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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Look up opportunity cost. Homework can (and probably does) have value. The question is whether the value outweighs that produced by other uses of that time, or if that values comes with less obvious negatives.

Welcome to science. If you think this stuff is obvious and not in need of rigorous evaluation, then you must be new here. [/quote]

I mean, I have no issue with someone wanting to study this. But the idea that "science" is going to come up with a uniform and stable answer about how homework balances against other uses of time for every kid ... is pretty unlikely, if not impossible.  In the interim, it seems like we need to rely on some common sense and experienced teachers, and an understanding of how our kids learn. As well, the idea that we should cancel homework until this mythical scientific consensus emerges is just a bit problematic.  For now, it seems clear to my that my MS kids needs some homework to learn math. Is that really that controversial?[/quote]

I'll try not to further belabor this point, although that's not a strength of mine.

It is not about homework being detrimental for all kids. Students don't receive individually tailored lesson plans; instead, teachers have to try to assign work appropriate towards something like the bulk of the class.

In general, education needs to be viewed as a lifelong (or, at least into one's 20's) marathon and not a sprint. What hath MoCo gotten for their push to teach all kids to read in Kindergarten? Nothing. It created stress with no discernible benefit other than placating parents who wanted to see "evidence" that their children were learning. If you put a kid who learns to read at three next to one who learns at 6.5, at age 8 they're at the same place with decent teaching. (Doesn't Finland not even teach basics until something like 6?)

We are all type-A up here, so we should be able to relate to the notion of burnout. Many of us probably played a sport to studied a topic very intensively only to burn out prematurely and not reach our full potential with it. We need to be mindful of doing that to children just because we want to see evidence of progress.

I'm guessing -- purely guessing here -- that drilling addition and multiplication facts into kids backfires as often as it succeeds. To be sure, fast facts are essential and students need to master them. But they're not math. They're boring, rote calculations. Perhaps kids eventually see this too and grow to dislike this "math." Again guessing, my guess is that the best way to teach fast facts is through a short but dedicated push to get the kids to learn them and then move on quickly and without going back to them except irregularly. Make fast facts a game, not homework, and have kids really try to keep pushing their score until they never have to think about it again.[/quote]

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