No Homework Policy

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While I am not a parent or plan to be one, I figured the Parents' Discussion fourm is a good place to post this topic.

What do you all think about a 'No Homework Policy'?

There is a school in the town I went to college in that has placed a No Homework Policy, none of the kids get any homework. My sister-in-law told me about this because her neice attends the school in the town, she thinks its nice that the girl doesn't have to worry about homework and can play boardgames with her parents ect.

I am not a fan of this policy, kids need to learn time management and that learning doesn't stop when you leave school. We had homework growing up, so why is it a problem to kids today? If the kids knew how to manage their time, they can get their homework done and have plenty of time to spend with their parents, OR homework time can be parent time too. My dad helped me with my math homework numorus times.

What is going to happen when the kid gets into high-school and is slammed with a homework assignment? Or when the kid enters college or the work-force? Kids these days are becoming soft as it is.

My sister-in-law complained about the homework that her daughter has, and I said that it is a cake-walk compaired some countries like Japan (they have homework over their summer vacation), she tried to come back with "but we are not Japan"
I told her that we don't have to be, if we keep lowering the expications in education, then child will suffer in the end.

What are your opinions?

I am not convinced that homework does much of anything at the younger ages beyond allowing the teacher to see what the child did or did not retain from the lesson that day. I would much prefer adding an hour of real instruction and getting rid of homework. And my kids would prefer that, as well. Shoot, my son would go to school 6 days a week 8 hours a day if that meant home was always free time.

While they do need to learn to manage their time and develop organization skills, most kids aren't ready developmentally for the level that is being asked of them. Which means the parents end up in the homework business, checking assignments, monitoring due dates, and making sure it gets done. One of my son's classes assigns 25% of the homework points to the parent's signature alone. That means an action I have to remember is the difference between getting an A and getting a C as the starting point. I find it utterly ridiculous. As one of my friend's says, "why they are assigning US homework? Didn't we graduate years ago?"

And we're finding advanced classes simply more likely to assign more homework than to do anything more interesting in the way of course work.

It's like homework has become the hail Mary pass for shortened school days, budget cuts, and falling test scores. But it really isn't the same. It doesn't take the place of instruction, and the heavy emphasis on organization skills ends up hurting boys, who developmentally acquire organizational abilities at a later age than girls do.

Lol, can you tell that homework has really become a sore point for me this year? Now that my son is in 6th grade, our entire lives as a family revolve around his homework. I don't want to hear the "preparing for high school / preparing for college" bit. I would much rather he make the adjustment when it's really necessary and when he is more ready to.

I remember homework well. My memories of homework were that it was mostly mindless. There were years of boring, meaningless drudge work done for no logical reason. I knew the material, I didn't need to "practice" it at home. I loathed it, it became a two-hour (plus) per night endeavor (including weekends), because at the strict Catholic school I went to whatever we were told to do we did, and were not to question. At best, it gave my parents a chance to see what we were doing in the classroom (they had to sign each page of our homework to signify that they'd seen it). At worst, it took me away from my reading - the ultimate sin, to me. I remember in the third or fourth grade I was reading my big brother's copy of "Brave New World" and had to keep putting it aside to do fill-in-the-blank worksheets on how Dick and Jane were taking Spot to the park. OMFG!! !

I also remember having to write sentences because my handwriting was so bad. The nuns would give me a sentence to copy, and I'd have to write it (cursive) 200 times. We didn't move into cursive writing until late 3rd or early 4th grade (don't remember, too long ago, but do remember that it was late because they didn't have the right books in or something - it was the whole class, not just me, that was delayed). I was either "not trying hard enough" or "just needed more practice." Back then they thought that if you just worked at something enough, it became easier and you got better at it. Riding a bicyle, maybe, yes. But I have dysgraphia along with some other neurological things. It was NEVER better back then and has never gotten better. I can type at 80 - 90 WPM, but my handwriting is almost illegible - including my signature. (Too bad they made us hand-write everything, instead of allowing us to use typewriters. It took me five times as long to complete a written assignment at home, because I'd have to do it over, and over, and over. Cross-outs were not allowed, erasures had to be invisible, and they made us use fountain pens. Oy!)

