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I'am in favor of homework that is aimed at increasing knowledge historical events,
Geography, and current events...but why? Kids today are turning into disconnected
morons to a point it's terrifying . They haven't a clue what transpired historically.
They think the Russians bombed Pearl Harbor with nuke. Jimmy Carter was who?
Viet Nam is next to Iceland and ISIS is a store next to Alta. College students can't
write, puncuate, add, think, read or talk! (NOT ALL! TOO MANY).
That is the result of an education system where performing well on standardized tests is more important than actually learning.
Both have been held up as systems we should emulate. People who are very opposed to standardized tests go crazy over the ed systems of these countries that score highly on the international tests. What does that mean?
I already explained that what these "people who are very opposed to standardized tests" are opposed to is annual, universal, high-stakes standardized tests; it is the negative effects of these kind of tests upon the system and the students these people hate, not the very act of standardized testing . Notice that these same people by and large do not oppose the SAT, the ACT, and the like. In the American education debate "standardized testing" is near-universally used as shorthand for annual, universal, high-stakes standardized testing, and this is the pernicious trend NCLB et allia stoked that people are opposed to. The test we're using to compare countries is taken by a small fraction/sample of older students who take it once in a lifetime and is low-stakes; it is not used by their superiors to compare and determine what is to be done with the students and the schools. Standardized testing as used in America and in the education debate here is completely dissimilar.
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Originally Posted by ozgal
Pushing a child to learn something before they are developmentally ready can, on the other hand, be detrimental. If a child naturally shows an interest in reading, writing, or mathematics, they will learn, and we can certainly aid and guide them in that natural interest, but lining 4-5 year olds (and sometimes even younger) up at desks and telling them they need to know how to read and write if they want any hope for the future is where we run into problems.
I agree. My opinion is that the important thing parents do in early childhood education is to encourage and enable their children's desire to learn that is already there at the time it appears; that can just as easily happen at 8 as 3, and forcing such a program on kids earlier doesn't help them.
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Originally Posted by Momma_bear
This is very true. The thing that bothers me is when people just dismiss what happens in other countries because their culture is different or whatever. I think we can learn from what is done in other countries but we need to understand what is really driving their superior performance. It isn't as simple as homework, but we do need to figure out what is going on there vs here and emulate best practices.
The dark side of the doctrine of American exceptionalism .
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I don't believe this is true. I think that our culture deals with weaknesses differently but don't think kids in Finland are inherently different from American kids.
The objections usually come to "Finland is homogenous", but there are plenty of areas in the U.S. that are homogenous and they aren't doing nearly as well. There is strong reason to doubt that whole premise, but even if it was true predominately-white Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, and Upper Michigan could benefit from that system.
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I think this is the biggest difference between private schools and public schools in my area. The kids aren't inherently smarter in private schools but they achieve more simply because they are expected to achieve more.
I think there's a lot more to it than that, though for all I know that may be it in your area.
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Originally Posted by ozgal
Homework never taught me how to be self motivated at studying. Amusingly, despite doing all my homework, studying "effectively" for my exams and maintaining great grades, I didn't actually figure out how to be truly self motivated about my education until I got to University.
Indeed. There is also no reason people cannot learn to study in school rather than at home if studying is a skill that must be learned and taught.
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As it's been pointed out many times over in this thread, it's difficult to just isolate the single instance of 'homework,' and is it necessary or not, without also considering the entire education system, soup to nuts, and our culture and society as a whole. I think you do yourself a grave disservice to be so dismissive of more involved discussion points that ultimately add to the question of, 'More, less, no homework?'
That's one of the biggest pitfalls to public schools; once government funds it education suddenly becomes everyone's business, and it is nearly impossible for everyone to reach a consensus on what the right program is or how to reform the system, thus combined with the size and power of the bureaucratic interests there is a built-in status quo bias to the system. The private sector is superior to the public sector here because each school is funded by users and voluntary donors which likely congregate because the school appeals to them; thus each school is a small group's business that is likely of like mind, and in such a setting reaching consensus and reforming the system is easier, and when reform isn't possible it's easier to switch or start a new school when an enormous public institution isn't crowding the market. Qualities of the free market we take advantage of elsewhere would be very useful in education. So many reforms that are blocked by the current system from being tried on a widespread basis become possible in a free market education system; experimentation and mass-scale results are side effects inherent to the system which are very powerful and advantageous.
