Quote:
Originally Posted by Xujhan
Nightmare: I'm not sure if you noticed, but the OP and the quoted studies aren't talking about completely removing homework; only removing it for the younger grades. I can see a lot of wisdom in that. You really don't learn much in the first few grades besides basic language and arithmetic skills, and I can well believe that the hours of homework that young children, say ages 5-10, put in doesn't significantly improve their understanding. What's more important in those early years is the mentality and curiosity that develop. If you can get a child interested in learning, it wouldn't matter if you taught them nothing but juggling for those first five years, they'd still end up a well-educated person by adulthood; and they'd be a great juggler to boot. |
Yes, if you read my post, you'd have noticed that. I said, if they do ban the homework for the kids under 11, then whose to say it won't be considered for older students? I mean, it could be argued that it's not entirely fair and that since it exists already, why not extend it to a few more grades? Seems very likely to me.
It may be only basic skills, however, it develops basic study habits. If they go from the last year of no homework to first year of homework, it's going to be a sudden leap to something they're not used to. I'd say a good amount of students will struggle with this sudden change, so more may be considered stupider than they actually are. Then as they progress through high school, as the homework load increases, it's still relatively new to them. They may still learn and be very good, however, the reason for banning the homework, at least in the
OP's article thing was the mother saying how much the kid struggles. If homework is so new, then the students will struggle and parents will bitch, "look, look, they're struggling, we must ease up the work" when in reality, they're just not used to it but with practice, they will be and will be very proficent. But, with banning it, this needed practice isn't there.
This reason for banning was partially that homework was too hard, so banning it earlier then slamming it in their faces later is going to do the same thing. So, this isn't solving any problems, it's just delaying them. Also, what if the kid is decent when under 11 but without work, it wouldn't be too noticable until later that they may be struggling a lot more than initially suspected.