Poll: "There should be NO homework" A petition to get rid of homework in schools.

[scorptatious]

This is kind of an unintentional follow up to my thread about the grading system.

So anywho, I was looking up websites to help me out with an essay I'm working on when I found this:

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/theendofhomework/

All I've got to say is, REALLY?? I don't know about you guys but a lot of these "arguments" are pretty flawed. How is having a parent sign a slip while a kid goes out and kicks a ball going to improve their grades in school? The statement the author makes about how he does his homework fast so he can sleep doesn't help his case much either.

What do you guys think?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

The terrible grammar on that petition tells me that this kid should be getting MORE homework.

 

[tomtom94]

If you don't get homework, you have to go to school on weekends instead.

Simple.

Also, is it really THAT bad? I have the work ethic of a lazy chimpanzee and I'm currently not exactly drowning in homework...

 

[Lilani]

And how are kids supposed to learn responsibility and accountability if they're never given any responsibilities or held accountable for anything? I mean sure, 8 hours of homework a day is probably a bit excessive. But life after grade school only gets harder, and the learning curve is much less forgiving.

Also, according to that awful spelling and grammar, the person who wrote that couldn't be too far out of grade school themselves. Boy, are they in for a surprise. I mean really, why on EARTH would you make a claim that kids are better off without homework if you can't even present yourself as a well-educated individual?

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

What do you guys think?

Idiots telling idiots how to be idiots.

I can understand the kids point of view, I had the very same. But now I see homework in a different light and know that I have to do it. Sadly, pretentious parents who think their kids are too smart to be doing homework don't know this.

 

[Sorafrosty]

For some reason, I enjoy my homework. It gives me a perfect opportunity to prepare myself for class the next day, and rewrite my notes so that, come exam time, I will not have to write them all again

 

[Mr Montmorency]

I prefer to keep my work environment and my rest environment seperate. I picked maybe, as homework should only exist for dumb morons, and not the people who are on top of their work. It's a waste of free time.

Only a handful of jobs have work at home, so don't play that card either. that's not even mentioning that homework shouldn't be used as justification for that.

It's a shame that every fucking kid is an idiot who wouldn't learn shit without homework, cause it's ruining it for the rest of them.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

This is why they need to have an Internet Licence.

 

[Mozared]

Bit of a horror, the original petition, but that doesn't change the fact that he does have a point. One of the biggest problems with our educational system is that we do not educate the things the children are interested in - we educate the stuff WE think THEY should know. I do really recognize his argument about just wif-waffing your homework so you can go do something else (sleep, in his case). You can't really force 80% of someone's life to be about something he doesn't give a shit about and expect everything to work out fine.

Of course though, the problem isn't exactly homework - it's the way the whole system works more than anything else.

 

[sms_117b]

I used to feel the same, then I found out teachers also hate homework because they have to mark it.

It could be reduced, maybe for kids in lower skill groups/sets, or have multiple targets set, like say do a minimum of q's 1 - 5 max q's 1 - 15 so you can choose how much you do but not doing it all will impact you final result.

I'm still in Uni, I don't love homework, but I do enjoy reading around my subject bolstering my knowlege and answering some questions and going through derivations makes me feel good. Especially when I'm right and the text book is wrong, next print out a certain text might be having my derivation not the original whoop!

 

[MassiveGeek]

I have a different view on this...

In our school, we get a lot of small homework. You know, tiny little assignments that no one actually gathers anything valuable from, that most even forget or ignore because it seems utterly pointless?

Get rid of that. I go a course where we bring up a certain topic of discussion, we research it and discuss it and go through it - then we're given a slightly bigger assignment on that topic(usually to answer a particular question or just to say what we thought about it).
This I think is much better, it gives you opportunity to summarize what you've learned and you can process it a lot better because it's not a HUGE chunk of work at once, but it's not so spread out that you can miss vital and important parts of it.

So go with like one slightly bigger homework, so they can process what they learn easily: not to small bites so it goes out in the sand, but not to much at once that they'll be overwhelmed.

 

[El Poncho]

Homework helps you revise the stuff you learned from school at home, it's like preparing you for revising on your own when you get higher up in education.

 

[s0m3th1ng]

If only homeschooling didn't, in general, leave the child a social mess... I was fortunate to live right by the school so I'd time my breaks with their recess.

 

[Exterminas]

Repetition and practice are the keys to long lasting knowledge. Homework is a easy way to do that. But of course it has to be good homework. Meaning that it should offer a variety in difficulty, to allow a pupil to self-check his level of understanding.

It should not be a monotonous grind on one difficulty level. Boring the good students, intimidating the bad ones.

 

[X123Lewis123X]

i admit i get a bit much homework, but im fine with it (exept from when i get 5 essays for the same day :S).

I would like a little less homework, but i dont find it bad enough for them to remove it altogether. It proves that you were paying attention in class and not just twiddling your thumbs.

 

[Jarcin]

The one thing I HATE about what I have experience in college is the LACK of homework. Ok yes I have the "do this discussion once a week" but that doesn't help me! I absolutely ADORED homework because it MADE ME learn the stuff. I have learned less because of the lack of homework simply because it isn't repeated into my head over and over.

inb4 "Are you really complaining about NOT having homework"/"Dude how do you have no homework"

 

[Scarim Coral]

Quite frankly no they shouldn't get rid of homework. If that were to happen, they will be unprepare or approach slowly to let say writing a Assignment in College/University.
Homework never bother me as in I go home, take a small break when I back, go up to my room to do my homework. Once that is done, it's game and tv time. Sure some homework were hard but it's like a self taught lesson on commintment, disipline and learning.

 

[Signa]

I don't know how your schools were, but in mine, homework was about 90% useless. I don't think there should be NO homework, but every day I'd get sent home with some "fun" worksheet that I never learned anything from. It was all just time wasting. There were a few times where we obviously needed the work at home, but I know my 10th grade English teacher expected 2 hours of work every day after class copying dictionary definitions down. Having the above average vocabulary that I do, it was near impossible to even find a word worth looking up.

 

[Dexiro]

Their are problems with the educational system but homework isn't one of them, as long as you're not being given a zillion hours of homework every day.

I usually get 2 hours of homework a week or something, I think that's fairly reasonable.

 

[Eumersian]

The terrible grammar on that petition tells me that this kid should be getting MORE homework.

I whole-heartedly agree. What is that garglemesh. Also, the only reason I've stayed up all hours an not gotten enough sleep because of homework was because I spent most of the day dicking around and procrastinating. It's not the homework's fault.