# Do kids have a lot more homework now than 20 years ago? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 11, 2014, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019 "2014-02-11T00:27:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/81 "2014-02-12T22:08:09Z")
> [@Macca26](#): > > I remember thinking that was a grand idea, to work somewhere better paying than work study during summer vacation during college. Run on down to the Blue and Yellow Buy, the Red Office Implements, the Proper Name Craft Store, and so on, apply for jobs… > > Well it took that hiring manager about a week and a half to get back to me at Blue and Yellow Buy, and then he went on vacation so the interview was a week and a half after that…and then there was a second interview to go through, and that took another 4 days to schedule. Then they had to think about it some, and call me back 3 days after that. Great! You start NEXT Monday. Hm, okay, a whole month gone already… that’s…great. And I have to buy your special polo? Hum. Oh, my hours don’t even total 5 hours a week? 3 hours this week?! I specifically asked for at least 20 in my interview and everybody said I would get it. > > After about a month and a half of that, I quit because honestly it was a waste of time at that point and it was time to go back to college anyway, and I certainly wasn’t going to commute 30 minutes for 3 damn hours. > > I arranged to continue my work study through the whole summer as well in the following college years. Much more worth it. While retail had the potential to give me much more money if they actually gave me hours, work study was a guaranteed set of hours albeit at minimum wage. > > I can see why a lot of students wouldn’t want to put up with the lengthy bullshit required to get hired places. You’re shitty retail, you want me or not? I never even bothered to put my stint there on my resume. But your work study job was indeed a job experience. These people didn’t even have that. I do agree that some of the rigamarole people have to go through to get hired is ridiculous. One of my Facebook friends had THREE interviews at Best Buy, and didn’t even get that job. And no, she wasn’t applying for a job as a store manager; she had applied for a job as a cashier and only wanted to work while her kids were in school. :rolleyes: After I moved back here, I heard that the local Enormodome was hiring ushers, so I stopped by for an application. That application was more complicated than any hospital application I ever filled out! Now, if they wanted me to RUN the Enormodome, that would have been different, but this was for a grunt job. :smack: I took it with me but never filled it out. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/82 "2014-02-12T22:12:28Z")
> [@2ManyTacos](#): > > Ok, before I get to the crux of the question…how the FUCK can a teenage kid get to fucking driving age without being able to sign his name? I’m sorry, but that’s just inexcusable and a downright failing aspect of current education regimes. I remember the first time I ever had to sign my name was when getting my passport at 14. If I hadn’t gotten it, I could easily see myself getting to 16 without having a signature. Kids don’t have to sign a lot of stuff, they’re not able to form legally binding contracts and they haven’t fully integrated with outside society yet. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/83 "2014-02-13T01:38:53Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > I have a daughter in grade 11, who never had to learn the times tables, but writes beautifully. There has never been any point in our lifetimes in which the times tables has not been a required part of Ontario’s school curriculum, so how this happened is really quite mysterious. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/84 "2014-02-13T02:02:17Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > There has never been any point in our lifetimes in which the times tables has not been a required part of Ontario’s school curriculum, so how this happened is really quite mysterious. The Catholic school curriculum should be aligned with the public system, right? Anyway, this was the Catholic system, and neither of my kids memorized their times tables, nor were required to. My son can figure it out in his head using various tricks, like most people who are good at math do. (9X8 is just like 10X8, except 8 fewer, for example.) So, beats me. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/85 "2014-02-13T22:53:23Z")
My grandson in kindergarten has homework!! When I was in kindergarten, it was really play. Nothing was taught; you were not taught to read (maybe the alphabet) or calculate (maybe counting). It is crazy. One comment on learning the multiplication table. It is one of my clear memories from 3rd/4th grade. We were not told to memorize it. There was a large time table (up to 12 times, for some reason) posted on a side wall of the room and we were given a lot of multiplications to do. You could always look at the table, as often as you wanted. Gradually, you committed it to memory. I also learned from looking at it: the pattern of the 9 times table, the tens digit going up by 1 and the units digit going down by 1; the pattern of the 5 times table; some other less obvious patterns. Even in HS–an all-academic HS where upwards of 95% went to college–I doubt if I had more than an hour a day of homework. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2014, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/86 "2014-02-14T13:05:56Z")
