Not sure this is hot enough for the pit, because I don´t have homework anymore and I want other peoples opinion vs just ranting, but boy oh boy did I LOATHE it.
ARGH!
All those pointless algebra papers.
Reading 14 century poetry and not understanding a single word being said (I don´t care if I sound ignorant that stuff is not english!) and THEN writing summaries about it.
All those pointless busy-work hand outs, not to mention the hours spent memorizing facts for tests to then forget about them. Quizez also suck.
Not to mention the fact that after 7+ hours of school, which is kinda sucky, they give you work to do at home!
What the hell?
I do understand the need to read, write and basic math, but all the other things should be left for the person to choose, IMHO.
Anyone else have any particular frustration or bad homework experience they may want to share???
I disagree. I think it’s good to expose kids to some things they don’t expect to be interested in. Some will be bored but others will find they actually like it. The good news is that kids are getting more electives earlier in their education - my old high school now has a nine-period day instead of eight, so there are loads of course options that didn’t exist when I was there.
That said, yes, homework sucks. Everybody loves to go on about how lazy kids are these days, but I think they’re being overworked and I think it’s gotten worse as the years have gone on.
I agree that kids should be introdued to various different classes, but I´d try and form some basic type of introductory class that gives them the general idea of that the subject is about.
I´m against having kids take, say, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry. If you had an introdutory course that covers these subjects briefly, let the kids decide if they want to take more of these classes, and also tell them what they´re good for.
If kids actually like what they are studying they will do much better. This also saves pain in the ass homework.
I don’t have a problem with the current ciriculum, but I do and have always loathed 90% of homework. The 10% that I agree with are:
large projects and papers with due dates at least a couple of weeks out into the future
reading novels for English class
any other needed work that will take more than a few hours to complete
Everything else should either happen in class or in a study hall, and never just for the sake of having homework in each subject. Most adults work jobs that require an 8 or so hour day, which they then leave behind them for the night. Why do we demand so much more from our children? If they need practice time for their times tables or writing short essays, give them a daily study hall or extend class times.
95% of homework is just makework designed to make the day seem longer, keep a cloud over the kid’s head and prevent kids from actually having, you know, FUN after school.
Gotta prepare for those 80-hour workweeks at the law firm, after all. :rolleyes:
The only problem with this is the fact that you’ve just added another year on to many people’s college plans when they realize that yes, they do need a solid math grounding to succeed in a majority of majors. Plenty of trades careers also use a lot of that kind of math.
English gets short shrift as an elective more than math, especially at the college level, and all that results in is engineers that can’t communicate. Same with history and people who repeat stupid things that didn’t work in the past and won’t work now.
While I agree that kids need to have their time for playing and fun, and the current primary/secondary school homework load can be frustratingly high (especially for a kid who also wants a job for spending money for whatever reason) the solution isn’t to drop subjects but refine pedagogical methods.
To be brutally honest, it depends. I certainly should have done more of the optional calculus homework in college–I found out years later when I tried to start learning it again that it really does just take a lot of repetitive practice to get good at it, same as anything else really.
I remember sitting in my room for like three hours every freaking weeknight agnonizing. I’d do a couple things, get up, look at my rock collection, sit back down, do one more thing. Get up, play with my Barbie Dreamhouse, sit back down. Do some more stuff. Daydream. Snooze. Twiddle my hair. Fear standing and reciting my sure-to-be-unmemorized vowel rules the next day and the wrath of the horrid teacher. Listen to my sister banging away downstairs on the piano as she practiced. Every time she hit a bad note my dad would yell “Clinker!” Good Lord, I still hate Rachmaninoff.
I just couldn’t concentrate and I hated, hated, hated every minute of it. Most especially term papers. References. Bibliographies. Annotated bibliographies. Thesis goddamn statements. My blood pressure is going up just thinking about this.
Honestly, it wasn’t until I got to college that I discovered how much I loved writing papers. Maybe because I had a bit more autonomy. It got even more fun in grad school. But as a kid school and homework blew extreme chunks.
For me math homework was the worst, especially in middle school and high school. I was strong in math and didn’t really need to do the homework as long as I was there for the lecture. I failed more than one math course because I aced the tests but I didn’t do any of the homework. I didn’t need to, at least from first-year algebra through differential calculus.
In integral calculus I started doing some practice even though it wasn’t required. Up until then, most math homework is repetition of the same procedures you’ve been taught, but with different numbers. In integral calc, you have to use a little creativity rather than just following algorithms.
It’s not clear that there’s any real value in giving homework to younger kids. My elementary school didn’t give any homework before 7th grade, and only a little after that, and we all did fine. In high school, homework is necessary, although certainly not fun.
I have to disagree with the comments that high school kids should have a high degree of control over their curriculum. College requires a certain level of minimum preparation in a broad range of subjects, and the kids who don’t choose all that will be at a disadvantage. That’s not an area where anyone wants to be disadvantaged.
I don’t remember doing much homework in school. Of course, that may be because I generally did any assignments in the class period before they were due. However, I definitely have a mild pit for the homework that my six year old son is assigned. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It just causes conflict. To be honest, I probably complain about it more than he does, which probably isn’t having the most positive effect on his attitude towards school. It just seems ridiculous. Hate it.
I had homework starting in first grade. Addition worksheets and spelling worksheets.
Since I was as hedonistic as any six-year-old, I lied to my mother and told her I didn’t have homework; when she found out the truth she blew her top and bought a kitchen timer, which she started as soon as I got home. I’d have to finish all my assignments before the buzzer went off or it was no TV and no dessert, plus a bunch of yelling about how lazy I was.
You didn’t specify what grade level you’re talking about. In college, time in class is at a premium and needs to be used for things that can only happen in class (like lectures, labs, discussions, and tests), leaving students to do the individual stuff (reading, studying, working problems fo practice) outside of class on their own time. And college-bound students in high school, or maye even earlier, need to get practice in this way of doing things, so that they don’t expect everything to happen in class or in a study hall. But I agree that in many places, at least in the earlier grades, homework has gone way overboard.
