
The Cult of Homework - longdefeat
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/homework-research-how-much/585889/
======
mrob
I absolutely hated homework and did everything possible to avoid it. It felt
like a huge injustice that teachers could control what you did even outside
school, when you were supposed to be free. My usual strategy was to do the
homework in school. I don't recall any teacher noticing that I wasn't really
taking notes, and was instead working on something unrelated. I did some
homework at home but always spent as little time on it as possible.

As well as distracting from lessons, this also meant the homework had to be
rushed. This probably did teach me useful skills, e.g. I learned about error
modeling from faking believable results in science classes (no time to take
all the measurements), and my writing improved by writing final drafts first
and then going back and adding errors to fake a first draft. My BASIC
programming improved writing tools to automate math homework on a TI-86
calculator or on QBASIC at home.

I saw all this as resistance against tyranny, and never considered that there
might be some benefit to homework. Most of it was pointless busywork anyway,
so the actual benefit if I'd taken it seriously would have been minimal. I
support a healthy school/life balance, which means the abolition of homework.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Couldn’t agree more. Homework was something I dreaded all the time. I skipped
most of my homework whenever possible and my grades reflected it. For some odd
reason I did well on tests, possibly by cramming the night before - a skill
that did well by me through college. Doing well on tests got me by enough to
get a 3.4 gpa through high school despite skipping most of my homework. When
possible I did copy from other kids and sometimes did some assignments in
class before the homework was to be turned in. I’d literally sit there writing
things down in the 10 minutes before we were to hand in our assignments. My
algebra teacher noticed this and just shook her head but seemed to be totally
fine with it - I think deep down inside she knew there was too much homework.

~~~
huffmsa
If you're doing fine in the tests without homework, then the homework is
unnecessary.

My biggest issue with it was that you'd be graded on completeness for the 50
assigned examples. If I can learn it in 5-10 examples, why am I going to waste
time on another 40 non-interesting problems?

~~~
mjevans
The teacher doesn't have or doesn't know about pass/fail module scoring.

A given sub-topic should be setup like this:

    
    
      * 90% of the points for the module possible if you get 100% on the test.
      * 60% of the points for the module possible as correctly doing the homework.
      * Allow for re-submission of the homework (with work shown) for up to a week AFTER the test //results//.
    

The idea is to actually teach the subject, not to pass an arbitrary test on
that subject. If you bomb the test, do all of the possible problem questions
and recover most or all of the grade.

------
maxaf
My daughter is finishing 5th grade in a NYC public school. Homework is the
bane of her existence: it’s given for weekdays and weekends alike, as well as
for holidays. We can’t ditch it entirely because it affects grades, and
perfect grades are a requirement to advance within the school system to middle
and high schools that provide something approaching an education.

So we’ve developed coping strategies. Most subjects are taught using
“workbooks” composed according to the state’s “common core” standards. These
workbooks have class- and homework sections. There’s also an answer key, which
my daughter discovered using a google search. She prints it out at home, takes
it to school, and uses it to fill in homework while no one’s looking.

For subjects that impose homework for which no quick fix exists, I’ve taught
her to do the bare minimum needed to get by, or have simply done the work
myself. I’d rather see my child read a book or go outside than sit around
doing busywork.

All this has led to an interesting relationship between me and my daughter:
she has grown to appreciate my cheeky, playful “fuck the system”, “stick it to
the man” attitude. She’s the most cynical 11 year old you’ll meet, but she
also operates under the assumption that her da is always on her side. It’s
important to know throughout life who your true allies are.

Ask my kid, and she’ll gladly explain to you that the US public school is a
preparatory form of the prison system. School practices and policies are
largely punitive towards students. Admissions criteria in nicer school take
attendance into account: students who are prevented by societal or physical
reasons from making it to school are penalized and barred from future
achievement by a heartless computer system. Likewise, any action that isn’t
directly in response to a teacher’s instruction is met with disciplinary
letters in the file, which further erode a student’s chances at gaining entry
into schools that are more about education than compulsory warehousing of kids
away from streets, where they would certainly be using/selling drugs,
snatching purses, urinating all over subway stops, and painting graffiti.

