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Comment by slothtrop | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like the obsession with perpetually-scheduled competitive sports could be just as easily identified as a problem. Intramurals are an option, and immigrant parents who place a larger premium on academic performance like to opt for that instead. That aside, a rec league is, what, 2 nights a week? No reason to believe that paired with homework would lead to burnout.

Math and reading takes practice. That's what homework is. The top performing countries don't do any differently. It's interesting that there are people who worry about the quality of public education being under attack by Republicans, but embrace these non-evidence-based ideas for education reform that ultimately will only benefit the upper class.

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It's a huge problem, driven by silly college admissions practices. The top performing countries do not give a shit about your state lacrosse team medal when deciding who gets to enrol in a physics degree.

My cousins got into Harvard based on their expertise in squash. Period.

The fact that they were really smart was just the table stakes.

> Math and reading takes practice. That's what homework is. The top performing countries don't do any differently.

Is it actually proven that homework helps with anything? For elementary school at least.

Reading perhaps. Math, when there's no parent at home capable of properly explaining it if the kid gets stuck, doesn't sound like a very productive use of time.

Yes, homework helps.

Are you aware of any skill where practice isn’t necessary?

There is research in this area [0] so feel free to check it out.

Of course practicing math helps. Parents help too, but working on problems at home to find areas that need help and then working with the teacher helps as well.

I don’t think you need hours and hours, but the goal of homework is to reinforce the lesson, practice, and show mastery of the material and areas to work on before the exam.

[0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/003465430760010...

> I don’t think you need hours and hours, but the goal of homework is to reinforce the lesson, practice, and show mastery of the material and areas to work on before the exam.

I was under the impression that, before a certain age it was basically a cargo-cult because the assigned work is generally repetitive, busywork or not graded at all.

"generally repetitive, busywork "

I still learn a lot as an adult using this antiquated, antideluvian method.

If you read the paper I referenced you can correct your impression. (Tldr there’s still a statistically significant improvement in elementary school, but it’s less so than in higher grades)

> Math, when there's no parent at home capable of properly explaining it if the kid gets stuck, doesn't sound like a very productive use of time.

It lets the teacher know how well students understand a concept so they can spend more time teaching it, or get a student extra help at school.

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