What I think people don't take into account is that not every child is the same. For me, homework was a complete waste of time and I got through middle and high school without doing any of it. I frustrated my teachers cause I always aced my tests, I genuinely knew the material, but my homework grades were straight F's. Anything that took longer than what I could do on the bus ride home was left undone. (I had too much going on at home, school was the last thing on my mind once I got off that bus.) On the other hand, my best friend always went straight home and did her homework. Hearing the lesson the first time in class wasn't enough to get it in her head. She needed the reinforcement of doing it on her own to really understand everything. My first semester in college, all that not doing homework caught up with me though. I had absolutely no discipline wrt homework. It took a couple weeks to get used to, but it wasn't completely debilitating. My best friend friend jumped right into her first semester with no problems. So in that regard, I can see homework being necessary for all students, to establish those habits. But at the same time, it would have been really stupid (IMO and apparently my teachers agreed), to fail a student like me, when I knew just as much, and sometimes more than most students that did their homework.
My Chemistry Honors class game me homework today. All my other teachers seemed a bit more chill today.
having a lot of hw in high school taught me how to procrastinate and still finish/half-ass assignments under the gun and do just enough to get a decent grade. that helped in college. I was able to half-ass a lot of stuff and finish things that would normally take me 5 hours in 1-2 hours from 4-6 am. and in the work force, I have the confidence to know that i can get anything done that I need to get done. But you obviously can't carry those dumb habits over. Luckily, I didn't. So opinion? Yeah I think hw should stay. The # of hours is so arbitrary depending on intelligence that you can't really quantify it except to say that the large majority of students need X # of hours. Which would still leave a large # of people who have "too much" or "too little".
exactly...and thats fine students who ace their tests clearly know the material. honestly, i dont know why your teachers would get upset, the homeworks for reinforcement. if you dont need it and dont mind taking the grade hit...do as you please. its completely different to come in this thread as some have, and talk about how doing homework is only for people who want to attend an ivy league school.
ShadyPink, your situation sounds like what I went through. I aced my tests and got lazy doing homework, and my parents wondered why I did well in tests. The thing was that I knew the material, I just didn't do homework. Oh, well... I did well with a few B's the last couple of years and ended up in the top 20% of the class. Also, I noticed that the cousins who ended up 1 and 2 in the class ranking did horribly in their SATs, while I and others in the teens and 20's of the rankings did WAY better than them. To top it off, they dropped off from college, and I kept on and now I don't hear good things from them. We later found out that they were cheating off each other in homework and tests in high school. Silly rabbit girls, Trix are for kids.
I think she just paid attention during class. I did, too, and aced all my tests without having to do much homework... this happened in college, too. If you pay attention in class, you won't have trouble with homework, as the opening responses stated.
I don't know, when i was in hs, i took mostly AP classes but the regular classes i took were so easy you could literary put an ape in the class and he would pass. aside: I was a terrible student in middle school, i even made F's on occasion. It was all because i had two older brothers who told me that middle school didn't count for anything, which it doesn't atleast not as part of a permanent record. Because of that, i took regular classes my freshman year of high school. The whole deal with homework is that you are still a child in grade school. Teachers have to make things mandatory because they can't tell which ones are learning at what level. And i'm not buying that thing about test knowing everything if you ace the tests either. I aced Spanish I, II, and III, but still can only speak the language un poquito if any.
I was in HISD for middle and then GPISD for hs. I took all Vanguard classes in middle school. Which are obviously not on the same level as Vanguard classes in a better school district. I had the most difficult classes that were available to me. In high school, I took all regular courses because I was going to be the first in my family to even graduate (Hispanic.), so I figured I was doing enough just graduating and I had no one in my life pushing me to do more. My only concern was getting the diploma, which I did in three years instead of four. In all those years of school, the things that I actually had to learn (things that an ape couldn't do), I understood the first time they were explained to me. I NEVER needed to go home and look at a book or a worksheet to GET it. All of that, though, is completely irrelevant to what I said about every child being different. You are not going to get a class of students that all learn at the same pace and in the same way. What kaleidosky said was exactly right. Of course, people do that all the time. But like I said in my first post, I genuinely KNEW the material. You might only know Spanish at a basic level (speaking), but those three years of Spanish class should have given you a better grasp and deeper understanding of the language. You can chalk that disconnect up to a bad teacher/grading system/school district or whatever.
Testy? I wasn't discrediting your education or agreeing with Air Langhi. I was just slightly disagreeing with Swoly D. I was trying to make the point that paying attention in class and acing tests does not necessarily mean you fully understand the content. Which may or may not be important to some. Also, i sympathize with your family issues. I didn't live in the best studying environment either.
Sorry if you think I was being testy, but I really didn't intend any attitude. I like this topic cause I want to be a teacher. Really I just wanted to talk about myself. lol And address what you and Langhi said. Maybe I should have thrown a few smilies in there SwoLy style.
I think it's great that people are discussing solutions to the problem of education, instead of just pointing fingers. Well, in that case...you're halfway there!
I took enough AP classes to save me 2 quarter's worth in college. Homework is very necessary. Maybe not 4 hours worth, but practice makes perfect. It reinforces long term memory and helps sharpen study and work skills. How do I know? Because I didn't do enough in highschool....
I think thats part of the problem with education these days. I had so many teachers that taught straight from the textbook word for word, that we did more memorizing than actual learning.
For perspective, I was someone who breezed through grade school without doing much homework at home(gym class/lunch/bus is utilized for this) and still did fairly well... only to get totally screwed come college time with my inability to control study time vs. play time. That said, I think that it's not so much whether or not we have homework, but what KIND of homework we should have. Homework has some great uses, most noticeably for things where we need a lot of practice. Where there's zero chance of you learning the material if you don't practice yourself countless times. I think many math and science classes, especially at the higher level, really requires practice in order to acquire understanding. Homework can also allow us to do critical analysis, like in History. Sometimes it's the questions that are asked following the reading of facts which really get you to understand about history. OTOH, memorizing facts for the sake of easy multiple choice questions on test, IMO, is absolutely, utterly pointless.