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I also think that the education system is pushing far too many people toward college educations they do not want or need, and at the crux of that, is that if a student really and truly wants to be in that advanced and difficult field, they will do what needs to be done. There's no sense punishing and pushing the student who has no desire to go there.
A college-aimed education would be a dream come true to many students but to many others it would be a waste of time an effort. One program does not fit all.
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I understand there is a host of objections to that, many of which boil down to problems within the actual classroom and curriculum and all of the red tape and hand tying and palm greasing involved in the mainstream education system.
One would think that less homework would actually save the system money and improve efficiency and be quite appealing . Then again, it's possible that someone profits from issuing mountains of valueless work - I'd just like to know who it is.
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I would not forsake all of the learning he does with us and at play with his peers in order for him to spend hours plugging away at homework sheets every day.
The concept of opportunity cost is very much in effect here, and very much ignored by the masters and mavens of education.
This is very true. The thing that bothers me is when people just dismiss what happens in other countries because their culture is different or whatever. I think we can learn from what is done in other countries but we need to understand what is really driving their superior performance. It isn't as simple as homework, but we do need to figure out what is going on there vs here and emulate best practices.
I don't believe this is true. I think that our culture deals with weaknesses differently but don't think kids in Finland are inherently different from American kids.
I think this is the biggest difference between private schools and public schools in my area. The kids aren't inherently smarter in private schools but they achieve more simply because they are expected to achieve more.
How many foreign exchange students have you taught over the years? I see a MARKED difference in retention of previously learned material in the foreign exchange students I have taught. We baby our kids. We reteach and reteach and reteach and what we end up teaching them is they don't have to remember it past the test. That is HUGE. The amount of time we spend reteaching what we taught kids before is staggering compared to what other countries do. Why are we doing this if not to pander to our children's weaknesses? Why not just expect them to use what they learned before instead of reteaching it every time?
And FTR, those students have expressed dismay at how slow we go and how much review we do. We are building in weakness in our children.
I TOTALLY agree with your last statement. Expectations become self fulfilling prophecies. If I keep reteaching you the same thing for 7 years what does that say about what I think of your intelligence? We are treating our kids like they are too stupid to retain what they learned before.
I don't know the comparison in other subjects but in math we introduce a topic and then review it for 3-7 years depending on the topic. The Japanese for comparison teach a topic for 1-3 years and then expect their students to have mastered the topic. Assuming that the same topics take both countries the least/most time, we are spending over twice as much time teaching our kids the same material and as much as three times as much time for some topics. Our day is long and our kids have lots of homework because we're using up our teaching time reteaching what they learned in the last 3-7 years.
I teach geometry and I have to spend time reviewing basic math. Among the things I explained today are: What the word "quotient" means, what absolute value means, what a difference is, how to factor a number, and how to isolate a variable in a three term equation. My student's heads wanted to pop off when I reduced a radical today. What do you mean I'm supposed to use what I learned in 7th, 8th and 9th grades in 10th grade WITHOUT a review (actually they got a review. I know I have to review anything I want them to use from an earlier class)? A hand went up and the question was "Can't we just plug it into a calculator?". I wonder what the German exchange students sitting in the room thought of that one?
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 09-12-2014 at 05:16 PM..
How many foreign exchange students have you taught over the years? I see a MARKED difference in retention of previously learned material in the foreign exchange students I have taught. We baby our kids. We reteach and reteach and reteach and what we end up teaching them is they don't have to remember it past the test. That is HUGE. The amount of time we spend reteaching what we taught kids before is staggering compared to what other countries do. Why are we doing this if not to pander to our children's weaknesses? Why not just expect them to use what they learned before instead of reteaching it every time?
And FTR, those students have expressed dismay at how slow we go and how much review we do. We are building in weakness in our children.
I TOTALLY agree with your last statement. Expectations become self fulfilling prophecies. If I keep reteaching you the same thing for 7 years what does that say about what I think of your intelligence? We are treating our kids like they are too stupid to retain what they learned before.
I don't know the comparison in other subjects but in math we introduce a topic and then review it for 3-7 years depending on the topic. The Japanese for comparison teach a topic for 1-3 years and then expect their students to have mastered the topic. Assuming that the same topics take both countries the least/most time, we are spending over twice as much time teaching our kids the same material and as much as three times as much time for some topics. Our day is long and our kids have lots of homework because we're using up our teaching time reteaching what they learned in the last 3-7 years.