There were times, in later grades, when homework was needed - it was outside reading for literature, etc., that there was not time for in the classroom, or that was not appropriate for the classroom setting (writing research papers, etc.). There were practice exercises - when I took Latin and Spanish - that it was appropriate to have been doing out-of-class. When I was involved in instrumental music, you bet I spent hours practicing every day - I had to. But homework for the lower grades, aside from reading, is ... marginally useful. I guess if you are not functional enough to keep up with the class, outside work is needed. But on a mandatory, every night basis for everyone across the board? No, I think it's pointless.

There are tons of ways to learn to budget your time. Using "homework" after a 10 or 12 hour day at school and before and afterschool care, as the mechanism for teaching time management - if it were me, I'd use something that would not make my kids hate schoolwork, instead.

Very strong yes, here.

I just also believe that instead of being handed a packet of nearly identical problems we should give kids a small handful of truthfully challenging problems per week, in lieu of the -weekly- tests I had to endure in public school.

>99% of people can not get through college without studying. If you do not learn the single most important thing that public school has to teach you (there is benefit with playing along, even if it seems as stupid as *expletive deleted*) then you will fall flat on your face when you get to college and realize that you were wrong when you thought classwork was below you.

I survived public school solely on tests, which were 70% of the grade. I got a 70% in most of my classes. It made my early years in college be a waste to all but learning that basic skill that high school was supposed to teach us - that even hard work is easy enough so that begrudging it is a fool's decision.

I say no homework should not be given especially when we are taking about several hours worth of homework. While homework can help sometimes it is just as important to allow children and teens a break from school. I remember from fourth grade and up I had tons of homework and it really stressed me out because I wanted to have fun and relax.

...same here.

I voted no from my own experience but it may depend on the student. In any case, homework should not be a significant fraction of grades, especially if students want to work (or need to in order to pay tuition) while they are not in the school. What should they do then? Take drugs so they don't get any sleep?

For me, homework always interfered with special interest and other things I actually learned more from. It "ruined" or displaced fun from vacations. Besides, people go to school to learn and job to work and go home or vacation to relax.

If special interest counted as extracurricular or extra credit and it was a graded as an alternative to homework, and the school has science fair (mine didn't) and things like that, then that would be better. It never made sense to me that "playing sports" was any more worthy of academic recognition, especially sports scholarships. There's always a game on a field somewhere with a ball and two teams and a score, and that's all I ever needed to know about sports.

If students have a special interest in video games, which even Obama thinks is a waste of time, I disagree in the case where a student is actually creating video games, because there is hardly a more advanced and complex use for a computer especially in the case of simulations. Game Guru Andre Lamothe agrees with me that most professional programmers are not anywhere near skilled enough to create a video game, and those who are skilled enough find all other algorithms trivial and boring, and it is a special interest which is not correctly taught in any school. As far as this applies to myself, I'd use this as an example: What school of aeronautics did the Wright Brothers get their aerospace engineering degrees and pilot's licenses from?

When I was in school I had a chronic "dog ate my homework syndrome" because I was too busy doing more important things and it is even more clearly obvious to everyone now than when I was in school that what I was doing instead of homework was indeed more important. Had I not done other things instead of homework, then my primary school education would have prepared me for nothing more than flipping burgers and offering freedom fries ( + ) with that. Although I might be as obscure as Philo Farnsworth, these are probably the things that I will be remembered for:
-1.Being the first, as far as I know, to build a real, working, 3D projection system for digital video which displays into empty air, which, since the real world IS in 3D, is actually simpler and less costly than most modern 2D displays, and doing so before anyone I know had an HDTV or had seen one.
-2.Being the first, as far as I know, to create a form of digital sound, first without storage media, before anyone had ever bought a music CD, and the very point of my digital sound without storage media was to "synthesize" it automatically and perpetually rather than playback recordings of it. (What I really did was make a synthesizer without knowing that synthesizers are NOT usually able to compose and play automatically like mine do.)
-3.In a time when computers had robotic voices if they could talk at all, I programmed the voice of myself and my friends into a computer, so that the computer could speak with text-to-speech human voice. This may actually be the most significant and well known because I actually sold a significant quantity of portable speaking devices using this technology which I invented in 10th grade of high school and in spite of my not being social at that time, there is a joke comment about my talking computers in my school yearbook.
Although #3 has a little fame, #1 and #2 are potentially greatly more world-changing,
and extremely rare is anyone else who can even today understand how they work,
especially with parts that were readily available over 30 years ago.