Fuck the government, man. It’ll never do anything right. Best we can do is
cope and thumb our noses at it.

~~~
otoburb
>> _My daughter is finishing 5th grade in a NYC public school. Homework is the
bane of her existence: it’s given for weekdays and weekends alike, as well as
for holidays. We can’t ditch it entirely because it affects grades, and
perfect grades are a requirement to advance within the school system to middle
and high schools that provide something approaching an education._

This doesn't detract from the rest of your post, but if your daughter is in
5th grade then I presume she already took the 4th grade ELA & Math tests which
(I thought?) were the [main|only] academic factor used in NYC (good) public
middle school rubrics.

If the above is true, then could she slack off a bit in grade 5 especially if
it means skipping some homework?

Caveat: I know grade 5 is still critical she's trying to get into Hunter
Middle/High School, but I'm really curious to know if good NYC middle schools
use grade 5 ELA/Math scores and subject grades.

------
dukoid
Everybody seems to hate homework here, but for me it seemed like a reasonable
way to repeat and "deepen" the things I had learned at school -- and to verify
that we had properly understood them. Homework also seemed useful as a
preparation for tests, getting some routine in solving equations, writing --
whatever. Total homework typically wouldn't exceed 30mins - 1h for me IIRC. Of
course when a significant part of the afternoon is spent at school (this was
uncommon at my school time in Germany), "homework" should be done there.

~~~
sfRattan
Having lived in Germany as an 11th grade exchange student, the rather minimal
homework and the schooldays that ended in the early afternoon (early enough to
eat lunch with guest family) were great.

It's important to consider that 30min to 1hr is a typical homework load _for a
single subject_ in many places in America, that American students get out of
school at around 3pm, and that American students have extracurricular
activities (sports, theater, etc) which run another 1-2hrs after that. Those
rather insane circumstances create the hatred of homework.

It's also important to ask, "verify for whom?"

If the answer is _verify for yourself_ , I don't think even the homework I did
in Germany was much other than busywork. Trying to apply your own knowledge to
some real world situation or problem is a much better self-verification. If
the answer is _verify for the central administration_ , that's just a strong
statement about your culture/society's values with respect to the individual
and the administrators/managers of large groups. Note that I'll freely admit:
American homework mostly serves the central administration, and that's a
statement about our societal and cultural values at present. (It did seem to
be even more oriented toward administrative convenience in Germany, albeit
with a lower volume of homework overall, even in a Gymnasium.)

------
quadrangle
I really hate the concept that parents push for their kids to experience
whatever they felt was normal in their upbringing. What about taking even the
tiniest bit of critical thinking and conclude that you should want for your
kids whatever turned out to be _valuable_ in your upbringing and _not_ want
whatever you reflect on as negative or wasteful‽

I have low tolerance for B.S. myself, and I basically did whatever homework
was really meaningful and skipped whatever was busy-work. My own school grades
reflected primarily the arbitrariness of which teachers put higher weighting
on tedious homework.

Homework is the source of my main memory of academic injustice: valedictorian
regularly didn't finish homework whenever she knew she would get away with
lying about it (holding up some half-done or even different-subject paper and
getting an "okay" from teacher just going around checking everyone).
Meanwhile, my honesty that I sometimes did it and other times not brought me
careful scrutiny so that I was marked down for every little unfinished item in
each assignment.

------
e40
Uh, I grew up with no homework, or very little of it.

Also, why can't we in the US learn from other cultures? One of the
Scandinavian countries, with the highest happiness factor, doesn't have
homework at all. They have schoolwork, done at school. Home is for fun and
socialization and other things. It's too late for my son (a senior in HS), but
I longed for that.

~~~
dagw
Which country are you talking about?

