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"They already do 6 hours of work in school... can't give them more work... blah blah"
How about we wipe their sweet bottoms and tell them they won't have to work hard to make something of themselves?
Why don't we just tell them that a real work day is only about 6 hours, and you never have to take some work home with you, or stay late to finish the work?
Why does it seem that the USA is progressively skimping on education? Is it any wonder that India and Japan (I am sure there are others) are surpassing the US in general academic achievement?
We are nurturing a bunch of wusses.
"They already do 6 hours of work in school... can't give them more work... blah blah"
How about we wipe their sweet bottoms and tell them they won't have to work hard to make something of themselves?
Why don't we just tell them that a real work day is only about 6 hours, and you never have to take some work home with you, or stay late to finish the work?
Why does it seem that the USA is progressively skimping on education? Is it any wonder that India and Japan (I am sure there are others) are surpassing the US in general academic achievement?
We are nurturing a bunch of wusses.
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SF Bay Area
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Re: Schools banning homework
Sun, March 4, 2007 - 9:05 AMThis just disgusts me. Hey, let's create MORE obstacles for learning and make kids LESS accoutable for their actions! What a fabulous idea.
Next, we'll transfer everything to books on tape so no one has to actually read anything.
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Re: Schools banning homework
Sun, March 4, 2007 - 10:10 AMignorant sheep are easier to herd!! -
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Re: Schools banning homework
Sun, March 4, 2007 - 11:14 AM -
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Re: Schools banning homework
Sun, March 4, 2007 - 11:38 PMWell...they're talking about elementary...4th and under. They mentioned the studies showed high effectiveness in high school, mediocre effectiveness in middle, and zero in elementary. I have to agree...homework for a first grader is ridiculous. Sure, maybe "read a book a night" for first grade...but other than that? Nope. Kids that age learn almost exclusively from direct instruction. So, unless the parent (or nanny, etc) is sitting right there instructing them...they're probably not going to learn anything anyway. Really, how much did you learn from homework at that age? I was fucking bored out of my mind because I already knew the stuff. As they mention, it helps a select few, but not all. -
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Re: Schools banning homework
Mon, March 5, 2007 - 3:22 AMI don't recall having much homework in first grade, but in second through fourth I had sentences to write out almost every night - grammar and/or spelling homework. I also remember a lot of written homework in (what was essentially economic/historical) geography -questions that had to be answered from a reading assignment, but that was in fourth grade.
My kids, when they were that age, had homework similar to my own.
So yes, I think there is considerable value in elementary school homework. Like anything else, should we as a society cater to the lowest common denominator? or should we push all students to achieve? -
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Re: Schools banning homework
Mon, March 5, 2007 - 5:35 AMIt may be organized differently in different areas, but in Texas elementary school is grades K-5; that's almost half of the time kids are in school. So when the article refers to elementary school, that doesn't just include the first grade. If homework is banned until the sixth grade, students will have no idea how to practice their skills on their own. Then when they get to middle school and suddenly have homework, they (and their parents) will complain that they never had to do it before and don't know how to manage their time to get it done.
Only part of the issue is the effectiveness of homework on learning. Having outside tasks that relate to school and aren't "fun" teaches accountability, responsibility, and time management. I understand that some people may think these skills are lost on first graders, but I assure you they are not. A seven or eight year old can take responsibility for his or her time and learning to the degree to which homework is probably assigned now.
I've taught ninth graders who came from middle schools where homework was banned. They were less organized, less challenged, less independent, and took much longer to truly master the material. Homework is a chance to practice, ask questions, and attempt to discover information on their own. The article may cite a study which states homework for this level has no effect on student learning, but I'd be willing to bet there is an article out there that states the opposite. I fail to see how banning homework for this many grade levels can be anything but detrimental to student development. I apologize if this contains grammar errors; I checked it, but I'm still on my first cup of coffee and running on little sleep. -
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Re: Schools banning homework
Mon, March 5, 2007 - 7:47 PMWell, I'll reserve my right to disagree. I taught kindergarten, and was expected to send a packet of homework each week - 5-6 sheets. Of course, we had half day kindergarten, because budgets are tighter than ever. If you can't teach it in school, gotta depend on the parents to do it, which doesn't happen. Not in Milpitas, at least.
Anyway, in Menlo Park (where they were talking about), elementary is 4th and under. I suspect 4th graders, and perhaps 3rd graders could learn from HW, but I doubt any younger than that it would be useful.
I do wonder what other countries' homework policies are...For instance, I've heard that in Japan they don't start teaching kids to read until 7 years old...and they have one of the highest literacy rates. Now, we have a pretty high literacy rate as well...but forcing kids to read when they CLEARLY aren't ready is just torturous.
And, for the record, I think the automatic 40% is ridiculous. -
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Re: Schools banning homework
Mon, March 5, 2007 - 9:47 PMOne of my jobs is as a field supervisor in the art education department of Queens College. I observe and report on student teachers all week long. I have NEVER heard of a school that had a policy of not giving homework, and if I should come across such a school, they would immediately be removed from my list of appropriate sites for student teachers.