I teach geometry and I have to spend time reviewing basic math. Among the things I explained today are: What the word "quotient" means, what absolute value means, what a difference is, how to factor a number, and how to isolate a variable in a three term equation. My student's heads wanted to pop off when I reduced a radical today. What do you mean I'm supposed to use what I learned in 7th, 8th and 9th grades in 10th grade WITHOUT a review (actually they got a review. I know I have to review anything I want them to use from an earlier class)? A hand went up and the question was "Can't we just plug it into a calculator?". I wonder what the German exchange students sitting in the room thought of that one?
My point is not that the cultures are different. The cultures are different and that is what has lead led to different expectations. However, the kids are not significantly different. They just aren't. The culture in American education has led us to have kids who are exactly as you described.
I know that not all private schools are the same but my son didn't get an extensive review this year (for Pre Calculus). There was a summer assignment that was due on the first day of school. That was graded and returned to the students. The teacher went over the things that large numbers of kids got wrong. Then they moved on to the coursework.
It is the administrators fault that the culture of reteaching everything (which happened at the school where I taught) is permitted to exist. It isn't because our kids are Americans. It isn't because private school kids are smarter than public school kids. It's put there by the people who run the schools. We could absolutely require the same things that other countries require of our kids if we would just do it. Our kids would rise to the occasion (after a period of adjustment). The difference is not due to Finnish kids being different than American kids. It's due to the culture that exists in American schools.
My point is not that the cultures are different. The cultures are different and that is what has lead led to different expectations. However, the kids are not significantly different. They just aren't. The culture in American education has led us to have kids who are exactly as you described.
I know that not all private schools are the same but my son didn't get an extensive review this year (for Pre Calculus). There was a summer assignment that was due on the first day of school. That was graded and returned to the students. The teacher went over the things that large numbers of kids got wrong. Then they moved on to the coursework.
It is the administrators fault that the culture of reteaching everything (which happened at the school where I taught) is permitted to exist. It isn't because our kids are Americans. It isn't because private school kids are smarter than public school kids. It's put there by the people who run the schools. We could absolutely require the same things that other countries require of our kids if we would just do it. Our kids would rise to the occasion (after a period of adjustment). The difference is not due to Finnish kids being different than American kids. It's due to the culture that exists in American schools.
Yes they are different. The different cultures make them different. One group takes responsibility for their learning and the other does not. One group has learned that they are expected to retain what they learn while the other has learned that they don't need to because it will be reviewed. Ever heard the phrase "Use it or lose it?". What was once optional is now required. We couldn't stop reviewing if we wanted to. Our kids would fall flat on their faces because they've learned to do a brain dump after the test.
Reviewing like this stems from the self esteem movement and that was pushed by parents. That started when I was living in a black hole (I didn't have kids until I was in my late 30's so I had about 25 years when I just didn't pay attention to what education was doing) so I'm not sure how much pop psychology played in launching the self esteem movement. Somewhere along the line, we decided that we had to protect a child's ego at all costs. Now we have kids who are incompetent but feel great about themselves and we're sending them out into a world that doesn't give a rats a$$ about their egos. I can't think of another country that caters to ego building like we do. And yes, that makes our kids different from their kids. You can have learned differences.
Yes they are different. The different cultures make them different. One group takes responsibility for their learning and the other does not. One group has learned that they are expected to retain what they learn while the other has learned that they don't need to because it will be reviewed. Ever heard the phrase "Use it or lose it?". What was once optional is now required. We couldn't stop reviewing if we wanted to. Our kids would fall flat on their faces because they've learned to do a brain dump after the test.
Reviewing like this stems from the self esteem movement and that was pushed by parents. That started when I was living in a black hole (I didn't have kids until I was in my late 30's so I had about 25 years when I just didn't pay attention to what education was doing) so I'm not sure how much pop psychology played in launching the self esteem movement. Somewhere along the line, we decided that we had to protect a child's ego at all costs. Now we have kids who are incompetent but feel great about themselves and we're sending them out into a world that doesn't give a rats a$$ about their egos.
Cultures can be changed. US schools changed culture once, they can change it again. The kids are not inherently different.
Cultures can be changed. US schools changed culture once, they can change it again. The kids are not inherently different.
