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Seeing some more comments, I'm reminded of two polar opposite teachers that I had in high school..

1st one we can call an "awesome" teacher. The school district required a "research paper" for this particular US gov't class. So, built into the syllabus was in class and homework assignments that broke down the paper in to much easier and more manageable chunks. The requirements for the paper were pretty narrow.

2nd one was, well, not "awesome". She also had a research paper, which as I recall was even more narrow in scope than the first teacher's. But, she did none of the above things. It was seriously, "Two days before the final, your paper is due, typed to MLA standard"... And whenever a student asked about formatting, or sources, many of the common questions kids have when they are newly exposed to academic essays, she responded with, "we don't have time to cover that in class"

 Sigvatr wrote:
There should not be any homework at all. Hailing from a country where most schools still end at 13:30-ish, the best solution would be a school system that includes school lasting until the late afternoon (4 or 5 pm), all with a (good!) meal and teachers supervising students doing "homework" in order to provide good results.

It also solves a big social injustice problem with some parents not willing or able (single moms or fathers, for example, especially the latter) to help their children with their homework.

Germany, however, has the most backwards school system there is in modern states and a lot of teachers would rather die than stay in school any longer. Surprsingly, there are a few (mostly private) schools that do so, "forcing" teachers to stay longer so they actually play their lessons ahead together...with extremely good feedback, both from students and teachers alike.

I actually agree with Sigvatr. Is that on the Dakka Dakka Bingo card?

It also helps solve the social issue of child care for working parents AND helps us get better grades/students. Talk about a win-win!

My daughters has after school activities and generally has 1 hour of homework a night. This allows her time for Dinner, and about 30 minutes of free time a night before bedtime. She is in elementary school.

Is that enough time to be a child, or are we asking kids to skip all that since we are depending on them to be AWESOMER than China and the other developing countries? After all, our entire future and standard of living depends on THEM !11!!11!!! This is serious national business!

 cincydooley wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
There should not be any homework at all. Hailing from a country where most schools still end at 13:30-ish, the best solution would be a school system that includes school lasting until the late afternoon (4 or 5 pm), all with a (good!) meal and teachers supervising students doing "homework" in order to provide good results.

So....the schools would then be providing all three meals for many students? And I assume teachers would be further compensated in addition to what they already are?

Ah, maybe there's a bit of misunderstanding here. Having had some experience with the German school system, I think I can see where the confusion is coming from. Over there, school (lessons specifically, although there are plenty of after-school clubs which last for a bit longer) ends between 12:30-13:30, and the students actually go home for lunch. I believe what Sigvatr is proposing is that the schools provide students with lunch, so that they can continue working into the afternoon. That's hardly "all three meals".

 Easy E wrote:


My daughters has after school activities and generally has 1 hour of homework a night. This allows her time for Dinner, and about 30 minutes of free time a night before bedtime. She is in elementary school.

Is that enough time to be a child, or are we asking kids to skip all that since we are depending on them to be AWESOMER than China and the other developing countries? After all, our entire future and standard of living depends on THEM !11!!11!!! This is serious national business!

You are choosing to fill her 'time to be a child' with after school activities. That is not the fault of her teachers.

Something else to consider in education is that there are three legs to the stool.

Teacher, Child, Parent. In my unscientific and crappy experience, the difference between a poor student and a solid one is the difference in their parents. Then, the teachers take the flak for parents not doing/being able to do anything for their kid.

I can understand many situations where a parent can not help or can only do very little. Perhaps they have little education, don't speak English as their first language, or are busy working, I get it. There are other less generous reasons too. I empathize with that, and it is part of what creates institutionalized educational failure.

To succeed in education we need to support all three parts of the stool and I believe full-day schooling is a way to do that. However, that would potential require us to cut back on our commitment to athletic competition and therefore will NEVER happen.



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 CptJake wrote:

 Easy E wrote:


Drivel

You are choosing to fill her 'time to be a child' with after school activities. That is not the fault of her teachers.

No disagreement here. They are things she wanted to do.

 CptJake wrote:

You are choosing to fill her 'time to be a child' with after school activities. That is not the fault of her teachers.

Depends... After school activities could be something like B&G Clubs or such which usually operate as sort of a "day care" while parents are still working... Remember most adults in the US are 9-5 or so type jobs. Most schools usually end around 330 or earlier so that definitely gives some lag time where the kids either need "something" to do, or they head home alone and are left to their own devices for around 2 hours per day.


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 Easy E wrote:
However, that would potential require us to cut back on our commitment to athletic competition and therefore will NEVER happen.

I graduated HS back in 04. Back then, where I grew up funding was partially "merit based". As in, if your school collectively does better academically, the school district grants a larger budget.

So, one of the high schools in my city was, well, it was gakky. And because they were so gakky, they continued to receive fewer and fewer funds each year. And yet, year after year, they continued to pay for sports (in particular the perennial worst football team in the league). And year after year, they had fewer teachers, fewer extracurricular programs that WEREN'T sports (they cut music, "business club", drama, etc.).