~~~
jacobolus
According to the internet, Finland has little if any homework – something like
30m/day or less for high school students, and less or none for younger
students.

Also school doesn’t start until age 7, the school day is filled with long
breaks to go run around outside, student:teacher ratios are very low and
teachers are highly trained and respected in society, and there is no
standardized testing.

~~~
nabla9
There is homework, but Finland has both less homework and less hours spend in
school compared to other countries, but the quality of teaching is better.
Teachers are better educated and motivated.

Especially for little kids, more hours in school does not increase learning.
Sleeping later in the morning is better.

Having nutritious school lunches (for free) probably plays a role too. Kids'
may hate the food, but it's not junk like pizza, juice and jam.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
It breaks my heart thinking about the little kids walking on the way to school
before the break of dawn here in Japan. While my grown ass is still in bed
they are up and marching to school like good little troopers. Why can’t those
kids just sleep! I have a soon to be 2 year old and I’m freaking out just
thinking about what he has to to through, waking up super early.

------
huffmsa
_" Sedentary, overworked office are jobs making us fat, stressing us out and
killing us"_

But hey, we'd better have our children sitting for 8 hours a day at school and
1-3 hours at home, and 30-60 minutes on the bus and 2-3 hours at
extracurriculars, and hey, 1-2 hours of physical activity a day, and they also
need 8-10 hours of sleep, so use that NeuMath™ to figure out where that fits
in.

/Rant

There's a reckoning coming for the US education system.

------
heisenbit
When I was going to school most days I was coming home at 1pm. I guess getting
homework was fair and later at university I learned a lot by doing my
"homework". Still I have to admit I skipped it a lot while in school. Instead
I played with friends, build some projects and learned a lot of other things.

I really get concerned about the "night" mentioned in the article. If school
is the whole day saddling anything on top is wrong.

------
varjag
There's always a fraction of kids for whom homework will never "work"; another
group that has no need for it to achieve excellence. But for a huge number of
kids the structured individual effort is essential to comprehend and master
the subject.

~~~
garmaine
But speaking as a parent, that's not generally what is assigned. It'd be a
totally different story if my kids (or me, when I was their age) got assigned
a handful of individually selected problems or assignments that helped them
with the skills that child was specifically struggling on. But that's not what
happens. The whole class as a group are assigned a frightening amount of
busywork, the same for everyone, and it is a soul-crushing struggle to finish
it.

~~~
varjag
I meant individual as working on your own, individually, not in a group or
under guidance. Personalized homework would be great but is a bit unrealistic
to expect on typical school budgets.

------
dalbasal
It's always difficult to remember one's mindset as a child. Likely as not, I'm
projecting my adult ideas on memories. That said..

I hated homework. I also rarely did it. I scribbled something between classes,
copied and came empty handed. The whole thing put a strain on my relationship
with teachers and school and general. I always identified with being a bad
student, and I suspect homework may have been the root cause. I really don't
think homework worked for me.

What I don't understand today, is why a 9 or 14-year old who spends 35 hours
per week in a school _needs_ homework? Is there really a need for an extra 3
or 10 hours per week? Surely, the quality of a kid's attention in the 7th or
9th-hour in a day isn't as good as their first. Is it that "everyone work on
these math problems for 30m" isn't something that works in a classroom?

Adults have been complaining about after-hours work, in the age of laptops and
smartphones. Why is it good for kids?

OTOH, exams and project work did work for me. With a Douglas Adams Crisis
Inducer (a device that creates an artificial crisis situation of selectable
severity, in order to sharpen the wits of the user), I could get 20 days of
work into 1. I could sprint like a champ (and was proud of it) but I couldn't
march. I'm still this way. I reckon schooling would have been a lot more
effective for me personally if it was built around monthly exam or project
watersheds, but I don't really know.

At the risk of cliche, we probably need more tailored/flexible education
systems. Dunno though... "Create a system that educates every person" is a
hard task. IDK how you'd do that. Relative to a lot of things at this kind of
scale, education is very effective.

