Homework for young kids

Buceph

This is a long post. It was written for an American audience so somethings are a bit unnecessary. As it took me about two hours to write up I'm not going to go back and edit it, but the point should be clear enough. Hopefully I get a teacher's opinion as well.

I had a brilliant teacher when I was seven or eight. She was one of the smartest and strongest* women I've met. One of her ideas that I was reminded of last night, and that I loved as a kid was that she would abolish homework.

Over here at the age of about eight until you're twelve or so school lasts from nine till three. We had one twenty minute break in the morning, and one forty minute break at lunch, 20 minutes for eating, 20 for playing in a yard. This teacher maintained that kids learned little to nothing from homework, so she would extend school for two or three hours, and abolish homework. To the extended school day she'd add a designated reading time for kids to read a book, magazine or comic of their choice, she'd lengthen the breaks, add an extra break, and have a daily period of PE for every student. I liked it as a kid because I liked primary school (I hated secondary school,) I liked reading, I liked PE and I liked my breaks as I got to hang with friends who didn't live near me. As an adult I realise how much more there is to this idea. I've talked to a few primary school teachers and they most like the idea(once their pay is increased) some are against it.

First off, kids at that age learn little from homework. The smart kids run through the homework in no time and gain nothing, it's just an obstacle to their free time. The kids who don't understand something won't be able to figure it out on their own and will either spend hours struggling, or begin to give up on education and start to think they're stupid. In general, their parents don't understand the system a teacher is using, and could confuse the child, hampering his learning. At worst the parents are abusive and don't help the child. At best they luck upon the methods the teacher is using. Kids at that age don't really need the type of help homework offers, i.e. development of critical thought, problem solving and structured creatived. The creation of critical thought because they need direction at that type of thinking. Structured creativity and problem solving, because at that age your imagination should be enough and at that age most kids use their imagination when given time to, not when directed to. What homework is good for is rote learning, something kids are terrible at ("this is sooooo boring") and they actively work against if they're not supervised.

By letting the teacher have more time with the kids, it allows their help to be targetted at kids that need it, and allows for kids that excel to have someone prodding at their education more. It also allows for more varied types of teaching. Literacy levels are supposedly dropping across the western world, with kids reading less. A longer school day lets teachers designate time for undirected reading. Undirected reading , from what I know, has become a fairly established and desirable method in improving literacy, creative thinking and developing a love of reading in kids (in fact undirected "anything" is desirable for kid's development.) Yet directed reading takes up most of the time in a school setting, kids are expected to read something to analyse it and to be able to discuss it, and that turns off a lot of kids (again, they might have trouble understanding something and by being asked to explain it they become embarrased, dismayed, etc.) Dedicating a significant amount of time (we were only allowed ten minutes when I was in school) for kids to read on their own, for themselves means they get more time to engage with a book. The idea behind letting the kid read whatever they want means they own the reading.^

It would also give time for kids to have mandated, daily PE (Physical education/gym, of which I had forty minutes of once a week.) So many people are complaining that kids don't exercise enough, and like literacy levels, obesity levels are going in the wrong direction. People are blaming computers, people are also blaming the mollycoddling of kids by not letting them outside to get up to kids stuff and play. Directed exercise abates this, plus the extra time means that kids get to explore more types of exerise and games. I loved PE but a lot of people I know didn't like it because it was always the same thing over and over (soccer or GAA for guys, hockey and basketball for girls.)

Longer days not only allow for non-typical education methods, but it allows for non-typical subjects. One problem that was identified in the UK was that kids were being taught for and to tests, be they state exams, or entrance exams for the better schools. I think state exams for 11 year olds have been abandoned in the UK now but teachers are still expected to teach for entrance exams. And parents are completely bi-polar in what they want from a primary school, one minute calling for only a core education in literacy and numeracy, and the other for a holistic education involving art, music, the media, computers, life skills, etc.. Hopefully a longer day would mean both goals could be accomplished.


Finally, the longer day with longer breaks would be needed to keep attention spans up, and allow for undirected play amongst kids. Kids play is usually vigorous at that age, so all the endorphins mean they're hyper for a bit after stopping, but soon after that they can concentrate better. And again, undirected play is good for kids development.

The ancilliary effects of a longer school day also have benefits for society. It takes pressure off of parents for teaching their kids "school subjects." Learning how to teach kids academic subjects in the best way takes years to learn, and still plenty of teachers are crap. Parents don't have that time to learn, and they should be teaching their kids other things, morals, pride, honesty, respect, etc. and they should be enjoying their time with their kids. It also helps the daycare issue for a lot of people. If the kids are in school from 9 to 5.30, their parents can work from 9 to 5.

Some of the teachers that had problems with the longer school day idea did so for these reasons. They felt that the effect of bad teachers would be more pronounced, that parents would have less opportunity to ease the damage done by crappy teachers. They also felt that it was simply too long for kids, even with longer and extra breaks and a daily bout of directed physical exercise. And one teacher said a problem would be that some kids would have to walk home in the dark during winter.


What do you think? Especially those of you with kids who have gone through or about to go through primary school. I think it's a great idea, I loved it as a child and I love it as an adult, hopefully some day I'll find out if I love it as a parent.





*Another teacher was brutal to kids, treated us badly, couldn't teach or maintain discipline and yelled at the kids. A friend of mine was a bit thick, work that would take us an hour to do would take him twice as long. He didn't lack a work ethic, he just didn't understand things as readily as other people. One night he had real difficulty with a piece of work, his parents helped and he stayed at it all night long. His parents eventually sent him to bed as it was long past his bed time and he still didn't understand but wrote him a note to give to the teacher explaining the situation. The teacher read it, raged and started yelling at him, he started crying and the teacher yelled at him "Are you retarded." The other teacher heard all this and staked her job, threatening to leave the school, on getting him fired. (I only found out all this years later as an adult.)


^This was the way we got my brother into reading. We started him out on comics like The Beano and The Dandy (if you know them) once he realised he liked that we started getting him some of the football magazines aimed at kids, after that he started picking up books on his own.

Edit: I've just run this through a word count, I've written shorter essays for university.

byhookorbycrook

PE has changed a lot since then.There are all kind of strands like aquatics, gymnastics, dance etc, that require a hall or a nearby swimming pool. In our school we have 17 classes, one hall, so unless you build us another hall, 40 mins per day is not going to be possible
By the way -there'd be a riot if I told my girls they couldn't play football!(And I'd probably start it )

Buceph

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

PE has changed a lot since then.There are all kind of strands like aquatics, gymnastics, dance etc, that require a hall or a nearby swimming pool. In our school we have 17 classes, one hall, so unless you build us another hall, 40 mins per day is not going to be possible
By the way -there'd be a riot if I told my girls they couldn't play football!(And I'd probably start it )

Oh yeah. I know it's a completely ridiculous suggestion. It'd cost a fortune to implement. I just like the idea. And if I had the money to let you have a PE class a day for the kids, I'd build you the hall.

Good to hear the PE has gotten better. I had some friends who hated PE because it was always soccer or football. They liked other sports like basketball, another just liked jogging, and would jog around the school grounds when we got to secondary school with a few other lads.

DGOBS

I agree with some of the merits it the above post

But.......

As a parent, I want to be actively involved in my child's education and I do not believe it's the sole role of the teacher to educate (or even that they are the primary educator)

You mention parents 'lucking' into the methods used by the teacher/school, I find teachers are very good at communicating with parents in this regard, and are generally pleased to see parents taking a rolev