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Rants / Debates (Serious)
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Is Homework worthwhile?
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The amount of homework my son has spiked in 6th grade (~2 hours every night) and has slowly worked its way down to where he may have some homework every other day.
Im sure there is some value to it, as the concept is probably retained longer if they have to readdress the problem at a later time from when it was taught to them.
Im sure there is some value to it, as the concept is probably retained longer if they have to readdress the problem at a later time from when it was taught to them.
My 11th grade Social Studies used to say, "homework is the backbone of civilization."
I can't help think how wrong she was.
I can't help think how wrong she was.
i think it depends, there are teachers out there who just give busy work, and there those who give out stuff that would actually be conducive to learning. for example in middle school we had a homework assignment to put together a large model of the board of elements, but i personally was focused so much on construction of it i retained little of the facts i was supposed to learn. and to really tell you the truth not much homework that i remember really did help much. but i do think there are assignments out there worth giving, like reading assignments, research assignments or writing assignments, because getting good at those things, and getting in the habit of those things can really prove valuable, and i do think you can retain knowledge from them.. it sounds sad but i didn't know how to write a decent 5 paragraph essay until i was a senior in high school, and only really learned how to write a good research paper in college. because i didn't have enough of the right assignments when i needed them..
Homework is extremely important for therapy. You know ... therapy.
Try learning a language without it. Math requires mountains of it.
i hated math homework, im not sure if math is one of those things that could get better with practice, possibly some forms of it maybe, but i think its more of a logic thing which is why i believe philosophy is underrated.. theres a quote from dune, "muaddib learned well because he learned how to learn" or something like that... logic and rhetoric are a great deal important in cases like this i believe.. it upsets me that the first chance i had to learn philosophy academically was in college..
I hated homework. It interfered with my reading. This got me into some trouble in high school. Fortunately, I figured things out in college.If there's a study hall at school for kids to get stuff done, fine. I hear Obama is thinking about lengthening the school day, so I say, put a study hall in there.
My thinking is: I don't take work home with me, so why should kids have to?
that depends on the profession, some people do work from home after hours..
David wrote: "that depends on the profession, some people do work from home after hours.."Yeah, people who will soon be divorced, usually.
I think my views are leftover from high school days, and as such may be taken with a grain of salt.
I think some homework is necessary, but anything more than 2 hours is overkill. My friend's 11 year old daughter (they live in Brooklyn) was up until 4 in the morning doing homework just last week! That's just plain ridiculous.
Yeah, that's absurd!However, Jake hardly gets any homework and it does drive me crazy. I firmly believe in some homework, the right kind. Especially math, for those it doesn't come easily to, practice is essential. I speak from my own experience, as well as Jake who unfortunately has inherited my math weakness. If he doesn't get to practice, he forgets it all. And reports are good too - practice in independent research and writing.
He's finally get a little homework this year in 8th grade, and I think it's about time! It's not everyday, which is fine with me because, even tho it may appear to be otherwise from the above, I'm not a huge homework advocate. Especially in elementary school. But for older kids on a college track, if there is no homework, then they are totally unprepared when finally arriving at higher education. It teaches discipline as well.
I like homework. I hate busy work.When I was teaching English abroad, if I assigned homework, they wouldn't show up the next day. Because they didn't do the homework. It was ridiculous and stupid, but I found out where it came from: their Tibetan studies was already so rigorous it was backbreaking (their graduating depends on the regurgitation of texts they studied from the past four years, at random) and English wasn't important at all. They didn't get a grade, so why the hell would they study for my class??
Stephen or someone in education might know this, but there's a philosopher who says that education shouldn't just be a regurgitation of texts and already processed material, and students shouldn't be treated as tabula rasa, but true education is the pulling out of information from themselves? Thus, homework that is just busy work doesn't help them any because it doesn't make them think or doesn't make them force connections. Practice through equations, on the other hand, is also important.
Yep -- practice for algebra or calculus problems is the only way I know of to get the hard-wiring in place for those skills. No practice, no skill.
I didn't like doing homework when I was younger but I feel that it is sometimes needed. Grammar, math, foreign language are some examples. I also agree that my study habit would have been a complete mess in college if I had never had homework before.
I never did homework in high school. I just refused. This made some school days pure hell -- but I managed to graduate anyway. Barely.When I went back to college as an adult, I caught on and did the work necessary.
I never got homework when I was in school. In fact, I almost flunked third grade and was transferred to a private school because the teacher wouldn't let me take home the work I couldn't finish in class. (I was a bit of a perfectionist and worked slower than the other kids.) My 26 year old daughter never got homework in her elementary years. She now has a BS in Geophysics and Space Physics and an MA in Education. My eighth grade son has had homework since kindergarten and is sick of it. This is his first year in public school, and the homework load has increased. In the elementary years, his public school peers easily had 2-3 times as much homework as he did. The heavy homework load in the early elementary years is relatively new. I can't help but wonder if kids who have been loaded down with 1-2 hours of homework a night since kindergarten are just going to completely burn out by the time they graduate.
I don't think so...which is why I'm no longer going to school for the rest of the year. :)
I'M BAAAAAAAACK!(Anybody who posts anything like "Were you ever away?" will play hockey with me. Ask Jim what happens when you play hockey with me.)
::quickly puts on all the hockey pads::
Stephen wrote: "David wrote: "that depends on the profession, some people do work from home after hours.."Yeah, people who will soon be divorced, usually."
Uh, teachers usually take work home...oftentimes it's homework they've assigned! So it's a double-edged sword.
Note: Most teachers I know are happily married, despite them taking work home :P
Anyway, I think some homework is beneficial, but it depends on style and substance. Math homework is good because it reinforces what is taught in class--extra practice. Those who mentioned foreign language are right, again because of the "practice" component. And I think it's especially important that kids read every night, so I understand assigning that as long-term homework. But a lot of projects get so involved that they become less about learning and more about either a) getting the stupid thing done or b) making it as awesomely creative and colorful as possible. Vocab is good; spelling is not (my middle schoolers still have spelling books they use, and I think they're completely useless). Worksheets nine times out of ten are pointless.
Honestly, anything that gets kids practicing what they've learned is beneficial and fair game for homework. Have kids practice grammar/punctuation/vocab/spelling by making them write (it's kind of pathetic how bad kids are at writing these days). Study history in context or have them do presentations or write reports and make them look at the bigger picture (what the events meant in the grand scheme of things) rather than just making them memorize names and dates. Give them word problems for math and use real-world examples whenever possible. Do experiments in science and discuss the results. Make learning interactive so that kids actually enjoy the learning, and have assignments reflect all of that. I think that will keep kids from getting burnt out and hating school.
I think homework is necessary, but it doesn't necessarily have to be evil.
i had this ...AWESOME S.S. teacher who didn't give homework
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/art...
Marzano's research, however, indicates some benefits when homework is designed well. His four points/guidelines are excellent, in my eyes:
http://books.google.com/books?id=c25k...
What do you think? Did homework help you learn? What types of homework? What homework stunk?
My son, by the way, had to invent a musical instrument...and the project took so long, etc. that the time invested did not, in my eyes, result in much learning. The exercise was more of a "finish the fucking project" homework assignment than a "learning" assignment. So this is on my mind more than usual.