less homework the better?

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When we went to open house this week for my son the Teachers gave us some stuff to take home for us to study and understand. this year our school/district is adapting the less homework the better policy. thru extensive research they have found that homework is not benefiting children. basically the amount of homework they thougth once was the best is no longer thought to benefit children. they have shown thru research that it did not help children with test scores, or learn any more or better. the article stated that children are tramutized by the over load of homework and it stated that it put more stress on a family. it stated that children who have learning issues were effected even more and how it soured them for future years of education. my mother in law BLEW up when she read the info that came home. she felt it was crap.. I think that if the school adapted this policy then it should be for something.. a theory of a teacher who has 2 children who had tons of homework every night said that if you have a job do you feel the need to take a dinner break and then go back to work for the night? really it would be called child labor.. the article stated that children should not be expected to be in school for 6 hours, after school care for 2-3 hours then sit down for another 2-3 hours. the article stated that children are being forced to choose after school activity or hours worth of homework. they stated that children are not geared for this. and we are forcing them to be this way. i thought it was very interesting.. I wondered if any other parents feel the same or how you feel about the tons of homework that is assigned to our children. i think in terms it helps some children with self discipline but i also see the harm it has done to my son who struggles just to sit still and learn.. my husband decided last year to quit his job so he could be at home to help Ryan with the hours of homework my 2-3rd grader had...

my son goes to a school with this philosophy as well~ i think it's great ! most homework is busy work...and if the parent is home helping the kid with their homework~is the kid really learning ? teachers should be able to address student issues during the school day.if a student doesn't understand the math, the teacher should be re-teaching it in a different way. there is so much repetition of subject in school that the students are already practicing the techniques they've learned

Homework was a bane of my existance from 1st grade to 11th grade. All my teachers before high school really bought into the whole "communicating with parents" thing. So it all felt like a conspiracy to make my life miserable. Every time I got anything lower than a B on my homework assignments, my parents would hear about it, and then there'd be hell to pay. So to avoid the constant punishments, I learned to lie, through years of trial and error. Now I can lie to just about anyone with a completely straight face: a stranger on the street, my family, professors, my supervisors at work, even police officers. So while I feel like my teachers and parents conspired to ruin education for me, I'm really glad I learned to lie. With the way the NT world is dead set against aspies, knowing how to lie bailed me out hundreds of times. I really feel that if the adults in my life were more lenient, I wouldn't be as good a liar as I am now, which would make it harder to get through life.

I don't believe I did a single assignment from 1st to 11th grade. My teachers just passed me because they didn't want to dealt with me 2 years in a row. Where was this policy when I was in school?

It's a good policy. The smarter kids should get the concepts, and the teachers can always work with those who don't.

I will make a bet that home school kids learn better and spend a hell of a lot less time
doing it. Thats not a slam of public education it a slam of the concept of a classroom
education. Lets be honest schools are baby sitters.

Well, I'm 36 years old, we didn't have take home work until I was in 3rd grade. We learned new things in class and went on to the next. We had to learn a lot in a very short time! Back then, we learned our alphabet in Kindergarten and how to read and print and do arithematic in 1st, cursive and times tables in 2nd. Now, you learn to read and write in Kindergarten, same expectations in math in 1st grade. But my son brings home tons of repetitive homework.
It repeats in class time too and one of his problems in school is the boredom. They sent home identical dittoes last week, I copied my son's writing and did them myself-he had already done the work. Instead, I have my own First Grade curricula and gave him new assignments from there.

I really believe in teaching to level and proficiency-not grades. My son is advanced in reading and math, but socially behind. He needs help with social skills and handwriting.

So, yeah, less homework. Learn faster, be more interested in the subjects!

Schools are useful for socialization, at least for "normal" children. I wouldn't want everyone to be like us, or we'd be less special.

Also, I like going to school, for the simple reason that it is a change of scenery. It's so modern and not closed in and clean.

No question there is pros and cons of schools. But the concept of a humanoid in the
front of a class running their mouths is largely unneeded. In theory at all the schools I was at you were not permitted to talk in class except in a very mechanical way. To the
teacher with permission. If you want a small group a kids to meet for variuos reasons
thats cool.

I once took a math lab course in which each student worked at his or her own pace and failed it miserably. I am too undisciplined to take a class without someone standing at the front of the room jibber-jabbering away, and with me taking notes. There's just no other way for me to learn about anything I'm not interested in.

Well what I have in mind is software (which likely does not exsist) that would do the
work of the teacher. Keeping you learning at all times. Forexample if it detected
you could not factor a certain polynomial type it would avoid that in other examples and
then go back to it at a better time. It would keep you working at a driven like a motor
pace. When it sence you were tire (via a eeg brainwaves) it would tell you get up drink
250 ml of Tang then jog in place for 5 minutes and take 5 minut bathroom break. Then It might switch subjects to English.

If a machine could do that, surely it could figure out a way to explain the polynomial factor in a way I could understand.

The rest would probably be a breakthrough in teaching, but not one I would want to be a part of. I'm too old-fashioned.

I think a large percent of people who due poorily with math are in fact visual learners.
Other that very simple math opertions (and with small numbers) math is NOT very
visual. Hell even geometry is very little to do with visual information but those g*d
d*mn proofs! Trig has a lot of visual info.

Oh I had the idea of writing software to teach College Alegbra. That is the min math
requirement for most college degrees. I have alot of ideas how touse visual information
in a powerfull way that would allow a visual learner to use their strenght to kick a$$
in math. I design the program in my head an many examples. If I did not have
ADHD it would get wrote. Thats one of the reason I want to try some ADHD drugs. I
want to get off my lazy butt and do something productive. I know its hopeless to try
without meds. I was working a program that could detect human hair in a photo and
changes it (along with smooth skin and change its tone) but I went compelely
insane (this was a months or so before I heard of Asperger and WP). Anyway I rather
eat a bullet then go back to that program without drugs!! !! !! Oh I looked up eat a bullet one day on google and came up with Jim Norton's website (a comedian).

I think you just proved your point. (That you have ADHD, not about the program)

Also, I have no idea what visual thinking is.

Well the theory is most people are not strong visual thinkers but instead primary
think in terms of lanugange and words. People with ADHD will tend to daydream alot
and have very visual thoughts. Its theorised that typical school eductaion does little
for visual thinkers.

After reading the wikipedia article, I am no more enlightened than I was ten minutes ago.

I think different people learn math differently. I'm strong in foreign language and if you teach math to me like a foreign language, then I can learn it. Word problems can be made visual and they help.

Visual thinkers don't think in words. Their concepts are generally still pictures (photographic or symbolic) or they can be "movies". They can be gifted in being able to see a big picture of a complete system and know exactly how to construct/engineer/design something. According to Temple Grandin, math as it's taught and required in school isn't beneficial for visual thinkers because they have a harder time with sequences (the steps within math) and the prerequisites for the higher maths.