Hacker News Reader

Comment by wrp | Hacker News Reader

Does pedagogy have established and verified methodology that will result in a completely PHYSICALLY developed student, if only the student does the EXERCISE as prescribed? No, but we still see the value in physical activity to promote healthy development.

> many things we were forced to do in school were not helpful at all

I've never had to do push-ups since leaving school. It was a completely useless skill to spend time on. Gym class should have focused on lifting bags of groceries or other marketable skill.

View on HN

Things like gym classes are often justified based on "teaching healthy habits". That doesn't appear to work. You did stop the pushups. So did I.

Which doesn't mean I'm against physical activities in school, but educationally, it does appear to be a failure.

But at the time it did contribute at least somewhat to your physical condition, I am not an expert, but physical condition indicators like VO2 max seem to be the best predictors of intelligence. We're all physical beings at the end of the day

Sure, but you're creating a new goal post, which is entirely different than the stated justification.

You haven't proved that it made a difference or that doing something else wouldn't have been as or more effective, which is my point. You did it, so these students must do it, with no other rationale than that.

You have forgotten that pedagogy is based on science and research. That is why it is effective for the masses. Anecdotal evidence will never refute the result. Take learning to read, for example. While you can learn to read in a number of ways, some of which are quite unusual, such as memorising the whole picture book and its sound, research has clearly shown that using the phonics approach is the most effective. Or take maths. It's obvious that some people are good at maths, even if they don't seem to do much work. But research has shown time and time again that to be good at maths you need to practice, including doing homework.

So learning to recognise the phonics and blend them together may not be better for one pupil, but it is clearly better for most. This is what the curriculum and most teachers' classroom practice is all about.

"Although some studies have shown various gains in achievement (Marzano & Pickering, 2007), the relationship between academic achievement and homework is so unclear (Cooper & Valentine, 2001) that using research to definitively state that homework is effective in all contexts is presumptive."

American Secondary Education 45(2) Spring 2017 Examining Homework Bennett

About a decade ago, it was a hot fashion in Education schools to argue that homework did not promote skill development. I don't know if that's still the case, as fashions in Education can change abruptly. But consider what this position means. They are saying "practice does not improve skill", which goes completely against the past century or so of research in psychology.

If your field depends on underpowered studies run by people with marginal understanding of statistics, you can gather support for any absurd position.

> They are saying "practice does not improve skill", which goes completely against the past century or so of research in psychology.

You haven't made the argument that what they are practicing is valuable or effective.

I'm sure they get better at doing homework by doing a lot of homework, but do they develop any transferable skills?

It seems you are begging the question here.

To conclude for yourself, just compare the PISA result of the US and other developing country like VietNam or China, where they still keep the school tradition of homework and practice alive. And what do we see? Much higher PISA scores in math than the US. I refuse to believe some some folks have a "math gene" and other not.

Practice does not improve skills? You got to be kidding me! I didn't state that homework is effective in all contexts, but I firmly believe that practice is absolute necessary to improve any kind of skill. Some forms of practice is more effective than other in certain context. But you need practice to improve your skills. Otherwise, how do you propose to improve your skills? Dreaming?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com