Will there ever be a time where children's school homework be abolished?

Dave0JV

The whole point of homework is to reinforce the lessons learned in class, so that they aren't forgotten. True, it's a pain to deal with, but it's kinda necessary in my opinion

Spanish Eyes

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Parents don't have to do homework.The children have to do it.

I was too fekkin lazy to edit that. Touchay lol.

Spanish Eyes

Dave0JV wrote: »

The whole point of homework is to reinforce the lessons learned in class, so that they aren't forgotten. True, it's a pain to deal with, but it's kinda necessary in my opinion

Any comment on Finland's approach?

IvyTheTerrible

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Finland does not have any homework, and the kids turn out to be VERY successful.

I think parents have enough going on with working fulltime, getting home in the traffic, getting the dinner on and then having to sit down and do homework WTF? Not to mention the kids doing a near full time working day aswell with homework. Too much already.

Anyway...

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005

In fairness, there is a lot more to Finland's successful system than no homework. The whole system is different.

Spanish Eyes

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

In fairness, there is a lot more to Finland's successful system than no homework. The whole system is different.

Could you tell us more? We might in time (2107 LOL) emulate it for the sake of parents and children.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

JayZeus wrote: »

What a load of old bollox.

Nothing wrong with homework.

5-10 hours a week for primary and 15-20 for secondary sounds about right to me.

Should be decent exercises too, not just work for the sake of it.

Therein lies the first problem

If you let the little bollixes off the hook early on, they'll be rightly fecked come 3rd level time.

And therein liest he second: if you see hoemwork as merely a means to install discipline than you might as well just give them work for the sake of it.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

That was very informative.

How aboout this then?

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005

The problem is people think that more hours in school and doing homework automaticly mean a better education and more intelligent students, which is a bit od a fallacy.

EDIT - just realsied, story is already linked... oops

Dave0JV

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Any comment on Finland's approach?

It is an interesting concept, to be fair. However as the article does state, it's built around an entirely different culture and attitude to education to the one we have in Ireland and in the UK. What works there, probably wouldn't work here.

Spanish Eyes

Dave0JV wrote: »

It is an interesting concept, to be fair. However as the article does state, it's built around an entirely different culture and attitude to education to the one we have in Ireland and in the UK. What works there, probably wouldn't work here.

Why not? They are members of our wonderful EU family surely. And they are up there in the Arctic Circle (mostly) with dark nights and the Aurora Borealis.

They must be doing something right.

What is the difference between their culture and let's say ours?

milehip

When we are in the post-employment trans-humanist era there'll be no such thing as school. So yes is the answer.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Dave0JV wrote: »

It is an interesting concept, to be fair. However as the article does state, it's built around an entirely different culture and attitude to education to the one we have in Ireland and in the UK. What works there, probably wouldn't work here.

I find that when people say that, what they mean is that it's too much of an effort to try here, so we'll just keep doign what we're doing. Easier.

Their cultrue is not that much different to ours and I fail to understand exactly what they do that works that wouldn't work here.

Samuel T. Cogley

Send the little bastards to boarding school, problem solved.

Luggnuts

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

With better use of time management could homework be abolished for schoolchildren do you reckon? Some children take to it fine but an awful lot struggle and its hard for a lot of parent to get their children to do their homework, plus when kids are at home they could be missing out on recreation, or quality time with the family, sure you could say that the parents could sit down with the children and get bonding time then but us it the same?

What about if all school learning was done in school hours? .. What if it meant longer school hours?

Should maybe homework start around the age of 12 onwards or maybe only start getting homework in secondary school?

Just been watching a piece on the news about the pressure homework can cause children and prompted mec to write this.

Give the bastards hours of homework I say. HOURS! Until their fingers are numb from writing. Until they're alone at night in their room painstakingly working through hundreds of maths problems long after the parents have gone to bed.

Seriously though, homework is important. How else do you put into practice what you've been taught in the classroom? Of course critical think is very important but a lot of learning is, let's face it, is learning facts or procecdures. Geography is fact based...so is science. You just have to learn the facts by heart.....periodic elements, laws of motion, the organs of the body, rock characteristics, rivers, mountain ranges, etc.
When I was in secondary school I was often up till 10:30 or 11pm doing homework and that was pretty much straight through from 4:30 pm with an half hour max break for dinner at 6pm with maybe a quick half hour tv break. It was pretty gruelling. Some teachers just piled on the homework not caring a fig about how much other teachers had also prescribed. Quality time with the family? At that age you would rather do homework than sit and talk to your uncool parents anyway

Luggnuts

JayZeus wrote: »

What a load of old bollox.