Grading homework is work for any responsible teacher and not having to do it would certainly make our jobs easier, but, doing the easy thing is not why most of us were drawn to teaching, is it? The concept of educating and touching and inspiring young minds is a dialogue. Both teacher and student need to work at it. Some students are easily distracted in a group like a classroom and the alone-time at home can inspire more daring and creative thinking, and as a result, growth. Denying an eager mind that chance for growth, is irresponsible.
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Re: Schools banning homework
Mon, March 5, 2007 - 5:54 PMYep, you guys hit the nail right on the head! We're enabling them more and more!!
Our school is now adopting a no zeros policy on work not turned in. After next year, our computers will automatically fill in a 40% for an "M" or missing assignment instead of 0%.
Just another addition, of "oh, you have problems and we know that, so we'll just make it easier for you..." Makes me sick!
Dave -
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Re: Schools banning homework
Mon, April 30, 2007 - 4:30 PMre 40% for missing assignments:
Add another 10% if the student actually exists...now the student is close to passing the subject! -
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Re: Schools banning homework
Sat, September 15, 2007 - 9:22 PMYeah, they went through with it this year.
My students are getting 50%. When I put in anything less than 50%, or even a missing assigment selection, a district program inserts a 50% score along with a message that tells the parents and students that their score was changed.
It's inflating kid's grades a great deal.
I have a few kids who have turned in almost nothing out of 11 assignments and still passing because of a decent test grade.
Though ... I think... it's pretty much the same number of A B and C students
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Re: Schools banning homework
Mon, January 28, 2008 - 6:54 AMSlate had an interesting article on homework some time ago. It is quite long so I will post the link and only 2 paragraphs:
www.slate.com/id/2149593/
Forget Homework It's a waste of time for elementary-school students.
By Emily Bazelon
Posted Thursday, Sept. 14, 2006
In The Battle Over Homework, Cooper has crunched the numbers on dozens of studies of homework for students of all ages. Looking across all the studies is supposed to offer a fairly accurate picture even though the science behind some of them is sketchy. For elementary-school students, Cooper found that "the average correlation between time spent on homework and achievement … hovered around zero." In Kohn's book, he highlights a 1998 study that Cooper and his colleagues did with second- through 12th-graders. For younger students, the amount of homework completed had no effect on test scores and bore a negative relationship to grades. (The results weren't quite so grim for older students. Their grades rose in relation to the amount of homework they completed, though their test scores did not.) Kohn looks at these findings and concludes that most homework is at best a waste of time and at worst a source of tedious vexation....
...In response to this, Cooper delicately suggested that my idea of a childhood afternoon well-spent is idealized and elitist. Maybe so. But the argument that homework is a net benefit for most kids has a big weakness. When homework boosts achievement, it mostly boosts the achievement of affluent students. They're the ones whose parents are most likely to make them do the assignments, and who have the education to explain and help. "If we sat around and deliberately tried to come up with a way to further enlarge the achievement gap, we might just invent homework," New York educator Deborah Meier told Kohn.
I posted that second paragraph because it is consistent with what my friends who are 6th and 2nd grade teachers report. The former has taught at a public school in the mountains of SC, the National Cathedral in DC, a DC public charter school, and a VA public school in Fairfax county.
Another note about the the a comment made in the article, maybe the reason why higher grades are correlated with homework but not test scores is because student's grades are a reflection of the homework TURNED IN. We cannot assume that the student actually understood the material. Consistent with the second paragraph posted above, the higher the education of the parent the more involved they tend to be in assisting with homework. (We all know that education level and quality is linked to socioeconomic status.) teachers, nowadays take time away from actually teaching to crunch the students for the standardized tests--thereby teaching how to take a test. We might as well just turn the school system over to Kaplan.
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Re: Schools banning homework
Sun, February 3, 2008 - 6:31 AMI give homework once a week, every week. It's always a question, usually requiring research, which needs to be written out in pen or typed only about 1/2 a page long, and includes a colored picture example. The homework in my class is catagorized in the grade book under Performance and Practice, which is only 20% of the grade for the 6th graders and 10% of the grade for the 8th graders. 40% of their grades are in the Formative catagory - or labs and in-class work, and 50% is tests and Summatives for the 8th graders, and 30% Formative for the 6th graders.
It seemed to make the most sense this way to me, which is why I set it up that way.
Our district gives leeway on what the teacher believes the for each catagory, but is expected to use those catagories.
Also, no-one should go over 30% in the Practice and Performance catagory - which really means homework, participation, or extra credit grades.
I get somewhere between 80 and 90% of the homework back in each week.
When the kids come on the day hw is due, they are expected to have it on the table, and we start the period with sharing. Everyone has to share with 2 other people what they did on the homework.
We make a big deal of it, and discuss it quite a bit on Monday when it's given, then make a big deal of it again on Wed. when it's due, then make parallels to it throughout the unit we're on, and of course, I put a question or two related to the homework on each test.
The students at our school are mostly mid-income with parents who expect mostly "A"s, and expect a moderate degree of homework. The kids call each other most nights and share what they do. Often they will go to another's house to work together using homework as an excuse.
So it sounds all good in this scenario, and I think mostly is all good. I actually enjoy each week making some thoughtful question that they will have to solve. There are obviously a few kids who usually don't do the homework, but I always make a really big deal out of it when they do!
I'll say, "Hey ____________ you've got the homework this time!! Way to go!"
It's a mark of achievement, and pride to get it done when all your classmates are standing around sharing.
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