School homework should be abolished

[fanboi]

As a parent of two kids (10 and 12) I say this, homework should be removed fully.

Reasoning?

• School work should be done in school, leaving more time for hobbies and other activites
• Kids don't have the same possibilities at home, where either parents might be non-caring or just can't help, leaving the affected kid at a disadvantage
• Building a culture where it is expected to take work with you later in life (I have NO basis for this :P)

School should provide neccessary education without the need to have homework, this can be either be within the school hours, or add a couple of hours per week (which goes against my first bullet).

Above is not including higher education as university.

Shall we get the pitchforks?

 

[Deleted member 10551]

Even Orson Scott Card rails against excessive homework.

 

[FliX]

My spouse a teacher would likely agree, as would probably many teachers.

 

[DrewFu]

I've been saying that for decades. School work should be done in school. Home time should be family and free time.

 

[Jindrax]

Which country are you in OP?

Here in Belgium we are actually moving to reduce homework as much as possible as school start to realize that kids tend to cheat on homework (like have their older brother/ parent do it, group together with classmates, copy, etc).

 

[Lumination]

Doing work at home (aka on your own for the most part) is important for kids to internalize what they learn. Otherwise it's in one ear and out the other. I'd support limiting total homework to like an hour a day until end of middle school though.

 

[Tezz]

This idea made sense to me as a child and makes sense to me as an adult.

 

[ElectricKaibutsu]

I don't even know why homework exists. I agree it should be abolished.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

Maybe excessive homework, but having 10-20min should be ok for most kids.

 

[nsilvias]

most homework is easy tho

 

[fanboi]

Which country are you in OP?

Here in Belgium we are actually moving to reduce homework as much as possible as school start to realize that kids tend to cheat on homework (like have their older brother/ parent do it, group together with classmates, copy, etc).

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Sweden.

And why I started this thread is because my youngest kid is actully in school now (ended 35 min ago) but is attending homework extra training, which is great.

 

[fanboi]

most homework is easy tho

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Depends on the person.

 

[ShinAmano]

Cool, pay teachers appropriately and fund schools adequately and we are good.

 

[Aggie CMD]

This would be possible if kids paid attention in school and stopped goofing off. Source: spouse is teacher

 

[Dennis8K]

No, but it should be curtailed. Only focused on practicing the basics - mathematics and reading/writing

Once you reach high school/college level you do need homework though. At least in STEM.

 

[RDreamer]

I'm against excessive homework but abolishing it altogether seems a bit much. Homework can teach responsibility, time management, and independent work.

 

[fanboi]

I'm against excessive homework but abolishing it altogether seems a bit much. Homework can teach responsibility, time management, and independent work.

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Which, imo, can be incorperated into school, giving the kids a bit more own responsibility.

EDIT: But I agree, those skill sets is super important to learn.

 

[FliX]

most homework is easy tho

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One of my spouse's school kids parents texted her recently really upset about how difficult the homework was and that she couldn't even do it.
It was subtraction for double digit numbers...
My spouse was somewhat incredulous. That the mother would complain is one thing, that she would openly admit to not being able to do second grade maths quite another... 😂

 

[Fatoy]

My daughter's school isn't supposed to assign homework, but recently they've started doing it because there are more disruptive kids in the classes than ever, so reading etc. is being sent home.

To be honest, we're considering moving her to a private school anyway - one where they emphasise in-school and after-school clubs and outside interests, rather than doing core learning at home.

 

[Kinggroin]

A few minutes review, maybe an hour max. But otherwise I agree.

 

[shaneo632]

I think an hour of homework is fine, but yeah as a kid I remember often doing school from 9-4 then doing 3-4 hours of homework on a busy night. It was too much.

 

[DrewFu]

I'm against excessive homework but abolishing it altogether seems a bit much. Homework can teach responsibility, time management, and independent work.

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Kids learn responsibility and time management by doing their work in class. Home time should be family and recreation time.

 

[Dennis8K]

Lazy Swede wants to abolish homework. Danish man objects.

