• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

French president pushing homework ban as part of ed reforms

Andalublue said:
But it's the right answer. Working less, but better is an idea a famous American proved to work.

“Now we know from our experience in changing from six to five days and back again that we can get at least as great production in five days as we can in six… Just as the eight hour day opened our way to prosperity, so the five day week will open our way to a still greater prosperity.” — Henry Ford

Robbing kids of their play time by insisting on more and more homework and longer school hours is counter-productive.
Click to expand...
Camlon said:
Working too little is counter-productive too, and it makes kids lazy which is not a good way to prepare them for adulthood.
Click to expand...
If you were able to graph the results of work vs play you'd get a curve of some sort, not a straight line. Yes, we need work, and yes we also need play time. There's a balance in there somewhere.
 
radcen said:
If you were able to graph the results of work vs play you'd get a curve of some sort, not a straight line. Yes, we need work, and yes we also need play time. There's a balance in there somewhere.
Click to expand...

Yes, quite. It's just that I tend towards the opinion that the current balance in many countries is towards too much work and too little leisure. Free time is good for the worker and their pursuit of happiness; improved productivity that comes from a relaxed worker is good for the employer; and more leisure time is good for the economy as consumers spend more money in free time than they do in work time.
 
Andalublue said:
Yes, quite. It's just that I tend towards the opinion that the current balance in many countries is towards too much work and too little leisure. Free time is good for the worker and their pursuit of happiness; improved productivity that comes from a relaxed worker is good for the employer; and more leisure time is good for the economy as consumers spend more money in free time than they do in work time.
Click to expand...

Asian students are topping the list and are taking over many large industries formerly owned and controlled by Americans and Europeans. This is not because they are having more 'leisure time', however you want to define it, but because they are working harder and doing their homework.
 
Grant said:
Asian students are topping the list and are taking over many large industries formerly owned and controlled by Americans and Europeans. This is not because they are having more 'leisure time', however you want to define it, but because they are working harder and doing their homework.
Click to expand...

Asia also has a rather boisterous industry in pornography of the bizarre, so all that stress to succeed does come at a cost.
 
samsmart said:
Asia also has a rather boisterous industry in pornography of the bizarre, so all that stress to succeed does come at a cost.
Click to expand...

Yes, hard work often does lead to stress but a little research will demonstrate that there are far fewer Asians in the jails and penitentiaries, taking demographics into account, then there are Caucasians, Blacks or Latinos..

Too much idle time can lead to stress as well, and bizarre behaviour.
 
Andalublue said:
Of course, it just appears that the current trend appears to have been to pile more and more work upon schoolkids, more and more tests, and yet educational standards have declined. It would appear the law of diminishing returns is at work in the modern educational systems.
Click to expand...

So you apparently believe the average American student work so hard that their work diminishes. The reality is that while schools have been piling on work, students have not been doing more work.

The average American student are nowhere near the tipping point. If that was the case, then if you got your average son to do one more hour of homework each day, his performance will decline. American students need to work much harder for that to happen.
 
Last edited:
Andalublue said:
Yes, quite. It's just that I tend towards the opinion that the current balance in many countries is towards too much work and too little leisure. Free time is good for the worker and their pursuit of happiness; improved productivity that comes from a relaxed worker is good for the employer; and more leisure time is good for the economy as consumers spend more money in free time than they do in work time.
Click to expand...
Still France is not doing better than America despite their low work hours and long vacation. And they are way behind harder working countries such as Australia, Switzerland and Canada. OECD Life Satisfaction. (The scale has been drawn so that 0 is 4.9 and 10 is 7.8. It reperesent how people would evaluate their lives on a scale from 0 to 10)

You see, leisure time also have diminishing returns. At one point you may be happier worker longer hours, because it keeps you busy. Also, you can see how happy Greece is, so people's happiness are linked to the performance of the economy.
 
