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Ban homework?

americanwoman

americanwoman

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Last spring, when Public School 11, a prekindergarten through fifth-grade school in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, banned mandatory traditional homework assignments for children up to fourth grade, you might have expected universal acclaim. Rather than filling out worksheets, students were encouraged to read nightly, and a website offered tips for parents looking for engaging after-school activities.

Instead, war broke out among the parents. Those who wanted to keep homework accused the anti-worksheet group of trying to force through a policy supported by a select few.

There was a series of contentious PTA meetings and jockeying to get on the school’s leadership team, a board that some schools have had trouble getting parents to join. At least three families left the school.

Researchers who study academic history said they were not surprised that debate over young children and homework had resurfaced now. Education and parenting trends are cyclical, and the nation is coming off a stress-inducing, federally mandated accountability push that has put standardized testing at the center of the national education debate. Further, many parents say that homework has become particularly stressful since the arrival of Common Core, a set of rigorous and often confusing learning goals adopted by many states.
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What do you think, homework or no homework?

I agree the worksheets sometimes given by the school are a little tedious and doesn't really inspire much learning. It is fun to engage your child in learning activities at night together but it's easy to let it start to slip as you balance that with all the different things you have to get done at home. For me, my daughter struggles most with reading so we do try to make time for her every night to read because that's what she really needs help with.

So in my opinion standard homework may not be the best option but to have the parent focus on what the child needs help with. However, that assumes the parent is involved and that's not always the case.
 
I feel like homework can be a good tool for learning, but too many kids get too much homework. Especially at the younger ages, they should not be saddled with two hours worth of homework every night, which does happen. Even in the older ages, these kids have other things going on and too often homework is a substitute for quality teaching. There are some subjects where homework is unavoidable (math comes immediately to mind), but homework really should be kept to a minimum as much as possible.
 
americanwoman said:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/...nd-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news



What do you think, homework or no homework?

I agree the worksheets sometimes given by the school are a little tedious and doesn't really inspire much learning. It is fun to engage your child in learning activities at night together but it's easy to let it start to slip as you balance that with all the different things you have to get done at home. For me, my daughter struggles most with reading so we do try to make time for her every night to read because that's what she really needs help with.

So in my opinion standard homework may not be the best option but to have the parent focus on what the child needs help with. However, that assumes the parent is involved and that's not always the case.
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If the parent isn't involved piling on the homework isn't going to make things better. Personally I think homework for kids 4th grade and lower is absurd.
 
Winchester said:
If the parent isn't involved piling on the homework isn't going to make things better. Personally I think homework for kids 4th grade and lower is absurd.
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Parenting is a 'lost art'!
 
Very, very light homework is ok, but for the most part the teachers should be able to get the learning in during classroom time. When I was in high school, many of my classes spent over 50% of class time dealing with homework, ie: assigning it, collecting it, going over it, etc. It ends up robbing the kids because most of them aren't going to spend much time on it at home, if at all, and the classroom time is being wasted. Teachers should be there to teach, not just pass out assignments.
 
Personally, other than the occasional project, I see no reason for homework until middle school.
 
I'm against homework but very much for projects and research papers. Demonstrating what you've learned is one thing, but don't expect me to teach myself what you've failed to do in the time you've been paid to.
 
I used to never do my homework in elementary school. I got into sooooo much trouble.
 
I think that homework can be a good thing to reinforce what is being learned in school. However, I would like to see homework (depending on the subject of course) more connected to real world, current events that encourage critical thinking. For example, one can compare how the USSR was used as a boogeyman of sorts to justify certain policies to how Russia is being used in such a manner today or the threat of terrorism.
 
My daughter has pretty much never had homework, she's in 5th now. We get her school packets and grades regularly, etc. She's way ahead in reading, math is her weakness, she's in too much of a rush and happily makes mistakes and *hates* to go back over it.

Crazy thing is that she's so incredibly resistant to help, it's like you told her the end of the world is upon us, when you offer to help. I swear, it's like you're asking her to cut off her hand or something. My reaction to that is to break her...my wife's is to placate her...and what we probably need is something in between. I digress.

I didn't have a lot of homework at that age either, if I recall correctly. I do remember needing to make up some work in math, I had some math workbook with guitars on it in 5th grade. I hated that thing, it was like I was dying when I had to do homework. *wonders where daughter gets it from*. I don't see how the cost benefit would work out at that age. LIke you said, parents can work at home on issues, but other than that, I'm glad they don't have homework at that age.
 
TheGoverness said:
I used to never do my homework in elementary school. I got into sooooo much trouble.
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As a society we already blur the line between work and home, it's awful that we are doing this with kids. To me the positives don't even come close to outweighing the negatives. When I was in 4th grade I missed about a week of school because I was really sick. Holy **** the makeup work in spelling killed me, I got further and further behind in it because to my 9 year old mind it was an insurmountable pile (that I hated doing), I still remember the stress it caused me (over 40 years ago). My grades that year for the 4 quarters in spelling were A, A, D, A. At least when 4th quarter started I could start anew.
 
