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Should Homework be Banned?
Filed under: In The News
Lets hope so! Your kids will be happy! Credit: Getty Images
CBS New York reports a New Jersey mother sent an e-mail plea to fellow parents in Maplewood and South Orange, N.J., to join her in a crusade to get rid of homework.
And she's not alone. The channel says Sy Fliegel, of the Center for Educational Innovation, says heaps of homework isn't helpful.
"It's like someone saying to you too much food is no good for you, what's the solution? Let's not eat anything," Fliegel tells CBS. "What has to happen is more attention has to be paid to the quality of the homework assignment."
Fliegel suggests schools implement homework guidelines: 10 minutes in first grade, 20 minutes in second grade, for example, with a max of two hours for high schoolers.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
5-23-2011 @ 4:09PM
Tina said...Yes cause in college thats all the homework they'll be getting... Come on now, better to prepare your students for the Real world while there under your roof then letting them go off and fail bc they didnt have the means to cope with what there getting...
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5-23-2011 @ 6:59PM
sonja said...in college they don't have all of the sports and extracurricular activities that they have in high school - college is the time for work outside of the classroom - I know high school students that don't go to bed until after midnight almost every night because of sports and homework, most of which is "busy" work...keep homework simple and to the point!
5-23-2011 @ 6:58PM
dougalcandy said...I wouldn't abolish HW all together, but there should be some limit. No student should have to sit for hours and hours till past midnight to get assignments done. I remember even being in elementary school in the 70's and crying because some nights homework was endless--and I was a top student! There has to be some time for play, family time, and for high school students, time for a job so that they can afford to go to college. And I remember being in college, and my daughter is now in college--yes there is work, but they also have plenty of time for fun and activities. The way to instill love of learning in students is not to overload them to the point that they will hate school forever.
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5-23-2011 @ 8:57PM
isisreptiles said...I had a similar homework experience attending elementary school in the early 60s. I was so overburdened with homework that some nights I had no time for anything else. The only thing that accomplished was to cause me to have a lifelong hatred of school and academics which continues to this day.
A limited amount of homework is OK, but kids need time for other activities, and they need down time. They spend all day in school and to expect them to spend hours doing homework is very unfair.
5-24-2011 @ 10:11AM
Kristen said...I think homework is almost laughable until high school and then their should be a limit. Most people work an 8hr day, why on earth would you require a kid to attend school for 6hrs a day and then add homework to that........when do they have a chance to be kids. If the schools cannot start cutting class room sizes and start letting kids be kids then we are in for even more trouble as a country. I would love to see a country that values creative thinking and problem solving skills, well you can't really achieve that with 25-30 kids per class. Lets bring down class sizes to 10 MAYBE 12 kids and see what can be achieved. Until things change in our country and how we value education we will stick with homeschooling.
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5-24-2011 @ 12:40PM
K said...I graduated with my BA last week with honors and a 3.7 GPA. I did FAR less homework in college than I did in high school, mainly because in college work assigned outside the classroom is only work that actually contributes to learning and to the course. It's reading required materials, synthesizing ideas through response papers and term papers, etc - not the useless busy-work worksheets that were the hallmark of my high school assignments. I think time limits on homework for different grade levels makes sense - I know that it was EXCEEDINGLY rare for me to have 2 hours worth of work every night in college, unless it was midterms/finals time. Over the course of a week I might spend 3-4 hours per class on work outside the classroom, but not nightly.
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5-25-2011 @ 6:20PM
jankantius said...Bin teaching 38 years... w 2 masters early on... one in curriculum design and one in educational psych.. Most homework is crap, primarily designed to convince parents that their kids are on the road to achieving something. It's only possible justifications are as an augmentation to meaningful performance or as an opportunity to present unusual abilities... otherwise it is a nuisance to teachers and students alike. the probability is that 90% of it falls under the catagory of mindless nuisance. Teachers feel obliged to present it so that parents can nurture false hopes for their offspring.
True, the demonstration of compliance with meaningless demands will make some students appear to be desirable employees...BUT... it won't, as a generality, make them happier or help them feel more successful with their lives.
Remember "the medium is the message"? The message here is that mindless compiance with demands that serve no meaningful purpose just might make you a likely candidate for an administrative position somewhere down the road..
Pretty much most of us live under the thumbs of those who embrace mindless compliance.
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5-26-2011 @ 12:54AM
Rvetteman92 said...Home work should have a reason. 1. work not finished at school. 2. Study for a test, with parent help in quizing their student. 3. Into a new subject, practice problems, 4. Beyond a topic, reading novels, extra reading. No more than an hour a nite. Teachers should coordinate which nite of the week they give home work of the 4 types. Until America gives up the notion that every child will be educated in a way that allows them to go to college is a myth. In other countries, students take a test to see of they are allowed into high school. If not, it is off to some type of vocational program.
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5-28-2011 @ 6:46PM
Brittan said...I'm in high school and i would love to have only 2 hours of home work. it's the end of the year and i have at least 2 assinments due in all of my classes except for shop, and compared to some of my freinds i have it easy.
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6-02-2011 @ 12:00AM
Alex said...The problem with the 2 hours for high school is that teachers don't coordinate with each other on homework. While one teacher might think she isn't assigning much work it may be too much if the student has a paper and other homework on top of it. Plus, not having homework K-12, although it would be nice, does nothing for college. Students will be shellshocked with the amount of work if they are used to not getting much.
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6-02-2011 @ 6:53PM
Bernie said...I am a high-school student, and I do three sports, as well as excel in the IB program. The IB program is an international program which is ultra-accelerated, most people actually graduate with an associates degree straight out of high school. With intensely challenging courses, nightly homework to test the skills acquired during the day is a necessity. Often, I will get home at 6 and start my homework and studying. It is not unusual for me to go to bed at 1 or 2 in the morning, even without a test the next day. Although we I.B. kids get almost no sleep, we get a world class education, and that is worth the excessive work and studying. In gradeschool and middle school the homework should only be given to enrich the skills that the kids learned. However, in high school, that ideaology should be discarded, and the students should have intensely difficult tests, and a decent amount of homework (but no busy work, busy work at any point is useless and it weakens morale). The difficult tests, once a student fails his first, will learn to study and prepare for such assesments. This will begin to instill a work ethic that will benefit him through college and life.
All of that being said, I can't believe I just wrote a rant that supports homework, cause I hate it... ;P
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6-08-2011 @ 2:57PM
Kristen said...just because some kids who didn't recieve H.W. in high school or elementary does not mean they will automatically fail in college do what i do set up a shecdule & write down notes and use how u learn best by hearing, by using your hands or by pictures, homework is important as far as taking a test but if you're concern as any parent or a teacher is have do a hobby that is related to certain academics for example writing, painting or buying a science kit at a early age by the way i'm a college student as well.
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