 

[PMS341]

This would be possible if kids paid attention in school and stopped goofing off. Source: spouse is teacher

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Kids notoriously don't goof off at home and are great at paying attention to things there, of course. :P

They're kids. You have to capture their attention differently if they refuse to care in the classroom itself.

 

[Masoyama]

I would have about 20-30 minutes of homework every night before college. I think thats the perfect ammount.

 

[Geoff]

I am not sure I would agree to abolition but certainly a reduction. It's going the other way in the UK. My six year old has homework now. And that's because parents demand it not because the school thinks it's necessary.

Bullshit.

 

[fanboi]

Lazy Swede wants to abolish homework. Danish man objects.

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It's like the seven year war all over.

 

[Jest]

Homework is an artifact of the strategy of learning by rote. Outside of basic concepts (addition/subtraction, multiplication/division), I don't find that it's very effective at teaching and does really only serve to impose a worker bee mentality in children. Which, admittedly, can be advantageous once those kids enter the workforce and have to do work relatively unsupervised to meet deadlines. The problem though is that homework itself rarely effectively teaches about a subject. So when a child doesn't understand the concept while in class, homework doesn't help and can in fact be a hindrance. Having to do work that you don't understand can be a morale killer which effects a child's outlook on subjects. And the rote approach can end up reinforcing bad habits/misunderstandings when the child didn't "get" the topic as taught in the class.

 

[Spock]

One of daughter's 5th grade teachers basically did this. He'd hand them a simple sheet each Monday with a few questions for them to answer geared toward stimulating there thinking and tell them to bring it in on Friday. Great teacher. He took the position that his role was to get kids thinking and engaged, not force them to memorize crap.

 

[Phoenix944]

I don't know about that one...

If the kids want to study in college (even highschool) they will have to work at home just to pass exams. So they may as well get used to it when they're young.

 

[Krakatoa]

I agree it seems like kids don't do any work at school anymore, it's all left to the parents after school in the form of homework.

 

[Raijinto]

I think there's an argument to be made for not wanting kids to shut off learning/working completely once the school day ends but I was never a fan of specific tasks and assignments outside of school time. There are just too many distractions to get in the way that it's difficult to spend the necessary time on the work in order to excel at it. More often than not the bare minimum would suffice as it wasn't marked as strictly anyway.

I wouldn't be against getting rid of it in favour of something more modern and flexible.

 

[gutter_trash]

agreed

homework is 100% useless

 

[16bits]

It's really important for children to learn and study independently, and homework can help towards this.

It can also encourage parents and family to get more inolved.

Like most things, some homework is good - but lots is counter-productive.

 

[Westbahnhof]

Abolish? Idk, sounds like you'd need more in-school hours to make up for it. I know that homework helped me cement what I learned and sometimes finally fully understand it.

Even Orson Scott Card rails against excessive homework.

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Doesn't he also rail against "the gays"?

 

[SurrenderDorothy]

I agree, puts more strain on kids.

 

[LuigiMario]

I had a study hall elective where I basically got all my homework done in high school during that hour every day except sometimes on weekend, but I was also a major slacker in high school who was super bored pretty much all the time.

 

[RedMercury]

I agree and I make this point known to my kids teachers every year. You have my kids for 7 hours a day, that is your time for them to do schoolwork, when they are home that is my time as a parent to teach them. It can be a ridiculous amount sometimes and it's only going to get more and more.

 

[BarryFishFinger]

Basically areed. Not all kids can experience the neverending joy of having me as a parent (International Father of the Year, 9 years running, come at me) and it is a bit of an intrusion into private time and a source of potential stress for kids.

My kids have no real issues doing their homework; they'd rather not of course and I'm pretty good at assisting as needed but generally, although it's a bit of an intrusion into our family time - it's not going away so I try and use it as another excuse to spend time with my kids before they get too much older and think I'm a sad old fart. My lad and I spent an enjoyable hour researching the Artist Lowry the other day for his homework, it was nice.