Last edited:
Camlon said:
So you apparently believe the average American student work so hard that their work diminishes. The reality is that while schools have been piling on work, students have not been doing more work.

The average American student are nowhere near the tipping point. If that was the case, then if you got your average son to do one more hour of homework each day, his performance will decline. American students need to work much harder for that to happen.
Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about American schoolkids, but schoolkids in general. My knowledge is more related to education systems I am familiar with: the UK, Spain, Germany, Turkey. I was talking in general terms. If you are talking specifically about the US, where does your direct knowledge come from? You're a Norwegian living in New Zealand, aren't you?
 
Andalublue said:
I wasn't talking about American schoolkids, but schoolkids in general. My knowledge is more related to education systems I am familiar with: the UK, Spain, Germany, Turkey. I was talking in general terms. If you are talking specifically about the US, where does your direct knowledge come from? You're a Norwegian living in New Zealand, aren't you?
Click to expand...

Get with the forum rules! France = bad .. France = must be bashed!
 
Andalublue said:
I wasn't talking about American schoolkids, but schoolkids in general. My knowledge is more related to education systems I am familiar with: the UK, Spain, Germany, Turkey. I was talking in general terms. If you are talking specifically about the US, where does your direct knowledge come from? You're a Norwegian living in New Zealand, aren't you?
Click to expand...
I have lived in America too.

France is not that hard or else their performance would be better. They are performing equally with America and Norway. There might be a few super schools, but clearly the average school is not any more difficult. And as shown the hours are not very long either.

Removing homework is only going to hurt France, as France is clearly on the left side of the curve. Meaning, if an average french schoolkid does 1 more hour of homework each day, then that schoolkid will increase, not decrease its performance.
 
PeteEU said:
Get with the forum rules! France = bad .. France = must be bashed!
Click to expand...

I have no reason to bash France. My only experiences with France has been positive.

But that does not mean I will ignore it's stupid policies. Like you are not ignoring America's stupid policies. But have you noticed that you are always on the offence when we are talking about America, but on the defense when we talk about Europe.
 
Camlon said:
I have no reason to bash France. My only experiences with France has been positive.
Click to expand...

And yet you are almost always there bashing France or the Eu or anything European and defending anything America.

But that does not mean I will ignore it's stupid policies.
Click to expand...

LOL you ignore them all the time. When was the last time you were critical of a stupid US policy... there are plenty of them to choose from.

Like you are not ignoring America's stupid policies. But have you noticed that you are always on the offence when we are talking about America, but on the defense when we talk about Europe.
Click to expand...

Attacks against Europe on these boards, and from you are often baseless and without fact. So of course I will defend Europe and attack false information. As for "attacking the US".. wrong, at best I attack right wing US policies that I find objectionable.... which is a lot of policies btw.
 
Camlon said:
I have lived in America too.

France is not that hard or else their performance would be better.
Click to expand...
Performance in what? What measures are you using to assess the success or otherwise of educational systems? If their courses were harder than most, then you might expect to see lower marks and grades.
They are performing equally with America and Norway.
Click to expand...
In what data set?

Removing homework is only going to hurt France, as France is clearly on the left side of the curve. Meaning, if an average french schoolkid does 1 more hour of homework each day, then that schoolkid will increase, not decrease its performance.
Click to expand...
Can you show me where France appears on 'the curve'? I understand you're referring to my reference to diminishing returns, but I'm not aware of French schoolkids having appeared on any graph. If you have, please share this. It would be interesting and perhaps convincing proof of your contention that French kids aren't working hard enough.
 
Whether homework itself is beneficial or not (I'll always support the former), whether the hours of schooling are unfair in France or so on, I simply loathe Hollande's justification over fairness. If he is right, he is right for the wrong reasons.
 
