The Case Against Homework?

[WildHoneyAlways]

Originally posted by martha


You mean like mine? 35 students in two grades?

I don't know how you do it.
I feel lucky that our union was able to negotiate class caps.

[amerrydeath]

Originally posted by WildHoneyAlways
Many high schools are moving away from tracking.

I'm glad I'm done with high school, if that's the case! I always detested my classes that weren't leveled, and that was a big part of the reason I hated school until I got to high school and they started separating us. It sounds elitist, and maybe it is, but classes became much more enjoyable and challenging, to the point of even looking forward to them.

[phillyfan26]

Originally posted by WildHoneyAlways
I teach high school.
My district was ordered by the state to place more special education students in regular ed classes.

Many high schools are moving away from tracking. All students take the same state test no matter what track they are in. They need to be exposed to the material just like everyone else.

I'm not saying different material, but with a different method, or a different pace.

It's truly a mystery as to where the country wants to go with education at this point.

I would probably become a teacher if it wasn't for unions.

[WildHoneyAlways]

Originally posted by phillyfan26


I'm not saying different material, but with a different method, or a different pace

Ah yes, "separate but equal."

I would probably become a teacher if it wasn't for unions.

Really?

[lmjhitman]

Originally posted by phillyfan26

It's truly a mystery as to where the country wants to go with education at this point.

I would probably become a teacher if it wasn't for unions.

ummm, it may work differently in the states, but in canada, it's the government that decides where education 'goes,' not the unions.

[martha]

Originally posted by phillyfan26
I would probably become a teacher if it wasn't for unions.

If it weren't for unions, I'd have 42 students in my class and be making 1/2 what I make.

[martha]

Originally posted by WildHoneyAlways


I don't know how you do it.
I feel lucky that our union was able to negotiate class caps.

Ours is 36, with a district-wide ratio of 29.5 to 1.

[yolland]

I have 266 students this semester...

They don't squirm around or talk back however...except during office hours when some of them come by to complain about their grades. It sucks when multiple sections have papers due at once though.

Most of the elementary and high school teachers I know say they need a union because no one will back them up on anything if they don't.

I don't think the absence of tracking necessarily means better prepared students need be bored, nor guarantees that less prepared students won't be--even the weaker students in the class I remember being all busywork complained how pointless and inane the homework was. And most of the lectures consisted of the teacher reading straight from the book; there was never any real discussion to speak of.

[Devlin]

Originally posted by WildHoneyAlways
[B]

Ah yes, "separate but equal."




Really?

Well, honestly...is it really fair to force children who are more than capable of the work to wait on children who can barely keep up?
Seriously, you don't know how insulting it is to have to sit there in the 8th grade, and read crap you read in fifth grade simply because a good half of the class can't do any better, all the while scoring into the mid-high school grades in reading. Made me want to kill something. I cannot tel you how bored I was.

[MrsSpringsteen]

What about parental rewards for completing homework?

GETTYSBURG, Pa. --A woman admitted to smoking marijuana daily with her 13-year-old son to reward him for completing his homework. Amanda Lynn Livelsberger, 30, pleaded guilty to several charges Monday and will be sentenced Nov. 27.

Livelsberger, of Conewago Township, admitted in Adams County court that she had been smoking marijuana with her son since he was 11, and that she often gave it to him as a reward.

The boy told police that he was required to do his homework as soon as he got home from school, and then was allowed to smoke marijuana with his mother, according to court documents.

Livelsberger pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of corruption of minors, possession with intent to deliver drug paraphernalia, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of a small amount of marijuana and possession of a small amount of marijuana with intent to distribute.

The plea did not stipulate a sentence.

The woman also said she also smoked marijuana with two of her son's friends, ages 17 and 18, police said. The 18-year-old also told investigators he had also bought heroin from Livelsberger.

------

Information from: The Evening Sun, http://www.eveningsun.com

[Lila64]

[Irvine511]

in the washington post today:



[q]As Homework Grows, So Do Arguments Against It

By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 12, 2006; A04

The nation's best-known researcher on homework has taken a new look at the subject, and here is what Duke University professor Harris Cooper has to say:

Elementary school students get no academic benefit from homework -- except reading and some basic skills practice -- and yet schools require more than ever.

High school students studying until dawn probably are wasting their time because there is no academic benefit after two hours a night; for middle-schoolers, 1 1/2 hours.

And what's perhaps more important, he said, is that most teachers get little or no training on how to create homework assignments that advance learning.

The controversy over homework that has raged for more than a century in U.S. education is reheating with new research by educators and authors about homework's purpose and design.

No one has gone as far as the American Child Health Association did in the 1930s, when it pinned homework and child labor as leading killers of children who contracted tuberculosis and heart disease. But the arguments seem to get louder with each new school year: There is too much homework or too little; assignments are too boring or overreaching; parents are too involved or negligent.