Nothing wrong with homework.

5-10 hours a week for primary and 15-20 for secondary sounds about right to me.

Should be decent exercises too, not just work for the sake of it.

If you let the little bollixes off the hook early on, they'll be rightly fecked come 3rd level time.

Agreed....I had so much homework to do in secondary that when I got to university (science based degree) it was actually easier than the leaving cert.

LirW

Seriously though, homework is important. How else do you put into practice what you've been taught in the classroom? Of course critical think is very important but a lot of learning is, let's face it, is learning facts or procecdures. Geography is fact based...so is science. You just have to learn the facts by heart.....periodic elements, laws of motion, the organs of the body, rock characteristics, rivers, mountain ranges, etc.
When I was in secondary school I was often up till 10:30 or 11pm doing homework and that was pretty much straight through from 4:30 pm with an half hour max break for dinner at 6pm with maybe a quick half hour tv break. It was pretty gruelling. Some teachers just piled on the homework not caring a fig about how much other teachers had also prescribed. Quality time with the family? At that age you would rather do homework than sit and talk to your uncool parents anyway

Don't wanna deny that homework is important. But I think is it really necessary piling the work on teenagers that they are spending years of their lives at the desk? I mean we all know how much of a difficult time the teenage years are, you as a whole person undergo so many changes and I fully understand that a lot of them can't be arsed to focus on school at that time, because, well... teenage years and f all.
But I do not really see the point in the vast amount of work a lot of them get. The reality is, it doesn't really prepare you for working life, let's be honest because you just see it as another annoying chore. Also your parents most likely go home from work and that was it, they don't have to think about work anymore. While as a student you go home, have hours of homework plus additional studying to do and in most cases your parents can't help you anyway at that point.

IMO homework and practice yes - but in a bearable amount and enforces critical thinking and makes you want to know more about certain topics.

Luggnuts

OSI wrote: »

It's impossible for a teacher to provide direct 1:1 tuition to a child in the classroom, so homework provides the opportunity for parents to work with the child to reinforce what they learned in class.

In fairness my parents wouldn't have been much use to me. Both intelligent humans (nurse and accountant) but what the hell did they know about calculus or french or the Renaissance? I just used to have my mother test me on verbs and vocab.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

How aboout this then?

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005

The problem is people think that more hours in school and doing homework automaticly mean a better education and more intelligent students, which is a bit od a fallacy.

EDIT - just realsied, story is already linked... oops

It may not automatically mean a better student however I know from my own experience that if I didn't study after school I wouldn't have done so well in my exams.Study is necessary in order to get a better understanding of any subject and homework can be a part of that.

Luggnuts

wakka12 wrote: »

Why should it be abolished? Most irish children have such easy lives already if they get any easier were all just going to turn into vegetables

+1

You have kids in Third World countries whose lives are tough, happy but tough. They are only too delighted to get back to the village from school and dive into the books while mum cooks the rice and beans.

Luggnuts

King George VI wrote: »

I read somewhere that a school abolished homework and the students got higher grades. Or they abolished homework with the stipulation that any work the students didn't finish in school they had to finish at home. Can't remember which one but it's an interesting idea.

Lowering the standards of difficulty will probably produce a similar increase in grades.

man_no_plan

_Brian wrote: »

Some of the biggest problems with homework stems from the parents. They seem to think teachers have full responsibility to raise their children and many would rather browse Facebook or be engrossed in soaps to bother engaging with their child and supporting homework.

It takes an effort to raise a child and that includes being involved in their education and supporting the homework. If nothing else it helps a parent understand their child's actual ability.

I'd be inclined to agree. Most problems I encounter in school revolve around parents lack of interest until we get past a tipping point. Then its all 'why wasn't I informed'.

The gulf between the expectations of the child and those of parents can be huge (in both directions). A bit of a tune in to homework would give a better sense of what's going on.

For my own part I find homework to be very beneficial to my students once they do it. I can get a sense of where I need to pick up from in the first few minutes of class and be sure to pitch the class at the right level.

When kids don't do homework because parents give carte blanche to their offspring to do as they please you never get a sense of where a student is at until you do a test, usually at the end of a unit of work. At that stage any chance to remedy a shortfall is lost. Repeated over a few years and multiple areas and you very soon are looking at an under achieving student. Hard work beats talent.

Short version. Do your homework and shut up about it.

