days bury their faces in their phones playing silly games
If they get to college they are completely unprepared to study in most cases.
Not doing any homework has caused a lot of the problem
A formative moment in a good education.
I love a happy ending.
I'm 53 and agree with the teacher. Maybe I agree because that's how my elementary school years went. The only homework we had was that which we didn't finish in class. That's a strong incentive to be busy at school.
Of course, we stayed very busy after school too. No cable TV, video games and couch stuff.
After 10th grade, I did have assigned homework in upper level classes.
I come from a family of teachers - both parents and two uncles.
They have all said, at one time or another, that the laziest teachers give the most homework. If you are an effective classroom teacher, then your students will learn in class.
That being said, encouraging and directing (but not requiring) outside of class study can help those students who need help. Then, at the dreaded parent/teacher conference, the educator can look the parents dead in the eye and say “how much have you helped little Johnny on his optional extra-curricular studies?”
What little homework I had in HS was done before school, as I caught a ride with my stepfather. Or, I would occasionally go to the library after school as needed. I recall one project I did at home, that was it.
Sports was a great teacher for me, particularly baseball. I read hundreds of sports books, kept score while listening to the game on the radio, and calculated stats by hand, or by a slide rule. I also made my spending money by keeping score at a bowling alley five nights a week during HS, and tournaments once a month.
My love of reading has stuck with me through the years, and I encourage my kids to stick with it. The challenge is finding genres that interest them, and I simply feed that interest.
Nope, no social promotions or multiple repeats of a grade. Catholic schools had waiting lists and if you couldn’t cut it, you were out.
Compulsory education with the state as en educator of last resort means this model can’t be followed in its entirety, even in the best of circumstances. Private schools do have an advantage.
Logic and experience says she's wrong. That aside, whenever a suggestion comes from such a "professional," I ask myself: Does this have an affect on their quality of work life?. And if so...I assume I understand the motivation.
We are in agreement, then. In my first comment, I was attempting to point out that testing required implementation, in response to your complaint that educational ideas were being implemented without testing. The implementation is the test, whether small scale or large.
I think you are answering a different post. Back in my younger days,I taught high school math (algebra, plane geometry, solid geometry, trig.) I don’t think you can successfully teach math without homework. - ditto for music, sports skills, etc. - you need to practice what you have just learned.
We need to improve out education of children, not water it down.
You missed the point.
Kids have homework. A lot of it.
Yet they are woefully unprepared for college.
I applaud this teacher. Most families that I know here in England think that their children are given too much homework - and that it has become a substitute for working and learning in school.
I never diagrammed sentences much but I saw the value when I took Latin and Greek.
I had homework when I was a kid. Somehow I survived it.
This is about dumbing down schools and students - something the MSM and globalists are for.
Homeschooling is the answer. If you have sent your kids to the public church/indoctrination center, expect the worst.
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