My senior year, I had a teacher who had taught at this school the year prior, and the reason she was let go? She was "excess" staff. Reading between the lines a bit here: she didn't coach a sport, and by God they were NEVER going to cut sports

I wouldn't mind all the homework if i had a better work ethic and was more efficient. But I think what I get is reasonable. Most of the time.

 -Shrike- wrote:
Having been through secondary school recently, the amount of homework you get seems to shoot up around the time of GCSEs onwards (14yo+). The problem is that at that time, teachers start taking homework very seriously, because, you know, these are important exams, and so it's not uncommon to get 3-5 pieces of homework per day, each of which normally take between 30 minutes and an hour to complete. Of course, teachers who realise that their subject is not the single most important thing you will ever do are few and far between, so God forbid that you ever try and point out to them that there are, in fact, other things that it might be necessary for you to do.

Wisdom from the mouth of babes. Not that I'm much older or perhaps even younger. I have just finished Secondary school, and I can attest to on more than 1 occasion, having to explain to a teacher that I didn't write that homework essay because I had an important coursework assignment to do, which unlike the essay they asked or, actual contributed to 50% of my final grade. Most teachers didn't actually punish you for it, but they gave you the "look" and the "okay, but on my desk first thing tomorrow (you little cheeky ****)" tone of voice.



Having said all that, I do agree, at least where I was, that homework was too much. I was lucky enough that my preferred sport was a privately run Judo Club (where I also help coach) in the evening, and I lived only 15 minutes walk from my school being based in the centre of Belfast. However, for some of my classmates, this was much different. The school placed heavy emphasis on sports and extra-curricular, particularly Rugby, which lasted until 5 most days. Until most people could drive in their final year, this also meant you had to travel back to the city centre by bus which was 15 minutes. Many people lived a fair distance away, some people travelling maybe 20 minutes on the train plus distance to their house, others maybe a 45 minute drive home. At 14 years old, I struggled to keep up with my workload getting home at 4pm, but for people not arriving home to until maybe 7.30 at night, I don't know how they coped. Once you got into Sixth Form (final two years), you got up to 6 hours of study periods a week, but the workload almost tripled, and you were strongly encouraged NOT to use this time for homeworks and instead use it to study and do your 6 hours of work at home including the crucial coursework that in my case, made up 40% (English in Lower 6th) and 50% (Media Studies both years) of my grade each year.

Maybe?

it depends on the country, it depends on the school, it depends on the teacher(s) and it depends on the kids abilities

but there are certainly issues with some getting far, far too much homework either on odd occasions, or all the time

and that is down to schools not keeping on top of the amount being set be individual teachers (in those situations, say beyond 2-3 hours per day, making the school pay the students for their all their homework at minimum wage levels might encourage the schools to prevent this happening)

In their exam yeah children should be doing at least an hour a night if not two. If they haven't got specific homework they should do revision to meet that time.

I'm pretty laid back about homework, I don't often give stuff that just generates repetitive marking for me. But I do believe that learning by repetition works for practicing problem solving. For example, I set a pile of chemical equation balancing for holiday work. That's only learnt through practice to be effective and confident at it.

The biggest problem with kids doing homework are the number of distractions now. Homework only takes all night because you're playing on your phone for half of it.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

Homework only takes all night because you're playing on your phone for half of it.

In Physics in 5th year, I got a grand total of 159 problems on forces and momentum, due the next day. It took 4 hours because you had to do the full calculations each time and work off 3 separate email attachments. I am also proud to note I am the only one to complete the entire homework with the rest of the class doing half or less and saying it was far too long.


To be fair to the teacher, he was a cool guy, and he admitted he may have given too much. He didn't give us an extra homework until the following week so people could catch up and it meant I got a week of no homework.

 curran12 wrote:
Wow, I never had homework in kindergarten. I'm not even sure if I had all that much in first grade.

This article is pretty surprising.

Me neither. I think it was about 3rd grade when I got introduced to the concept. But now it's all about steady, regular homework, even for the little ones. My son's experience so far has been mostly in-line with what was quoted in the article (as in what kids are really getting, not what was recommended). There were plenty of times it was more than 30 minutes, though.

This year (3rd grade) I'm sure it'll increase. I don't know what the hell his workload is gonna look like in high school, especially being in a district that prides itself on its strong academics. Which is good -- but sometimes you wonder if it's really about the kids, or about keeping up appearances and reputations.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
School is coming back for kids everywhere, and recent studies have been done on homework loads:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/12/health/homework-elementary-school-study/index.html?sr=fb081215toomuchhomeworkVOPtopLink



What are your thoughts?

my two cents...yes they do, homework in my opinion for the most part is not functional..kids don't retain much of it, they just want to blast through it quick and have free time. Plus with the rise of technology its easy to just google the answers and not even attempt to learn anything.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
The biggest problem with kids doing homework are the number of distractions now. Homework only takes all night because you're playing on your phone for half of it.

Ow. That is so... true.