You might want to do some reading on brain plasticity. Connections within the brain that are not used are lost. If this change were ever made here and I don't think it ever will be made, we'd have to start with newborns and work our way up. Learned behaviors (habits if you will) are hard enough to change when the person who needs to change wants to change. They are harder still to change when the developing brain has actually hard wired around them.
I already explained that what these "people who are very opposed to standardized tests" are opposed to is annual, universal, high-stakes standardized tests; it is the negative effects of these kind of tests upon the system and the students these people hate, not the very act of standardized testing . Notice that these same people by and large do not oppose the SAT, the ACT, and the like. In the American education debate "standardized testing" is near-universally used as shorthand for annual, universal, high-stakes standardized testing, and this is the pernicious trend NCLB et allia stoked that people are opposed to. The test we're using to compare countries is taken by a small fraction/sample of older students who take it once in a lifetime and is low-stakes; it is not used by their superiors to compare and determine what is to be done with the students and the schools. Standardized testing as used in America and in the education debate here is completely dissimilar.
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you for enlightening me again! The old "that's different", eh?
And the H-E- double hockey stick these standardized tests in other countries aren't used to determine what is "to be done" with the students. In point of fact, that is the basis of most of the European systems. Test em early, some countries in 4th or 5th grade, and decide who's going to be tracked for college and who's going to be tracked for a construction worker.
You might want to do some reading on brain plasticity. Connections within the brain that are not used are lost. If this change were ever made here and I don't think it ever will be made, we'd have to start with newborns and work our way up. Learned behaviors (habits if you will) are hard enough to change when the person who needs to change wants to change. They are harder still to change when the developing brain has actually hard wired around them.
Ignoring that every child comes into school with some behavior or attitude that teachers wish they didn't have to deal with but nonetheless do, have you considered that change can be transitioned in over a period of time, and beginning with K-early elementary and progressively becoming more integrated as the children age and move up through the system? Some elements can still be implemented at higher grades and changes made where it's viable.
Change to the education system does not need to be something that happens between the end of one school year and the next. That's what happened with CC. I think a decade is a reasonable and prudent time frame to make big changes, and to also allow for adjustment and tweaks along the way where it seems necessary.
Unfortunately, eight-period school days encourage high schoolers to over-schedule. I'd much rather see a student take the recommended classes for a selective college at the highest level possible, reserving a couple of hours for on-campus study, than to fill every extra period with an elective, but that requires a great deal of maturity and initiative from students. It's hard to choose trig in the library over playing around with your friends on the quad! It takes a tremendous amount of self-control.
My older daughter started high school in a brand-new program. They deliberately set up a seven period system with a mandatory lunch b/c kids in the 8 period, no offically designated high schools in our district tended to take 8 classes and NO lunch.
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Originally Posted by psr13
Pointing out that the kids in Finland go to pre-school doesn't negate the fact that academic instruction doesn't start until age 7. Pre-school there is nit what so many American pre-schools have become as they do not instruct at all.
Nor do most American pre-schools do formal education. Nor do Finnish pre-schools just let the kids play all day with no structure.
How Finland Educates the Youngest Children | New America Blogs
**But, while Finnish children don’t begin formal schooling until age 7, that doesn’t mean they’re lacking for education before that. In fact, Finnish children have access to very high-quality, affordable child care that meets most of the standards for what we in the United States would call preschool. . . .Finnish 6-year-olds also have the right to free, half-day preschool programs, which place a slightly greater emphasis on academic preparation and language development than typical child care, and can be offered in child care centers to provide a full day of care that meets families’ child care needs. Over 97 percent of Finnish 6-year-olds attend these programs.**
So the answer to "How do they do it when they don't start teaching until age 7?" is "that's not when education starts in Finland".
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. Notice that these same people by and large do not oppose the SAT, the ACT, and the like. In the American education debate "standardized testing" is near-universally used as shorthand for annual, universal, high-stakes standardized testing, and this is the pernicious trend NCLB et allia stoked that people are opposed to. The test we're using to compare countries is taken by a small fraction/sample of older students who take it once in a lifetime and is low-stakes; it is not used by their superiors to compare and determine what is to be done with the students and the schools. Standardized testing as used in America and in the education debate here is completely dissimilar.
.
. Then again, it's possible that someone profits from issuing mountains of valueless work - I'd just like to know who it is.