And I'll tell you what, our prize winning 'Jungle in a shoebox' was a number of hours of entertaining crafting and deserved all the accolades it received. Fuck the rest of you and your shit jungles in shoe boxes, check our cocktail stick bridge, damn right.

 

[Kill3r7]

It's a time issue. As it stands teachers in the US struggle to cover their allotted curriculum.

 

[Socivol]

When I was a teacher homework was very rare. Students wouldn't do it, parents wouldn't make them so it was more of a headache for me. I think homework is needed sometimes, but at the end of the day these are kids. They should be able to enjoy their childhoods because adulthood will be enough stress for them.

 

[Deleted member 14663]

100% agree, homework should be banned.

 

[fanboi]

Basically areed. Not all kids can experience the neverending joy of having me as a parent (International Father of the Year, 9 years running, come at me) and it is a bit of an intrusion into private time and a source of potential stress for kids.

My kids have no real issues doing their homework; they'd rather not of course and I'm pretty good at assisting as needed but generally, although it's a bit of an intrusion into our family time - it's not going away so I try and use it as another excuse to spend time with my kids before they get too much older and think I'm a sad old fart. My lad and I spent an enjoyable hour researching the Artist Lowry the other day for his homework, it was nice.

And I'll tell you what, our prize winning 'Jungle in a shoebox' was a number of hours of entertaining crafting and deserved all the accolades it received. Fuck the rest of you and your shit jungles in shoe boxes, check our cocktail stick bridge, damn right.

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Is that like Ms World Beauty contest? If so, I won Ms Universe.

 

[MechaMarmaset]

I like the idea of homework. Seems like it would teach a kid some responsibility if they have to plan to do something they don't want to do, but need to do outside of hours that are strictly controlled. It's a nice lesson in agency and consequences. It's also good for practicing what they learn on their own. Even then the teacher often gave chunks of time for us to do homework in elementary, and high school had the option of the study hall occasionally.

That said, I feel like some schools give way too much homework. I was in all advanced classes in high school and I usually never had more than a half hour of it a night. Even when I had a job that I went to every weekday it wasn't hard to manage. But some places are giving their students 2+ hours a night, which is ridiculous.

Plus, college would hit them even harder if they never had to work at things on their own time.

 

[Aleh]

Agreed especially when teachers use it as a way to do even less in class and leave the actual teaching to the homework. School hours have to become more efficient too however.

 

[Parthenios]

Hmmm

I'd like to see actual studies on this, but in my experience (as a student, as a parent, and as a teacher), I've found that homework helps make the high performing students better, but doesn't help the low performing ones, and increases the gap between the two.

 

[DrewFu]

I agree it seems like kids don't do any work at school anymore, it's all left to the parents after school in the form of homework.

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Agreed especially when teachers use it as a way to do even less in class and leave the actual teaching to the homework. School hours have to become more efficient too however.

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Back in high school, I can't tell you how many classes I had where the teachers did fucking nothing. They'd tell the class to read a chapter in the text, and answer the questions at the end. All the while, they'd just surf the web on the computer. I don't know if it's the same now, but back then, many teachers basically treated class as just daycare.

 

[tommy7154]

I agree 100% OP. My son is going to a school where they are not giving homework this year. Just one headache saved.

 

[BDS]

It's basically been the consensus opinion of educational researchers for decades that homework does nothing and can actively detract from a child's educational understanding and that the resources are better spent elsewhere. The problem is that whenever (American) school districts try to reform their homework policies, parents revolt, going on about snowflakes and participation trophies and schools going soft, when what they really want is for their child's teacher-babysitter to continue indirectly babysitting them at home too by "giving them something to do."

 

[Byakuya769]

No lies told.

 

[RadzPrower]

My son attends a private school which works at an individualized pace, so they only have homework if they do not complete their expected work for the day or if they have a test the following day. Homework for us is typically a 5-10 minute refresher per subject he has a test in the following day...that means that many nights he has no homework at all. I couldn't imagine dealing with traditional levels of homework every single night.