~~~
huffmsa
I think we'll see ML coming in as the tailoring solution in the near
future.its relatively cheap to model and track and tweak on a per student
basis with a software solution.

------
mac_was
I always had lots of homework and every subject was the most important one, in
the opiniin of the teacher. No surprise I was copying homework at school from
other children because I forgot or didn’t have energy to do it. Hope my kids
will have time to play and discover what is really interesting to them in
contrary to me

~~~
0xdeadb00f
> every subject was the most important one, in the opiniin of the teacher.

This is the biggest problem IMO. Teachers give kids an enormous amount of
homework not realising (or realising, but not caring) that the kids have the
same amount, if not more homework to do in all their other subjects.

I recall HS physical education teachers were the worst offenders of thinking
their class was the most important. In my HS we had one day a week practical
(playing sport) and one day a week theory. In the practical lesson if you
forgot your sports uniform (separate to normal, "formal" uniform) they would
give you an instant lunchtime detention, making you to write lines, and
_still_ make you play sport. In theory class they acted as if your life
depended on knowledge of the food groups for example. I'm not saying that what
they taught us wasn't important, in fact the classes on STIs were quite
important, but their attitude was unwarranted. And this is every single
teacher: every single one had this attitude.

I realise I'm going on a tangent but to top it all off sex education was an
absolute joke. They separated us into gender and had a 30 minute
presentation/talk. Completely pointless and it barely consisted of "you have a
penis, you get erections" \- they told us this at 14 years of age, so of
course we knew that much already. No mention of the opposite sex, or actual
intercourse. In contrast the girls got to learn about the male and female
genitalia, I was told by one of my girl friends (read: friend that is a girl).

------
naveen99
Some of my teachers had a policy that homework grades could only help you. If
you got a higher grade on the final exam, homework couldn’t bring it down.

Of course some people like doing homework: like Donald Knuth. Or I guess
people who like writing unit tests.

------
crispytx
I don't think the article mentioned this, but one of the big reasons behind
all of this homework is the personality of the people dolling out the
homework: Conscientious people can't stand not being busy. So they try to do
everyone else a favor by loading them up with lots of busy work. The only
problem with that is not everyone is conscientious and in constant need of
busy work.

~~~
huffmsa
Good point. The education system is populated by people who love education and
probably loved homework when they were young.

So they design and build for what they know.

------
siedes
Considering that most people on HN are self-starters who had to learn things
on their own whether by necessity or just because they preferred it that way,
it may not be so obvious that a good number of people are not able to have
that kind of freedom. Whether for good or bad, these types of people must be
coerced toward doing things for their own good, like with punishment for not
doing the homework, otherwise they would choose to do nothing and fail. Even
with homework and all the punishments, there's kids who still can't be made to
work. But if the teachers gave them homework...you can't say they didn't try
you know. If there was no homework, I'm sure a number of parents would be
complaining how the schools didn't do anything for their children. And parents
generally pay taxes, that funds these schools.

Perhaps there should be a way for kids to opt-out of homework provided they
have the grades and work ethic? And then this would incentivize other kids to
try harder as well if they want that privilege.

------
throwaway66666
I grew up in Greece, where we go to a second school (private classes), after
the main (public) school. And they both assign you homework. We are talking, 7
hours of public school + 3 hours of 'private' school (we call it 'the after
school'). So 10 hours of being physically present at some kind of school and
then homework from both of them. So expect 2-4 hours of homework added on top
of that. 10-14 hours school days. Yay!

You might be wondering why the "after school" exists. See, you need to attend
the public school (or an accredited _really expensive_ private one) in order
to advance through the education system. But because public school suck you go
to the second school in order to _really learn_. As to how much the public
schools were I grew up suck, we are talking kids having sex and filming it
during school time - and the teachers dealt with this by banning cellphones to
the school. No cameras, no recordings!! When I think back, I honestly feel
rage with how much wrong the system was.