Gatling

Oddly enough op it's been discussed by parents associations in schools at the moment ,were looking at the pros and cons for our kids school

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

It may not automatically mean a better student however I know from my own experience that if I didn't study after school I wouldn't have done so well in my exams.Study is necessary in order to get a better understanding of any subject and homework can be a part of that.

True - my point, though, was that people butting blind faith in it creating a better student.

I agree with you that study is nessecary (at least as long as we deem exams nessecary, but that's a different argument) but it's not enitrely the same thing as homework.

Spanish Eyes

Gradgrind and Hard Times forever.

Very nice.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

True - my point, though, was that people butting blind faith in it creating a better student.

I agree with you that study is nessecary (at least as long as we deem exams nessecary, but that's a different argument) but it's not enitrely the same thing as homework.

Homework is given with the purpose of helping students better understand what they are learning in school so it's all linked in with overall study of the subject.

Luggnuts

freshpopcorn wrote: »

That's a complaint I've often heard from teachers. Certain parents think their child is a genius.

I read somewhere of a parent bragging that their little 3 year old could spell his name. Another chimed in saying "Mozart was writing opera at age 4 so that would pretty much make your kid a moron." :pac:

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Homework is given with the purpose of helping students better understand what they are learning in school so it's all linked in with overall study of the subject.

Homework is an assignment given by a teacher that will be checked and possibly graded by said teacher; usually for the purposes you mention (although in some cases, I'm pretty sure there are other reasons - but that's just me being cynical ). Study is completely independent.

Badly Drunk Boy

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Any comment on Finland's approach?

The link that you provided used the international PISA tests to show how well Finnish students do (which I know nothing about). They are better that Ireland's, but not by much (mostly).

Here are the results from 2015:

In Maths, Finland was 13th, Ireland 18th, UK 27th. (I'm adding the UK for...the fun of it).
In Science, Finland was 5th, Ireland 19th, and the UK 15th.
In Reading, Finland was 4th, Ireland was 5th, and the UK was 22nd.

(This was from 540,000 participating students in 72 countries.)

I don't know if the samples were big enough, and it doesn't show how big a factor homework could have been.


I started Primary School in 1977. A new school had just opened near us, so my parents sent me there, even though in Junior Infants, the hours were 9-12 (instead of the full day), and Senior Infants was 12.30 to 2.30. Other neighbours didn't want they children to miss out on education, so they sent their kids (my friends) to the school at the faaaar end of the town.

By the time we met up (educationally) in Secondary School, there was no difference. (Well, there was. I was a lot better, intellectually, but that probably wasn't to do with school systems.) :pac:

muddypaws

My son went to school in England and here, there was a huge difference in the amount of homework given, more than double here, in primary at least, secondary would be more equal. However, the school holidays here are also much longer. This year, schools in London will break up for the summer around 21st July and go back the first week in September. It seemed to me that homework is used here to tie in with the longer holidays.

Luggnuts

LirW wrote: »

Don't wanna deny that homework is important. But I think is it really necessary piling the work on teenagers that they are spending years of their lives at the desk? I mean we all know how much of a difficult time the teenage years are, you as a whole person undergo so many changes and I fully understand that a lot of them can't be arsed to focus on school at that time, because, well... teenage years and f all.
But I do not really see the point in the vast amount of work a lot of them get. The reality is, it doesn't really prepare you for working life, let's be honest because you just see it as another annoying chore. Also your parents most likely go home from work and that was it, they don't have to think about work anymore. While as a student you go home, have hours of homework plus additional studying to do and in most cases your parents can't help you anyway at that point.

IMO homework and practice yes - but in a bearable amount and enforces critical thinking and makes you want to know more about certain topics.

Where do you draw the line? "They're teenagers they need to express themselves. They're 10 year olds they need to be out running around. They're 6 year olds they should be enjoying their childhood rather than developing their young and fertile brains." Tell me one detrimental ramification of homework.

josip

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Why not? They are members of our wonderful EU family surely. And they are up there in the Arctic Circle (mostly) with dark nights and the Aurora Borealis.

They must be doing something right.

What is the difference between their culture and let's say ours?

Lots. For example they willingly pay for drinkable water and a lot more than we would have had to.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/irish-water-charges-cheapest-in-europe-under-revised-package-1.2007413

Why does every discussion invariably descend to "well, <Scandinavian country>/Finland/Netherlands do it this way, so why don't we?"
I've lived for 3 years in 3 of those countries and spent reasonable time in all 5.
Whilst there are some attractive/admirable aspects to their society and living standards, there are many aspects I would rather not adopt.