I asked one of my friends who teaches English to teenagers in Clichy sous Bois if he was happy with that reform. He told me that it wouldn't change anything for him as he usually avoids giving his students homeworks, because they end up using google translate and it's not of much help anyway. Those kids are somewhat lucky, I thought, they have a native English teacher who speaks with an impeccable accent and probably does his best inside their classroom. He likes his job, even if it's difficult, but his favorite part is when he takes a bunch of deserving kids for a short vacation in London, near the end of the school year. I believe it is some of his students' favorite time of the year, too, away from their family, and homeworks. Btw kids are human beings, not machines.
 
PeteEU said:
And yet you are almost always there bashing France or the Eu or anything European and defending anything America.

LOL you ignore them all the time. When was the last time you were critical of a stupid US policy... there are plenty of them to choose from.
Click to expand...

I have been. Some of the things I have mentioned in the past weeks are

- criticized US immigration. Said we should create a path to citizenship. I created a own thread for this topic
- criticized Romney's 47% comment
- criticized unions in Michigan
- criticized US on it's reaction to the crisis in 2001.

Now, how about you? How have you criticized EU lately?

Attacks against Europe on these boards, and from you are often baseless and without fact. So of course I will defend Europe and attack false information. As for "attacking the US".. wrong, at best I attack right wing US policies that I find objectionable.... which is a lot of policies btw.
Click to expand...
So saying that French students work till 5-6 and not mentioning their 2 hour break are not baseless and without facts? You are spewing a lot of BS yourself.

Why did you choose to make up facts like that, if you weren't trying to defend France at all costs. Even the 75% tax policy which you did not like, you were still trying to defend France.
 
tech30528 said:
There is that flawed assumption again. Pop cture has failed and parents are disconnected or absent so we dfailt to letting the government do it? Does that really seem like a good option? So far the answer from them is not to help those with single parents of nk parents to dk better but to pull those who have two involved parents down. That's not progress peolpe, it's playing to the lowest common denominator.

A problem has been discovered, the fault lies in the parents, itis now their responsibilty to fix it as individuals in their own homes.
Click to expand...

Note to self: Kindle keyboard sucks to type on.
 
Andalublue said:
Performance in what? What measures are you using to assess the success or otherwise of educational systems? If their courses were harder than most, then you might expect to see lower marks and grades.
In what data set?
Click to expand...
I am talking about the PISA survey. France is not doing better than US or Norway. Actually if I remember correctly. France has higher educational inequality than the US.

Can you show me where France appears on 'the curve'? I understand you're referring to my reference to diminishing returns, but I'm not aware of French schoolkids having appeared on any graph. If you have, please share this. It would be interesting and perhaps convincing proof of your contention that French kids aren't working hard enough.
Click to expand...
Sure I can do that. Let's say 100 is full learning speed. And this is how much you learn per hour on average.

0H: 100
10H: 90
20H: 80
30H: 70
40H: 60
50H: 50
60H: 40
70H: 30

I will assume an average french student does 5 hours of homework each week. Although, I haven't taken it into account, but homework also helps students become more independent. Your boss or teacher are not always going to be around.

France is nowhere close to the plateau where reducing study time will improve performance. They are on the left side of the curve.

France_Left_Edu.png
 
Last edited:
Andalublue said:
He does, and has done it recently here:

http://www.debatepolitics.com/2012-us-presidential-election/140159-obamas-foreign-policy-chavez-castro-putin-endorse-obama-4.html#post1061050773
Click to expand...

Well, that is not very impressive as everyone would agree that EU has given membership to too many countries. Although in the case of southern Europe PeteEU claims there is no way the EU could have known that the Greeks could not be trusted.

I am thinking about cases where not everyone would agree.
 
Camlon said:
I am talking about the PISA survey. France is not doing better than US or Norway. Actually if I remember correctly. France has higher educational inequality than the US.


Sure I can do that. Let's say 100 is full learning speed. And this is how much you learn per hour on average.

0H: 100
10H: 90
20H: 80
30H: 70
40H: 60
50H: 50
60H: 40
70H: 30

I will assume an average french student does 5 hours of homework each week. Although, I haven't taken it into account, but homework also helps students become more independent. Your boss or teacher are not always going to be around.

