Comment by ktsmith | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ktsmith | Hacker News Reader

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Teachers often have no say in wether homework is assigned. The district in which my wife teaches and my son attends had a mandatory homework policy put in place by the school board. In addition to mandating that homework be assigned Monday through Thursday they specify that it should contain at least 10 minutes of reading per grade level (10 for k, 20 for 1st, 30 for 2nd, etc) as well as additional materials for other subjects. The homework load for my son has been as little as 20 minutes per night as his teachers and administrators feel the same way about homework as you but are forced to assign it. My niece and nephew also attend school in this district but at a different school. Their homework averages between 45 minutes and 90 minutes. Their principle mandates additional homework on top of the boards mandate. The new board has since voted to change this policy and leave the decision on homework up to each schools administration meaning there will be wildly different policies at different schools and still likely not within the teachers control.

"reading" is technically homework but not the kind of homework that education researchers are opposed to. The bad kind of homework is loaded down worksheets and projects that are high-stakes (perform or fail) and prone to cheating. Telling students to read has none of these problems, it's purely for the student's benefit and has no penalty attacked.

In this case the reading is in addition to other homework. So if you are in 3rd grade you are expected to read for 40 minutes and also complete some other tasks. This might be math worksheets, projects or something else. So for my child for example he was getting homework that took about 20 minutes in addition to his required 40 minutes of reading. My niece would routinely have 90 minutes of homework in addition to her 40 minutes of reading and her brother would have usually around 40 minutes of homework on top of his 60 minutes of reading. I'm not sure when they are expected to go outside and play or do their other after school activities with a full day of school and all the additional work at home.

> it should contain at least 10 minutes of reading per grade level

Dear god, by the time a kid is in grade 5 or 6 they've lost an hour a night to reading alone. In my experience homework was rarely of use - the in class practice was enough, and home time was for the fun you didn't have while in school.

What homework does is lets the school tell parents, "Your kid's test scores may suck, but you can see that we are trying everything that we can."

In other words, they prioritize visible effort over achieved results.

Yup "we're sapping the joy of life from your kid, clearly their not learning isn't OUR problem".

By the time they're in high school, they'll be doing more reading per night than I was doing while working on my master's.

After devoting so much time to education theater, do the kids even have any energy leftover to put into actual learning?

When did reading become "education theater" ?

I hope your master wasn't in statistics, because you made a poor extrapolation from data.

Reading that's strictly there because you have to isn't going to engender a love of reading, it's going to smother it. I also doubt that it'll be effective at teaching the skill of reading - it'll be works that ignored from those who don't care to do it.

I read because I loved it and was exposed to it at a young age from home, not because school required me to read.

For that matter, it's not that I'm opposed to asking the kids to spend time reading. It's an excess of assigned reading as homework that seems worrisome to me, precisely because it might mean that the only exposure some kids get to reading is a bunch of crap busywork reading. As soon as you start regimenting a thing like this, you suck all the joy out of it.

What if, instead, schools simply set aside a chunk of time out of the school day for reading, maybe 15 minutes, maybe 30, and leave it entirely up to the individual kids to decide what it is that they read?

As the parent of a smart 10 year old with ADHD, homework has actually been invaluable. We use the larger assignments to help him learn to manage his time and attention level. For example, we take a 5 minute scooter break after 20 minutes of work. For very large assignments, we also break things up into manageable chunks.

The homework is also very useful to have a chance to review topics and ensure understanding of things that maybe he missed in class due to not paying as close attention as he needed to.

It's been very gratifying to see his confidence levels improve and for him to start to self-manage his time or even decide to skip a scooter break because he was on a roll.

Clearly all of these are probably ancillary to the stated purpose of homework and are my own specific situation.

I wouldn't say they're ancillary, most of what you said is the claimed benefit of homework (regardless of the correctness of that claim). I'd say you're mostly using the homework as a guide for tutoring, which isn't something that actually requires homework to be assigned by the school if you're willing to be proactive.

Some parents need a little nudge to support their children's education beyond "school is daycare while I work".

I wonder how many actually bridge that gap - if education is just something to keep a kid occupied, homework will be same, I'm sure.

You aren't going to find a lot of overlap between homework being done and turned in and parents that view school as daycare.

As every parent learns, there is no shortage of assholes who are quick to explain how you are doing it wrong. No matter how you parent, someone thinks that they know better and has no trouble explaining that in an insulting tone.

Thank you for being a case in point. It doesn't matter what else I do, (see http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2012/10/my-sons-flashcard-routi... for example), I can always be accused of being lazy from the peanut gallery.

More practically speaking, most parents do not have the breadth of knowledge to spontaneously tutor their kids in every subject. Homework can provide fodder for parents to engage with their children on academic subjects the parent might not know well, or might not think to bring up.

I know some people are taking offense to your comment, but the reality is that even parents who very much wish to be involved in their child's education often need a nudge on what, exactly, to talk about.

Even parents who home-school their kids usually buy academic materials to use for this reason.

As the parent of a smart 13 year old with somewhat serious ADHD and a complex home environment (divorced, remarried, 2 houses, multiple children around), homework has been an unmitigated disaster. The best thing about his going on an IEP was that we could get a no homework policy for him. This immediately improved his grades, reduced stress, and made his attitude towards school improve.

So mileage does vary on these things. By a lot.

Are you saying that exposing a child to a complex home environment has 0 impact on their ability to complete homework at home?

No, and I have no idea why you would extrapolate that from what I said.

I listed factors that will make homework harder for him. He is older, so more homework. A complex home environment, so harder to stay organized and consistent. More children, dividing parental attention. The more serious that ADHD is, the harder that staying on task becomes.

Put it all together, and homework becomes a lot bigger issue for him than it is for a normal child.

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