Anyway, of course this meant you had to be physically present at some kind of
school location for 10 hours per day, and then spend 2-4 hours doing homework
in order to keep up. I remember people defending that system to death, making
fun of america's homeschooled children and finland's relaxed attitude and how
we are the "real heroes" of the education system. Ugh.

PS. I just remembered. We even had homework to "religion class". Oh yeah, we
learned about the life of jesus mostly, in theory we had to learn about other
religions too, but it was mostly all about the J. So, of course we were given
homework even to that too. Ugh ugh ugh. Not a religious school btw, a regular
public one. Complete with "why didn't you learn the creed of faith, are you
not a chistian?" attitude from the teacher towards 8 year olds that didn't
study. What a shithole.

~~~
geomark
That terrible routine is repeated many places in the world. Here in Thailand
students do a full day at low quality public school and then a few more hours
of tutoring. What is particular foul is that many public school teachers are
very corrupt. They withold important teaching at school and then tell students
they need to go to their paid tutoring center in order to do well on the
tests. It is pretty awful.

------
alexgmcm
Homework is bad because for some kids it can be impossible - like what if you
have to care for your younger siblings, or your home has no desk space or
quiet place to work?

To be honest extending the school day would probably make the most sense as it
would help working parents as well if children left school at 5pm or 6pm.

~~~
_AzMoo
My step-daughter's school library is open until 5pm and she goes there every
day after school to do her homework. Do other schools not offer this?

~~~
huffmsa
How does she get home at 5pm? Does the school offer a bus service at that
hour?

~~~
williamdclt
Lessons finished at ~4:30pm when I was in school, it's the same pretty much
everywhere in France and I would assume this isn't the only country like that.
I'm not shocked at the idea of getting home at 5pm (we had no school bus
service, just the regular public transportation which works well here)

~~~
huffmsa
American high schools start at ~0730, though that's gradually being moved
back, and classes end around 1400-1500. So he library being open that late is
meaningful.

And as bizarre as this might sound, outside of New York City, unaccompanied
children on public transportation is basically not a thing in America. We
assume the children are lost / abandoned and the parents are delinquent /
trying to get the kid kidnapped by a pedo.

There was a decently widespread news story a few years ago about someone
calling the police on a mother because she let her kids go to the park by
themselves.

------
kartan
My mother did not work while me and my siblings were growing. The time that we
spend doing homework was not the funniest one, but it showed how important is
school work to us. She will help us with our school work in the same way that
she will help to prepare us for tests.

How can parents do that when work just burn them out?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19530479](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19530479)

And I am not in favor of forcing parents to stay at home. One of my mother
more liberating moments was when she went back to work and got a salary for
herself.

So, I do not know how good or bad is homework for children. But, I think that
is an extra-burden for their parents that can have a negative effect in the
children family.

~~~
sureaboutthis
> My mother did not work while me and my siblings were growing.

...my siblings and I...

There's a homework assignment for you.

~~~
PakG1
I'd be interested in why this is such a sticking point and the language
doesn't just evolve to accept this phrasing. American English seems to have
accepted that you can end sentences with a preposition, or is that just my
misconception? I believe Canada and the UK still doesn't like it, or is that
my misconception too? But my point is why doesn't the language evolve along
with informal societal usage?