France is nowhere close to the plateau where reducing study time will improve performance. They are on the left side of the curve.

France_Left_Edu.png
Click to expand...

Very interesting! I shall have a good look at all this stuff. Just a couple of things:

1. I can see PISA is useful for assessing a basic level of educational achievement of various systems, but it seems rather limited in scope. It only looks at 15-year-olds, so we're only dealing with basic ed, no info on further- and higher-education. It also only deals in three subjects, one of which, reading is only one aspect of language ability; writing, listening comprehension and verbal ability should also be tested, no? So, very useful but not really a tool that gives us a clear picture of succeeding and failing systems, except within its own parameters.

2. What is the source of the graph? I'd like to check out that site. Looks very interesting, but what strikes me is that the peak of the parabola is at around 50+ hours per week of study. Is that graph appropriate for all ages of children? For certain grades? Or for adult/undergraduate students at 18+? It would surprise me greatly it 50+ hours a week of study for an 8-year-old would bring his/her optimal performance.

I'm not trying to catch you out or denigrate your sources, I'm just interested.
 
Camlon said:
Well, that is not very impressive as everyone would agree that EU has given membership to too many countries. Although in the case of southern Europe PeteEU claims there is no way the EU could have known that the Greeks could not be trusted.

I am thinking about cases where not everyone would agree.
Click to expand...

That seems to be a little bit of nit-picking. I can't really help further because in the example I cited, I don't agree with him.
 
Andalublue said:
1. I can see PISA is useful for assessing a basic level of educational achievement of various systems, but it seems rather limited in scope. It only looks at 15-year-olds, so we're only dealing with basic ed, no info on further- and higher-education. It also only deals in three subjects, one of which, reading is only one aspect of language ability; writing, listening comprehension and verbal ability should also be tested, no? So, very useful but not really a tool that gives us a clear picture of succeeding and failing systems, except within its own parameters.
Click to expand...
You are right that PISA is not perfect, but I think it is the best we got to evaluate education systems. Other indicators that tend to be used are number of years attended at school, and graduation rates. I feel PISA beat them at least. There are no international survey that measures educational performance for adults, and it would say very little about the educational system, because the education system changes over time and there are other important factors like culture.


2. What is the source of the graph? I'd like to check out that site. Looks very interesting, but what strikes me is that the peak of the parabola is at around 50+ hours per week of study. Is that graph appropriate for all ages of children? For certain grades? Or for adult/undergraduate students at 18+? It would surprise me greatly it 50+ hours a week of study for an 8-year-old would bring his/her optimal performance.
Click to expand...
Actually I created it. :lol:

My assumptions were given in the previous post. I was mostly thinking about 15 year old students. 50+ hours sound about right as pupils who work insane hours like in China, do have better educational performance, but not by that much.

But remember that from 40 to 50 hours, educational performance only increases by 4%. Working an extra 10 hours for 4% is not worth it. So it is good to limit the number of hours so students can enjoy themselves, but it is bad to limit it too much.
 
Camlon said:
You are right that PISA is not perfect, but I think it is the best we got to evaluate education systems. Other indicators that tend to be used are number of years attended at school, and graduation rates. I feel PISA beat them at least. There are no international survey that measures educational performance for adults, and it would say very little about the educational system, because the education system changes over time and there are other important factors like culture.



Actually I created it. :lol:

My assumptions were given in the previous post. I was mostly thinking about 15 year old students. 50+ hours sound about right as pupils who work insane hours like in China, do have better educational performance, but not by that much.

But remember that from 40 to 50 hours, educational performance only increases by 4%. Working an extra 10 hours for 4% is not worth it. So it is good to limit the number of hours so students can enjoy themselves, but it is bad to limit it too much.
Click to expand...


so you made that **** up
you have no data to establish the graph
very credible of you [/s]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom