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Many people say that American students are not as smart as other countries. Perhaps that it is not just because of standardized testing but also the lack of homework. There is study after study after study that shows if you learn something during the day then you review it later that day it is reinforced and is put into long term memory. However, If you don't review the lesson then most likely it will be forgotten.

What does everyone think about this?

Monty

The bus stop for lower, middle, and high schools is right on my street corner. The upper school kids almost never are carrying books. I think homework and reading loads are lighter than ever in schools. I have no study to back this up, this is just anecdotal evidence.

If you look at the various studies showing American high schools lagging behind other countries, you won't find anything that lists the real reason why. High school in America is not that important--college is. And you can get into college with mediocre high school results. In other countries, high school is very important, because it determines which college you will get into, which then determines what you will be doing for the rest of your life. So, there isn't as much incentive for the high schoolers here. And yes, I would agree that the amount of homework is getting less. Probably because students are less motivated than they were, and also because parents are busier, and don't have the time to spend with their kids on homework that they used to have (even our daughter's kindergarten just yesterday reduced the homework load because parents were complaining).

The key to it is the big if they are learniing something during the day, and I'm not sure that's the case. In my daughter's case, I don't know what she is learning during the day because I end up spending a couple of hours with her every night teaching her math. I sometimes think alot of homework might mean they aren't doing a proper job in the classroom during the day.

You might be right in your assessment. But at the same time, i think homework and review is very important in schooling. I also know that kids learn at different speeds and many times homework could be used to help students who need more practice to stay with the rest of class. Also teachers have different teaching styles, and perhaps they aren't effective with certain kids. Another important reason for homework, so that the parents can help there child with any problem areas and help them review the subject taught that day.

Oh and I am very happy to see a parent willing to spend time with there child so they can understand the fundamentals of math.

Monty

Condsidering that in China and Japan kids go to school all year, i would have to say there are alot of more well educated people throughout the world, not against me though, (american).

I fail to see how it's the homework that's the problem, though I do think that homework can really help you memorize things. I mean, you have six hours of school during the day, and you have between 2-4 hours of homework most days in college. Obviously, we're not teaching kids well enough if they learn much more in much less time once they get to college.

I remember when I was in school, certain classes were simply bad for me because I had bad teachers, and certain classes were great because I had teachers that really made me want to learn. I mean no disrespect to the people themselves, but standing up in the front of the class and giving a lecture on, say, the American revolution simply isn't good teaching. In fact, I think giving a lecture on anything really isn't going to make kids learn. I think that while homework can help make up for the poor, poor job that our current system of teaching does, it can't solve it. I also think that if teachers really start piling on homework, it can really overburden kids, especially seeing as they're already spending a great deal of time in school.

I'm not going to get into my plan for teaching, because that's another topic, but I'll say that while homework should be an element of a good education, it should be peripheral to an excellent classroom learning enviroment, not in spite of a lack of one.

I agree with Rattlesnake that homework is not the central thing - what goes on in the classroom is far more important.

The bummer is that we are not likely to find out what works well and what doesn't as long as we continue toward nationalizing education policy or until we move toward more choice for parents.

We need rigorous competition among schools for the best practices to emerge.

I personally feel that our education establishment tries way too hard to find "one size fits all" solutions, even on the classroom level.

The answer to the question "how important is homework?" is probably "depends on the student!"

Having 3 kids, I can attest that even within the same family, the approach that works best for teaching one kid isn't the best for others. Some are self led. Some need more hand-holding. Some need repitition. Others get it and are bored and turned off by repitition.

We shouldn't think in terms of one-size-fits-all solutions for education.

Unfortunately, that will always be the nature of the debate until we sucessfully separate school and state.

I think to each his own. I mean, if it's easier for some people to learn by memorizing and practising continuously then go for it. For others, it's all a waste of time which could be used for more productive things. As long as you test well you know? In my high school a lot of the students are practically breaking their backs with all the books they shove into their backpacks, but that's balanced out by all the books and binders they have to hold because it won't fit in the backpack. Just a random thought

i agree with "to each his/her own," but that doesn't cut it. a student must learn his/her own learning style and adapt a class to that style while they're studying and ask for extra help from any source possible if necessary. college professors don't hold a student's hand, and if we expect high school teachers to do so, then when we send kids off to college, we'll be asking why the dropout rate is so high. i had hours of homework in high school everyday, and it still didn't prepare me for college sufficiently. so now i sit here as a college freshman, having to reassociate myself with studying, because it's such a completely different world.

parents do all make all the difference. if parents teach their children independence and show them to take pride in what they do, then no matter how the teacher teaches, the kid is ready.

with class sizes at an all time high, we can't expect teachers to adapt their teaching style to each student's learning style, there has to be a middle ground. parents, teachers and students have to come together to find that middle ground.

While I agree with many of the statements made by those in this discussion, I have a new element to add. There is a book out now called "Doing School," the author's name escapes me at the moment. However, this book says that students today attend school, retain only the information they must (for tests and such) and then forget it after they no longer need it. Thus, they do not LEARN, they simply DO. For this reason, they are not considered as smart.

Also, America is an ideal country, including its education system. We've taken for granted the access we have to readily available school materials. In many other countries, these opportunities are not as on hand and are therefore treasured more. So, the fact that these countries are not as fortunate as ours motivates them to encourage and be grateful for learning.

Sincerely,
Locke

I think in our society students have too much homework. Many students don't even have time to sit down and have a decent meal with their families. Many students have to work part time jobs, help their families, or do other things and they don't have time for all their homework. Another factor to consider is that some students don't care about and/or hate school -- usually they're the ones that get low grades and/or drop out and make U.S. students look uneducated. Furthermore, many teachers don't teach what will be on the test but what won't be on the test. So students aren't as prepared for test taking as they could be.

I believe the article can only focus on high school (and maybe middle school) kids, those who have a choice in whether or not to do homework.

If any of you have young chidren or siblings, I think you will agree with me that Elementary homework is REALLY PILING UP.

And then all these new equivalency tests: CRCT, Stanford 9, ITBS.... it's ridiculous. And then, it used to be that teachers taught and homework was for review. Now, it is up to the parents to teach it seems, and the next class day is for review. When did this change happen?

I don't need an article to tell me that the homework my brother, sister, mom, dad and I are all doing in order to finish the work due for school tomorrow is much more than what I had to do at the same age.

Something's gotta change!

First we can not sit here and say that european schools and American schools are the same. Get that thought out of your head. next almost all elementary schools in europe teach their students up to 3 different languages. here in America our children don't even have the option to learn French until 10th grade.

yes, i agree that homework in high school has gone down in the past few years, why though? well some teachers just find it stupid and takes time out of actual learning time.

the bottom line is this, you can pile mounds of homework on students but that dose not mean that they will learn, students will find the fastest way to finish homework. a text book.

I think everybody is making some good points here. Sometimes doing homework is a good way of recalling information, but sometimes it is just busy work. I myself haven't really had to work at school until this year (tenth grade). Accelerated classes in my school district start in grade seven, but that didn't challenge me or many of my friends. Finally this year we are allowed to take AP classes, so I'm in AP United STates History and AP Physics. If you look at APUSH, we go through a lot of different exercises other than sitting and listening to a lecture. We do mini-projects, we interact, yes we take notes, and we discuss things. THen, we have packets for each unit; thirteen units in a year, five or six chapters per unit. Recently for our last unit, it had 45 pages. WOW, forty-five. it had about four questions per page. That, in my opinion, is a bit much. Yeah, filling in the packet helps me recall information. If I just read something, it doesn't always stick. But that is still a bit much. Now with AP physics, our teacher is kind of lax. In class he gives us notes and shows demonstrations, but I don't understand it half the time. We get homework but he never actually checks it, so you can really do it or not. This creates a problem because then students can put off trying to learn until before the test. For every chapter, I have a habit of making my boyfriend reteach me everything because he understands it. But if I had done the homework (or tried), I might have understood it more. In this case, doing the homework would have helped.

Let's look at an education system that seems to work, or at least sounds like it would work: Germany's system. Now I have no idea how other educational systems are in the rest of the world, I only know about Germany's because I take German so we learn more about their culture. They have three different high schools. One is where the (I hate to say it, but) dumb or unmotivated students though. They go for a couple years, and then are released into the work force, taking jobs that don't take much skill (working at McDonald's, etc). Then there is a school where you go for I guess middle-ranked jobs, maybe being a secretary or something. And then there is the highest level (Gymnasium, I think it's called) where you become a doctor or lawyer, along those lines. This prepares them more for university and also separates the students who disrupt class or don't care about learning. This makes the classes become more focussed and they get more done. I know it may be presumptuous of me, but sometimes when I'm walking down the hall between classes, I look at all of these people who are always fooling around, skip class, chew tobacco, drink all the time, and think "What are these people going to do with their lives? They don't care about learning, if they didn't have to then they wouldn't be here." By having those different levels of school, it eliminates that problem, basically. I'll admit that I don't know the homework policy in Germany, but I think problems in our schools is not necessarily because of too much or too little homework. It depends on the teacher, the curriculum, the studying habits (or lack thereof) of the students.

Last year I hated math. My teacher was so boring, I couldn't even pay attention. By the end of the year, I hated it. This year, my teacher is the funniest man alive and he makes it fun. I'm starting to like math again. I get the same amount of homework as last year, but I feel more motivated. I can't account for other students, but IMO it is not the homework. Although, getting a ton of homework isn't too encouraging, and is a turn-off in a way.

I think I'm rambling. And it's the start of Thanksgiving break. Time for some mindless entertainment (TV).

For grades to improve, college should be more like high school. High School was nothing more than memorization, because it didn't matter if you got it or not you still had a test to take. I remember my Calculus teacher always saying "magic magic magic" and then get to the answer. I need to know what that magic entails!

In college, you get interested about subjects you don't even like because the PROFESSOR is interested. This gives better grades and achievement, not just "more homework, more homwork..."

However, many teachers probably feel their is no reason to get as "excited" as college professors when they are barely getting paid. If we like our current education status, let's not worry about it, but if we are getting *** NOTICE: THIS WORD IS AGAINST THE RULES. FAILURE TO REMOVE IT WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE. *** at the current level relative to other countries, then we need a major overhaul, where a teaching position is as coveted as an engineering one.

I never really did any homework in my whole school career. I think you can definately give young people too much, and if they are overloaded their performance in class will drop. I think it would be better for everyone if once pupils have finished school for the day they know they are completely finished and can wind down. Homework can cause a lot of stress and that is dangerous in young people mentally and socially and their standards of work will also suffer.

People at work should be able to foget about thier job and kids should be able to forget about their education once the bell has gone. There is more to life than work and study.

Ok. Now I am am confused here.

First we shouldn't use tests as a way to grade or rate a students progress.
And now there are those saying homework shouldn't be necessary either?

Here's an updated link to the article
http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/10/01/sp...ch.homework.ap/

from the article:


I thought that was an interesting statement. While, it makes sense with regards to younger children (possibly including as old as sixth grade) where the parents' involvement is probably almost a requirement for successful completion - but shouldn't we expect older kids (middle school and up) to be able to complete the homework on their own, or at least be able to seek out other resources to help them on their homework (like school tuturs, numerous internet help sites, the actual teacher, etc)?

Though the study shows a lower homework load overall - they did cite a particular example of a "high achieving school"... I was unsure what that meant, but assumed it was probably like a governer's school. It seems, the studies comparing our high schools to most foreign schools should include only the higher achieving schools. We have to recognize that in many countries (ie Germany, the only one I have personal aquaintance with) the children are separated early on. By the fifth grade, kids are starting to get split into academic/university bound schools and tech-schools. In Germany, once they reach highschool age, the top academic performers are in the Gymnasiums (what we consider the equivalent to high school) and they are preparing for a difficult test that is required to pass for graduation and for subsequent entrance into university. This test looks at all areas of academic achievement, and would be much more equivalent to taking college tests in all the subjects than any of our American achievement tests.
Meanwhile, those less academically inclined students are in tech schools and apprentice programs by the time they reach high school age - and thus their grades and homework hours do not factor into the study.
I have been told that schools in other countries are closer to the German model than America's educate everyone idea (Don't get me wrong, I def support the idea of being less restrictive in allowing those who want to go to high school/college to go!)

I think our high schools at least, should probably start looking into more expansive technical training programs that allow those who want to, to start learning a valuable life skill they may want to apply in their future employment. I remember an ex high school boyfriend who was very annoyed our school did not have a good car mechanic course, and he enrolled in a night school to get the training he wanted to become a car mechanic. Meanwhile he always felt a bit indifferent about his high school load, thinking none of it had any real world significance (which is why we need more basic economics courses or financial planning, etc, but thats another story )

Anyway, the point is, we need grades and homework - esp as the children get older and the topics need more reinforcement after the class - but Shouldn't we also have more programs that allow for what American's might consider an alternative curriculum - as in training in more tech-ed, apprentice type situations?

Is anyone aware of performance stats comparing the UK to the US?

I know from my American friends that homework is taken much more seriously over there. Getting gorunded and stuff for not completing it - Most good uni students will have done loads of homework in their life. Over here there is less emphasis on homework and many people like myself never bothered to do it.

There is no doubt that learning in any given day has limits, with me personally I find my ideas develop the most when I am away from the books, leaving them to ferment in my mind. It is underated how much personal internal thought can go in incresing your brain capacity and education, whatsmore too much work will cloud the brain and make it difficult to focus.

Kate, great point. Schools in most of Europe are designed to teach students with particular interests or skills. Germany is one of many that seperates the kids into areas of achievement: tech schools, business schools, sports schools, science schools, etc... I have had transfer students form all these types of schools in my classes and on my teams. Every time they are shocked to see how we jam ALL kids with all different interests into the same places.

Here in the US there is a tremendous amount of hypocrisy in education.
Teachers are told to differentiate instruction in order to interest kids of all types and learning styles, however they are expected to teach very specific material often in a specific way depending on the principal's or school boards whims.
They are told that "best practice" means they allow students to learn about things that interest them, and then are given a list of items in the curriculum that MUST be taught and will be tested. So if a kid likes working on cars you had better find a way to work that into Huck Finn or else!!!

The present system in the US does not account for the fact that not all kids are academics. Kids are routinely pressed by teachers and counselors to look at college and they are actually sneered at for choosing to not go. There is a DEEP prejudice against "blue collar" labor in this country and it is expressed at American high schools. A kid who says, "I want to be a mechanic or a construction worker when I graduate" is regularly scoffed at by teachers and counselors. The only kids who are not told to try for "something more" are the ones perceived to be trouble makers.

Teachers are told all about different learning styles, Gardner's "8 Intelligences", and al lthe things that make some people very good at doing certain things. Some teachers forget about it and judge the kids who aren't good as stereotypical students, and others are downright fuming mad as they watch these poor kids who have dreams to do something that high schools simply don't consider "OK".

Yes, there are trade schools but, in my experience, they are used more like juvenile detention than for kids with a sincere interest in becoming a tradesman.
Kids who just can't fit in in a standard school are sent to those trade schools. They are often rather dysfunctional places. This is not the rule, of course, but it is rather common. In fact, in my high school where I teach the industrial arts teacher ( an incredibly competent young teacher whom I admire) is constantly complaining about the way his classes are treated. Gudance counselors simply send disruptive and disinterrested kids to his class. Most of his students are with him 3-4 periods per day because they get in trouble in their math and English classes and have to be sent somewhere. They are not expectd to graduate, they simply sit in his classes until they leave school. It is a sad waste of an excellent shop and a great teacher....



Oh, and don't get me on the topic of curriculum in the lower grades

I saw a presentation in which the full 3rd grade curriculum for a Japanese school system was compared to one form a VERY prominent school system nearby. The US school had a curriculum the thickness of a phonebook just for 3rd grade!!!! The Japanese equivalent was about 50 pages or less...
In our schools we cram loads of unconnected data and ideas into kids every year but we never cover something in DEPTH. Kids, consequently, might be good at telling you what the answer of a math problem is (maybe), but they can't explain how they got the answer OR for example how one mathematical function is related to another. Japanese and European kids are asked to memorize less and to dig deeper into fewer concepts. Here we are all fired up to cram them with junk and see how well they can spit it back out. Example: writing math problems became tabooo as using a calculator was faster and more efficient.

Ok, I'm done...sorry for the $.02

It’s not just homework but the school day as well. Our school system had a visit 3 years ago from a Motorola Education expert who was promoting better education.

He gave 2 identical talks – one to teachers and the other to parents.

His info was interesting. He maintained that in the early 60s we were the most powerful economy in the world and we had the longest school day and the longest school year in the industrial world. Today we have the shortest school day and year of the major industrial nations.

We are stuck in the” agrarian” model where kids had to do farm work which precluded long days and school in the summer months.

When he asked if this should change the majority of parents thought it should but only 10% of the teachers.

Though I can't speak for many schools, mine (highschool sophomore) has an average (for me) of about 2-4 hours of homework a day.. ..but it depends on alot of things. we're in the criminal justice/government magnet, as opposed to, say, an education and social services magnet. not sure if anyone understands what i'm talking about. but, there's also studies that show how much kids' backs are being messed up from alot of books and having to take alot home and such in their backpacks. mine weighs somewhere between 45-60 pounds. Just thought it would be beneficial to the thread to have someone that experiences it...

However, a friend of mine goes to a normal public school, and he tells me that he pretty much never has work to do at home. He also says that the teachers have little to no authority over the kids, which (by his account) scream and yell and turn on music and the like.

As far as reading goes, we'll get novels to have read in a couple weeks, and then "short stories"...it's painfully simple, but very time-consuming regardless.

At my high school I have about 2-3 hrs of hwk everyday. Public schools are giving too much homework. I'm barely a sophomore and I'm being swamped with work every night. More homework is only hurting students. We have too much to worry about as it is, (sats scores, gpa, class rank, getting accepted into a good college, studying for tests) and that is only school related things. Most nights i stay up until midnight trying to get work done because i try to have a social life along with my school life.


The reason i think American children are not as smart as other children is because American children have more distractions from school and being educated is not a privilege to them, its given for free and is required.

Some students simply do not care about their grades, and its not the teachers fault. A student will always have the choice as to whether or not he/she will do his/her work.