~~~
geomark
I am no stickler for grammar but when you take out the other people you get
"... while me was growing" and to the native Enlish ear that sounds pretty
terrible compared to "... while I was growing".

~~~
PakG1
Talk with a pirate accent and it'll sound natural. ;)

------
drewg123
I knew something was wrong when my son was assigned homework in KINDERGARTEN.
He had to do some totally absurd assignment, designed to be "fun" by the
teacher. It was something like describing part of a Curious George story on a
home-made kite.

I was livid. Our son could not even read at that point, nor did he have the
motor skills to assemble a hand made kite at the age of 5. The assignment was
clearly aimed at satisfying the parents who thought that homework should start
early.

We put up with that public school for another year, then we got him into a
private school that did not believe in homework in elementary school. Our
lives were much less stressful, and he spent more time playing outside when he
changed schools in 2nd grade.

------
aaron695
100 years ago and beyond 14 years old married and worked 7 day a weeks.

Now we cry because the might have to learn for a few hours, 5 days a week 40
weeks a year?

As a adult an incredible important skill to live life is to self manage. How
do kids learn this skill? How do they learn to work as a team without being
babied?

If parents are able to swap in a replacement, sure, if they are rich and have
time and the skill set that might be possible, to bad for everyone else. (And
for kids already massive responsibilities this is a separate issue that needs
solving)

~~~
tzs
> 100 years ago and beyond 14 years old married [...]

That's largely a myth. Most women married in their early 20s, and men in their
mid 20s. It was legal go get married much younger, but uncommon.

[https://www.infoplease.com/us/marital-status/median-age-
firs...](https://www.infoplease.com/us/marital-status/median-age-first-
marriage-1890-2010)

[https://www.theclassroom.com/age-marriage-
us-1800s-23174.htm...](https://www.theclassroom.com/age-marriage-
us-1800s-23174.html)

------
black-alert
The paradox is that the school institution is actually very dumb and stupid
where it should be the smartest thing out there.

~~~
mjburgess
Its only a paradox if you think its primary function is education.

Its primary function is the warehousing of children while adults work; and
secondarily, filtering children according to ability for future work (ie.,
grading).

The content of the "lessons" could be anything, so long as it (1) keeps them
occupied; and (2) differentiates according to cognitive ability -- ie.,
grades.

The primary and secondary functions almost totally constrain its auxiliary
function of imparting useful skills to children -- which were it sincerely
attempted would fundamentally undermine the school's ability to warehouse and
grade them effectively.

~~~
hndamien
This is incredibly sad, but sounds plausible. Where can I read more about this
thesis?

~~~
mjburgess
For my thoughts on grading as merely filtering:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_\(economics\))

For the content of the "lessons" being largely irrelevant, ask: what can
anyone remember from their lessons at 14?

The answer is random with respect to the individual: I cannot predict what you
will know. Really only fragments of trivia were acquired. This is the opposite
situation of skill acquisition: if you are a practising
plumber/doctor/programming, I _can_ predict what you will know.

This test, predicting the knowledge/ability of a person who practices a skill,
really defines successful education.

What can you predict a person knows after high school?

You might also look at "Discipline and Punish" or works to that effect to gain
a socio-political perspective on the scheduling/routines/rituals of certain
institutions.

It is no accident that a school closely resembles a prison. That is its
primary function: to limit the behaviour of children, to discipline them into
conforming with the scheduling of working life, to occupy their time.

When you are tutored (to play a piano, in mathematics, etc.) you are really
acquiring a skill: to play a piano, etc.

Contrast those two environments.

Learning a skill requires an environment almost the opposite of a prison, it
requires a patient and highly skilled tutor, and some attentive practice and
engagement. (Infant/primary education is closer to tutoring than high school).

Imagine high school not starting until 14 at which point you spent 4 years
with tutors: at most classes of 5 with skilled mentors that guided you through
skilled practice. Consider the social environment: how you'd interact with
peers, your relationship to your mentor, the hours you'd keep, how much
practice you'd get.

Contrast this again with prison life within a school: the teacher is not a
mentor, they are a master. An enemy largely. You and your peers are at war for
attention and time.

~~~
hndamien
Thanks. Have you approached any solutions to avoid this fate? My kids are
still pre schooling.

------
crispytx
I had the most homework in Middle School and Graduate School. Not sure why
exactly, just something strange that I noticed. Ended up dropping out of Grad
School over the excessive busy work. Turned out to be an excellent decision!