It is my impression that if I were in high school now, not only would it be more hell than it used to be, but there would be no chance whatsoever - no freedom - no time allowed - for me to accomplish anything so unique as these and other things I did when I really was in school. It is my impression that schools are now run like prisons, and anything that is not expressly permitted is prohibited. I could be misinformed, but assuming I'm not, I'd like to cuss the teachers unions for exploitation and abuse and corruption and for not teaching any useful skill beyond flipping burgers.

Is hacking grounds for expulsion now? My "great inventions" are examples of "hacking".
The only time I almost got in trouble for hacking was programming the library computer to play rock music half a period after I left the library - in 1984! - had anyone ever even played rock music on a computer before then? There were no ipods or mp3's yet! My friend who had a real IBM PC ... I might have made the first sound card for it!

How many schools have wood and metal shop today? If you are graduating without taking wood and metal shop, you were cheated by your school and probably will be flipping burgers next summer! I'm sure the teacher's union would rather you be uneducated than god forbid they get sued for the consequences of failing to teach the safety issues inherent in a productive skill.

To hell with homework! I just remembered that when I graduated, I celebrated by throwing all my graded homework into a campfire!
Why not MAKE SOMETHING WORTHWHILE instead?

Well, that's all I wrote.

I found most homework in school to be a complete waste of time. I thought they gave it to us so they could control how we use our time out of school as well as in, something I thought was wrong since I believed, and still believe, once a student leaves school, they are free citizens to do as they wish.

The only homework I found all that relevant was stuff like doing research papers or reading assignments, which couldn't be covered in class. Other than that, it was all just busywork. I also thought teachers assigning TV shows to watch was stupid too. It never happened to me thank goodness, but it happened to my sister many times.

I don't think I'd like today's schools, they probably want more control than they did when I was growing up, and don't forget the other students I was forced to be incarcerated with on a daily basis, as well as the selectively enforced rules.

When I think of 'homework' what comes to mind is tedious worksheets or sets of math problems all pretty much alike. I refused to do these things. I did not need the redundant 'practice' to learn the things the homework was supposed to teach. Either I had already learned it and the homework was a boring waste of time, or I had failed to learn it and could not correctly do the homework. Either way, a frustrating waste of my valuable time.

Mostly it was the former and mostly I got poor grades while getting As on the tests. This infuriated me. I had learned what I was supposed to learn, and was simply being punished for not wasting my time with homework. And I'd get punished twice, at school and again at home when the report cards came.

There were some 'homework' things that were worthwhile, and I did them, and did well with them. The readings. Papers and creative writing stuff. Preparing presentations. Making models. One actually learns something doing that stuff. I think a school that extends a 'no homework policy' so far that it excludes things like that would be making a mistake. Especially since that'd probably mean that the school would devote class-time to doing the same stuff, which means limited time to work and probably too many group projects, two factors that'd make it much harder for an aspie kid to shine.

Heh. I suppose I did learn 'time management.' It's just that I got punished for managing my time such that I didn't waste it on useless repetition.

Funny, by the time I got to college, it worked in a sane way -- repetion-type homework never counted for the grade, it was just a way to get practice if you need it and to check that you really knew stuff before the finals. I did it when I thought I needed it and didn't do it otherwise and got enough feedback from instructors to learn to tell the difference.

Yeah, let's coddle them even more. Let's give them even more concessions. Great idea...

Oh, since somewhere around the late 80's we've been raising a generation of lazy, coddled, excuse making crybabies. Now we don't want to give them homework? LOL! Poor them...they really need that extra hour to play video games and look up porn on the internet. Give me a break.