Mach said:
Crazy thing is that she's so incredibly resistant to help, it's like you told her the end of the world is upon us, when you offer to help. I swear, it's like you're asking her to cut off her hand or something. My reaction to that is to break her...my wife's is to placate her...and what we probably need is something in between. I digress.
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My daughter is the same way, Ms Independent who doesn't need any help except when it's something like cleaning her room. Then it's no problem at all to help out. :lol:
 
homework, yes
busy work, no

in early education the kids need to be able to practice writing skills, reading, spelling, arithmetic
they need to learn how to study for tests

like most things, moderation is in order
with few exceptions, the students in school with me who arrived at class having fulfilled their homework assignments also tended to be the better academically performing students
that said, i hated nothing more than homework as a kid; usually 4 hours per night sunday thru thursday

looking at this graph, most of the nations which have higher performing schools than the USA also tend to compel lighter homework loads (note, this graph is for older students and not elementary students referenced in the cite)

homework per week internationally.jpg

also notice the consistent trend that affluent students did more homework than less affluent students
i believe that is a telling trend
 
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Slyfox696 said:
I feel like homework can be a good tool for learning, but too many kids get too much homework. Especially at the younger ages, they should not be saddled with two hours worth of homework every night, which does happen. Even in the older ages, these kids have other things going on and too often homework is a substitute for quality teaching. There are some subjects where homework is unavoidable (math comes immediately to mind), but homework really should be kept to a minimum as much as possible.
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I agree. I would like to see more school time. Rather than a long summer off maybe more school with quarterly breaks such as colleges have. This way homework can be done in the classroom where a teacher is their to help with questions or explanations. The sad truth is a lot of parents can't help their children because they do not have the knowledge. I think this especially true in a lot of poor neighborhoods. If we want them to learn more we need to spend more time teaching them. There is no way around this problem.

Plus we need to not work with children at the level they can learn at. All children develop and learn at different rates. Just because a child needs more time with math does not make them stupid or a failure. If they need 2 hours to learn instead of 1 then we need to provide 2 hours for those children.
 
americanwoman said:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/...nd-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news



What do you think, homework or no homework?

I agree the worksheets sometimes given by the school are a little tedious and doesn't really inspire much learning. It is fun to engage your child in learning activities at night together but it's easy to let it start to slip as you balance that with all the different things you have to get done at home. For me, my daughter struggles most with reading so we do try to make time for her every night to read because that's what she really needs help with.

So in my opinion standard homework may not be the best option but to have the parent focus on what the child needs help with. However, that assumes the parent is involved and that's not always the case.
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I kind of think it should be banned. I think education should be kept at school, not brought home. A child can have several different subjects and most of those teachers are assigning home work which eats at what ever free time and family time a child can have.
 
jamesrage said:
I kind of think it should be banned. I think education should be kept at school, not brought home. A child can have several different subjects and most of those teachers are assigning home work which eats at what ever free time and family time a child can have.
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any idea why kids from more affluent families do more homework than kids from less affluent families
 
justabubba said:
any idea why kids from more affluent families do more homework than kids from less affluent families
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Probably to keep the kids from bothering them.
 
americanwoman said:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news



What do you think, homework or no homework?

I agree the worksheets sometimes given by the school are a little tedious and doesn't really inspire much learning.
Click to expand...

Some things are just best learned through boring repetition.

So in my opinion standard homework may not be the best option but to have the parent focus on what the child needs help with.
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I want to be involved in my child's learning; I want to be deeply involved. But I don't want to spend all my time testing her to figure out where her skills need help and then 'focus' on those things with specific lessons geared to those skills; I mean... that is almost the exact description of a school's role in raising successful adults.

Parents can provide the opportunities and instill a love of learning.
 
If it's literally copying by hand an entire textbook like my 10th grade history teacher made us, hell yes ban it. If it's higher math, no, you need time outside class to work on the material and to prove to teachers you understand sufficiently before the tests ruin you. Also, it can drive the lectures based on what everyone's struggling with

Then there's preparation for life beyond. In college you damn sure will get homework, and in the workplace you may get projects or at least you won't be getting out at 3pm

Besides that, i found that between "study hall", the enormous amount of time that teachers just sat on their asses, and the bus ride i was able to be done usually
 
americanwoman said:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/...nd-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news



What do you think, homework or no homework?

I agree the worksheets sometimes given by the school are a little tedious and doesn't really inspire much learning. It is fun to engage your child in learning activities at night together but it's easy to let it start to slip as you balance that with all the different things you have to get done at home. For me, my daughter struggles most with reading so we do try to make time for her every night to read because that's what she really needs help with.

So in my opinion standard homework may not be the best option but to have the parent focus on what the child needs help with. However, that assumes the parent is involved and that's not always the case.
Click to expand...

Absolutely homework. The funny part is that the encourage reading at home group was also encouraging homework. Differentiation. Some lower level kids need worksheets. Brighter kids need reading and research.
 
Winchester said:
If the parent isn't involved piling on the homework isn't going to make things better. Personally I think homework for kids 4th grade and lower is absurd.
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Not absurd at all... if nothing else it bonds parents and kids in learning.
 
I see a bunch of shortsighted people in this thread...
 
Homework?

Of course homework.

With all the constant classroom interruptions (parents need to get a message to kids, parents picking their kids up for an appointment) that classroom probably receives an average of up to ten interruptions a day. They have to get through massive amounts of material to ensure kids are prepared for the following year.

Then they have to deal with behaviour and often times parents don't support, understand nor care what the teacher is struggling with in class with some students. But your kid will suffer because of it even if it is unknown to you.

Of course there has to be homework.

Kids who are bright and want to succeed are going to do so anyway...that is not just a given, it's a fact and every kid isn't bright or gifted that too is reality...it's the average kid who needs help to encourage that they reach their potential.
 
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