"What should homework be?" asked veteran educator Dorothy Rich, founder of the nonprofit Home and School Institute. "In the biggest parameter, it ought to help kids make better sense of the world. Too often, it just doesn't."

In the nation's classrooms, teachers say they work hard to conform to school board policies and parent demands that do not always match what they think is the best thing for children.

Yet teachers themselves don't uniformly agree on something as basic as the purpose of homework (reviewing vs. learning new concepts), much less design or amount or even whether it should be graded. And the result can be inconsistency in assignments and confusion for students.

That is part of the reason some educators and authors are making new cases for the elimination of homework entirely, including in the new book "The Homework Myth," by Alfie Kohn.

Kohn points to family conflict, stress and Cooper's research as reasons for giving kids other things to do to develop their minds and bodies after school besides homework.

"I am always fascinated when research says one thing and we are all rushing in the other direction," Kohn said.

"It is striking that we have no evidence that there is any academic benefit in elementary school homework," he said. "Then people fall back on the self-discipline argument and how it helps students learn study skills. But that is an urban myth, except that people apply it in the suburbs, too."
[/q]

[melon]

Originally posted by WildHoneyAlways
Ah yes, "separate but equal."

Right. Like this has anything to do with the environment that created the phrase, "separate but equal," in 1892.

Last I heard, while there's a constitutional protection against racial segregation, there wasn't a constitutional protection for stupidity. We talk about how we want "higher standards" for America's children, and, yet, we do all we can to consistently hold back our best and brightest from their fullest potential, so that the kids who goof off all day don't have to look as stupid as they really are.

I am so tremendously thankful that I went to private schools, because I'm increasingly convinced that our public school system is completely rotten and hopeless. Our "best and brightest" should run away from them as fast as they can.

Melon

[melon]

Originally posted by Devlin
Well, honestly...is it really fair to force children who are more than capable of the work to wait on children who can barely keep up?
Seriously, you don't know how insulting it is to have to sit there in the 8th grade, and read crap you read in fifth grade simply because a good half of the class can't do any better, all the while scoring into the mid-high school grades in reading. Made me want to kill something. I cannot tel you how bored I was.

No. It's not fair, and it is very insulting that you had to endure that crap.

Melon

[Irvine511]

Originally posted by melon

I am so tremendously thankful that I went to private schools, because I'm increasingly convinced that our public school system is completely rotten and hopeless. Our "best and brightest" should run away from them as fast as they can.

i'm a proud public school graduate, and i remember well the assumption on behalf of many private school students especially when i got to college that, of course, education was better in a private school.

not always true.

[WildHoneyAlways]

Originally posted by melon


Right. Like this has anything to do with the environment that created the phrase, "separate but equal," in 1892.

Last I heard, while there's a constitutional protection against racial segregation, there wasn't a constitutional protection for stupidity. We talk about how we want "higher standards" for America's children, and, yet, we do all we can to consistently hold back our best and brightest from their fullest potential, so that the kids who goof off all day don't have to look as stupid as they really are.

I am so tremendously thankful that I went to private schools, because I'm increasingly convinced that our public school system is completely rotten and hopeless. Our "best and brightest" should run away from them as fast as they can.

Melon

Right. Like I need you to copy and past a wikipedia link for me.

Wow. I'm glad you think people with learning disabilities are stupid. That shows a lot about your character.

Elitist bullshit. Maybe anyone with a learning disability should be institutionalized, because god forbid, some kid doesn't want to take an honors class and they are stuck with the "stupid" kids in a regular class.

[WildHoneyAlways]

Originally posted by melon


No. It's not fair, and it is very insulting that you had to endure that crap.

Melon

It's insulting that you think not all students deserve the same education.

[martha]

Originally posted by melon
I'm increasingly convinced that our public school system is completely rotten and hopeless. Our "best and brightest" should run away from them as fast as they can.

And yet you never have a realistic solution to any of the "problems" you want to solve.

[melon]

Originally posted by martha
And yet you never have a realistic solution to any of the "problems" you want to solve.

I've come up with solutions, but you can't solve problems when people aren't interested in solutions (not to mention that I'm not in a position of power to enact changes of any kind).

That's why our public school system is hopeless. Politicians are useless. School board members are idiots. Administration officials are clueless. Teachers unions are resistant to every and all changes that don't result in fewer hours and more pay.

So what's the point in trying to come up with solutions when every party involved is equally part of the problem?

Melon

[melon]

Originally posted by WildHoneyAlways
It's insulting that you think not all students deserve the same education.

It's insulting when all students are given an equally pitiful education. "Equality," just for the sake of it, is patronizing, at best.

Melon