When I was in elementary/middle school I was in the advanced classes and played on a traveling baseball team that went all around the country. My grades were top notch. I still had all the time in the world to do anything I wanted....WITH a ton of homework. I managed. They can manage.

I didn't have to walk to school uphill both ways in 2 feet of snow, though.

Hey, glad to hear you didn't have to endure the snow

First of all, we're speaking in general, all kids. Not coddling because of special needs; thinking of what is best for all young kids.

Second of all, what my son does with his free time is hardly a waste. He is an inventor by nature, and when he has free time he builds prototypes. Usually games, because he's at the age where that is still what he knows best, but it is a very intellectual process, and everyone in his life believes this is where his future will be. We sell him the value of language arts, etc., by reminding him he'll have to write business plans and proposals, or understand licensing agreements, etc. Everything has to connect to the future he sees for himself. Inventing is where he gets validation, and how he defines his self worth. This is no minor part of who he is nor of who he will be. And, yet, with homework that is averaging 2 hours a day, he hasn't completed a single prototype since the summer.

Tonight people want me to attend a meeting that will have a huge effect on the future of our middle school. But I can't go. Why? Because I know that my son has a very difficult assignment due tomorrow and he will never, never get through it without my support. He's in way over his head, and I'm not about to let him drown. The homework is not only tying HIM down, but it is also tying ME down. Just let him sink, you say. Except it seems ALL of the parents are helping the kids. It is actually EXPECTED. I've even talked to the teacher about it; she WANTS the parents to have to help the kids. Great, eh? It's totally sinking our family - the whole family. It's THAT bad. Why am I being assigned homework? Didn't I graduate a few decades ago?

I really don't recall having 2 hours a day (including weekends) of homework in 6th grade. Despite being in advanced classes. Do you?

Third, even our elementary school principal would agree that 80% of homework is a waste of time. It goes out because PARENTS want it, because PARENTS think it will further education. The question behind this thread involves elementary school, and I answered in kind. Middle school is different, homework isn't driven by the parent's there, but it's still driven by things that make no sense, and it's assigned in levels beyond what is needed.

Fourth, some AS kids have real co-morbids that affect their ability to get the work out. My son does. It takes him 4 times as long as other kids to write a paragraph - PHYSICALLY write. Or type. Generating a 1 page paper, even if all the ideas are in his head, is a 4 hour project. It's CRAZY. I DO want him to get past that, and I know practice can take him from 4 times as long down to 2 times as long, but right now it's insane.

Fifth, studies are showing that boys are falling behind in school. All boys. EVERYTHING has become writing. Even MATH is all about writing. And boys acquire writing skills at a later age than girls do. It's DEVELOPMENTAL, and the science has proved it. Yet everything is paced for the girls. Which means the boys fall behind, get frustrated, give up.

EVERY CHILD deserves to succeed. It's magic once a child believes he can succeed. Studies prove that, as well - just how much perception affects performance. Kids need to SEE success, not just be told it's expected.

You are still new to all of this. I'm not. I've been deeply immersed in education issues, what the studies are saying, and more for the past 7 years. In high school you need homework. In middle school you need some. But what you don't need is what these kids are currently getting.

i think you can't make a generic yes or no answer on this............for some kids, it is totally appropriate to give them a reasonable amount of homework-it helps reinforce the lessons learned during the day...........for other kids, however, homework is too much- just the task of socializing all day is too much.
my son he was in a therapeutic school from grades 8-10. while he was there, he did not have homework. just trying to make it through the day somedays was too much. son has transitioned to a regular high school now. he has homework that he is supposed to do. most of it , he does. we are working on trying to get him to totally complete all the homework.
for son, the adjustment between no homework & lots of homework has gone well.

When I went through teacher training at the University, it was pretty much acknowledged that - for the lower grades - "worksheet drill" style homework was useless except in the cases of those kids who learned almost solely through repetition (and that a lot - if not most - of them don't). You either understand it or you don't when you walk out of the room for the day. If you don't, doing repetitious exercises is pointless - you have no idea what it is you are doing. If you already understand the material, doing repetitious exercises is pointless - you don't remember it "more" because you "do it" more. If we're talking practicing handwriting or some other non-intellectual task, that's one thing. But fill-in-the-blank worksheets taken directly from the book and pages of drills? Pointless.