Well, I’m in the UK, so maybe this doesn’t count, but at primary school (to age 11) there’s definitely a huge difference. Young kids get tons of homework; we got practically none. Secondary school isn’t much different though. > [@Hampshire](#): > > How do high school kids these days work part-time jobs and find time to do home work? Where I am, they can’t get those jobs unless it’s a family business, because adults are doing all the jobs kids used to do. Even including paper rounds. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2014, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/87 "2014-02-14T13:23:02Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Sure, they learn printing. Just not cursive anymore. And besides writing checks and signing signatures no one really needs cursive anymore. You’re supposed to use cursive on checks? Apart from the signature? And there are still places where they make the kids learn cursive. I think it’s a lot rarer for the kids to have to continue using it in higher grades, though, so they never actually get in the habit of writing in cursive. > [@Shalmanese](#): > > I remember the first time I ever had to sign my name was when getting my passport at 14. If I hadn’t gotten it, I could easily see myself getting to 16 without having a signature. Kids don’t have to sign a lot of stuff, they’re not able to form legally binding contracts and they haven’t fully integrated with outside society yet. I think that was the first time I had to sign my name as well. I tried to remember how to write my whole name in cursive but I think I flubbed a part or two. Now I don’t even try that hard. Two letters are cursive, kind of, I guess, but the rest is just wiggles and a crossed T. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/88 "2014-02-14T20:55:12Z")
When I took the GRE in October, they made me write some obnoxious giant paragraph-long oath about academic honesty (and some sort of non-disclosure agreement about the questions) in cursive. It was very, very adamant about writing it in cursive. My guess is the rationale is most people don’t write in cursive so it forces them to think about/internalize the agreement as they write it. I mostly just got annoyed that it was wasting my damn time. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2014, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/89 "2014-02-26T13:10:13Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > A similarly disturbing thing that’s been observed in my field, and some others too, is that a huge percentage of people are graduating from COLLEGE with NO job experience of any kind! :eek: They didn’t even work during school vacations. Interesting. I hire the teenage shelvers at the librayr I work at and I get parents all the time asking me if we hire kids just for the summer or just for Christmas break. They’re all shocked when I say we don’t. But really, why would I hire a kid for as little as two weeks? Or even the two months of summer? By the time I finished training them, they’ll leave and I’ll have to hire someone permanent? So why would I do holiday hiring? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2014, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/90 "2014-02-26T13:39:33Z")
Yes, it does. It seems that the teachers aren’t bothering to teach the subjects, they just load the students with homework and let the kids teach themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Hollow\_mask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hollow\_mask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hollow_mask)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2014, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/91 "2014-02-27T06:33:09Z")
Parochial school 1-8 grade, nuns, 2hours homework almost every night. 4 years Public H.S, about the same. It seems the kids have less homework than we from the 50’s and 60’s. But many other socio-economic factors at play. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/92 "2014-03-17T00:32:03Z")
Bumping to link to a relevant article in the NYT: [Homework’s Emotional Toll on Students and Families](http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/parenting/2014/03/12/homeworks-emotional-toll-on-students-and-families). Summary from boingboing if you don’t like NYT’s paywall:[Homework is eating American schoolkids and their families](http://boingboing.net/2014/03/16/homework-is-eating-american-sc.html) ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019/93 "2014-03-17T01:20:39Z")
My kids are fortunate in that can often blow off some of their homework and still get decent grades. Neither of them likes science projects; I’m glad they’ll both be is high school next year and won’t have to worry about science fairs anymore. It seems like they’re taking more classes but not necessarily going into as much depth as we did in the seventies and eighties. Personally, I think if they learn what they’re supposed to learn for the class and do required projects/papers it shouldn’t matter if they do the homework or not. Interestingly, the students at the Montessori school where I work don’t get homework but seem to adjust quickly when they move to middle school and have homework. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-have-a-lot-more-homework-now-than-20-years-ago/681019.md?page=4)