There is a branch of pedagogy that does believe homework's useful - you first encounter the material in the classroom and then later in the day you are to revisit it via the assignments. The problem is, the way most of it is revisited is the traditional "worksheet", and that takes you back to the first paragraph.

I had enough homework, at the elementary level, where I got home, had a half-hour to play, then had to come in and start. We'd break for supper, then I'd continue until bedtime. I believe I got home (it's been a really long time) at about 3:30pm, and went to bed at 8:00. Extra work was assigned on weekends because we had more time. Same with the holidays. We had reading lists that we were to do over the summers as well - at least six book reports due on the first day of school. I had severe digestive disorders due to stress. From the second grade onwards.

When we moved to another state and I entered a public school, I was two years ahead of what they were doing - literally, the quality of the class material was two years ahead. So, I went into the 6th grade in the new place and coasted for a few years. When I hit high school, I signed up for every advanced class they had (sans math), plus Latin and Spanish, and instrumental music. The symphony and band practiced two hours a day, before and/or after school. I went home and had several hours of homework as well - most of it by rote worksheets. I learned tons and got rotten grades, because what they were presenting and how it was presented bored me. I had the textbooks finished after the first few weeks of class, then read on the outside on my own. I came out of school with a tremendously good education - but the school didn't actually give it to me. Immaturity? You betcha. I never have quite been able to master that.

It's not the amount of time that's important, it's the tasks being performed. A good 20 minute thoughtfully-constructed exercise was more beneficial to me than 2 hours of "worksheet" drills. At all stages of my education. But before slamming the teacher, one has to remember that it takes extra time to construct those on an individual basis. And they're more difficult and time-consuming to grade. Multiply that by 30 kids per room - there wasn't time, when I student taught, to do more than 5 minutes' direct time per kid in a classroom in a day - if nobody had a tantrum, no fire drills, they all kept up with the lessons, etc. I got there at 6:30 in the morning and left at 6:00pm at night. That was just doing the "state mandated" tasks. The public system isn't designed for customization - it's designed to shove as many kids through with a minimal standard of education that is basically the same for each kid. If you're in an area where the kids are relatively well off and the parents are well educated, the kids tend to do better. If not, well, you just try to meet the state requirements. The system is just not designed to do what one might hope it could. You have to work around it, sadly, to get where you (or your kid(s)) need to go.

Last edited by Nan on 02 Dec 2008, 3:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Absolutely.

Unfortunately, most of my son's homework seems to be closer to worksheet drills.

And the few parts that are creative or interesting tend to be graded partly on "artistic merit" (specifically referring to illustrations, color and graphics), which I find totally inappropriate for a language arts class.

I remember, in my freshman class in college composition, that I was asked to write a short story. I did so - in a "slice of life" style. It was graded and returned to me with a "C-" and a "this story has no plot." Uh huh. I had to explain what "slice of life" style was to the instructor, and show several examples in literature (there's James Joyce, for starters). And, although I couldn't argue much at the time, I did manage do blurt out that if they wanted a particular style of writing they needed to delineate that when the assignment was made. (It hadn't been.) Ended up dropping the class.

In high school I had an art project. We were told we had free reign as to how and what we did. I did an impressionistic 3-D piece using found objects. It was returned with a "D" grade by the teacher (the SOCIAL STUDIES teacher) who told me it wasn't "art." I had to bring in books full of "famous" people who worked in that style - which the teacher then grudgingly admitted existed. He changed my grade to a B+.

But, the question remains - as it does in your statement - who the heck are they to think that they're experts in much of anything? Sorry, but I went through teacher training and know the quality of the general teaching pool out there from direct interaction, research, and having watched in fascinated horor - we're not talking renaissance scholars here. They've, on the whole, got nothing to back up any sort of justification of them being able to judge "artistic merit." If they want to delineate what's expected, they can judge against that. But "artistic merit" is so tremendously subjective that it doesn't belong in a classroom. Even an arts one.