5 ms·

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 high

by e40 8y ago

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.

JulianMorrison 8y ago
Homework and spanking are both things that exist for reasons other than efficacy. They're cultural shibboleths seen as separating out the moral from the immoral.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  That's a bit of a stretch. They assign homework in college for good reason - seriously, you have a zero percent chance of learning anything math related just by listening to the lecture. The alternative would be to turn one-hour lectures in to eight-hour study sessions, and frankly it's nicer to do it at home. The same would apply in highschool if it wasn't so dystopian in its implementation of normal things.
  - curioussavage 8y ago
    Taking this at face value all it means to me is the lecture model for teaching math is crap. I’m glad all those “world class”. It doesn’t seem like there is any push to change the status quo either.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    There's a better balance though. In college you're not sitting in class from 8:00 to 3:00 every day. Half that would be a pretty busy day for actual classes. Or you load up on Mon-Wed-Fri and have no classes Tues-Thu.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      Right, the real problem with highschool is that it twists every normal thing about college into a dystopian parody of itself. I don't know why.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jdietrich 8y ago
    >you have a zero percent chance of learning anything math related just by listening to the lecture Most students will never really learn anything math related beyond basic arithmetic - they'll just about fake it for the exams, then promptly forget it. The actual numeracy skills of the general population (even college graduates (even STEM graduates)) is so woefully inadequate that it'd be entirely reasonable to argue that we should just stop bothering with mandatory math education after 8th grade. IMO the fundamental problem with education is the assumption that it works. The handful of RCTs we have suggest that it's mostly placebo.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      The bargan is, as I have heard it, that we force everyone through math because we don't know in advance which ones will get to use it. We can't afford to cripple the 1% of people who become engineers. They do so much for our country that forcing all of the non-engineers to suffer through elementary engineering training is worth it.
fyolnish 8y ago
We had homework when I was in school.
dagw 8y ago
Which country are you talking about?
- prepend 8y ago
  Bullshitanavia, of course. When someone says “one of the Scandinavian countries with the highest happiness factor” I just chalk that up to optimism and hope that such a place exists. Small percentage it exists, but I’m jaded into thinking any comment with a specific statement attributed non-specifically, without citation, is safe to ignore.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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 8y ago
      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 8y ago
> One of the Scandinavian countries What works for a relatively mono-ethnic / mono-culture (generalizing a bit here) of < 10 million people usually doesn't scale well to the wild free-for-all of 330m+ people in the United States. The Federal government meddling in the education system has basically never produced good results.
- jkmcf 8y ago
  Except for providing education opportunities to those who would otherwise not have them.
kleiba 8y ago
Well, then it would also be fair to compare how much home work and home studying Asian kids do.
- pessimizer 8y ago
  Not really, the question is if kids can get just as smart without homework as with. Whether they get smart with more homework is irrelevant to that question, although it could tell us that what we do is worse than both alternatives.
Kye 8y ago
>> "Also, why can't we in the US learn from other cultures?" We have culture-scale NIH syndrome.
jacobush 8y ago
Depends on the school. (Sweden.)
bubblewrap 8y ago
But how long are the kids at school (per day), in that country? We also have schools with no homework in Germany - because kids stay in school the whole day and do the homework at school. Not what I want for my kids.

by e40 8y ago

JulianMorrison 8y ago

Homework and spanking are both things that exist for reasons other than efficacy. They're cultural shibboleths seen as separating out the moral from the immoral.

whatshisface 8y ago
That's a bit of a stretch. They assign homework in college for good reason - seriously, you have a zero percent chance of learning anything math related just by listening to the lecture. The alternative would be to turn one-hour lectures in to eight-hour study sessions, and frankly it's nicer to do it at home. The same would apply in highschool if it wasn't so dystopian in its implementation of normal things.
- curioussavage 8y ago
  Taking this at face value all it means to me is the lecture model for teaching math is crap. I’m glad all those “world class”. It doesn’t seem like there is any push to change the status quo either.
- ams6110 8y ago
  There's a better balance though. In college you're not sitting in class from 8:00 to 3:00 every day. Half that would be a pretty busy day for actual classes. Or you load up on Mon-Wed-Fri and have no classes Tues-Thu.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    Right, the real problem with highschool is that it twists every normal thing about college into a dystopian parody of itself. I don't know why.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jdietrich 8y ago
  >you have a zero percent chance of learning anything math related just by listening to the lecture Most students will never really learn anything math related beyond basic arithmetic - they'll just about fake it for the exams, then promptly forget it. The actual numeracy skills of the general population (even college graduates (even STEM graduates)) is so woefully inadequate that it'd be entirely reasonable to argue that we should just stop bothering with mandatory math education after 8th grade. IMO the fundamental problem with education is the assumption that it works. The handful of RCTs we have suggest that it's mostly placebo.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    The bargan is, as I have heard it, that we force everyone through math because we don't know in advance which ones will get to use it. We can't afford to cripple the 1% of people who become engineers. They do so much for our country that forcing all of the non-engineers to suffer through elementary engineering training is worth it.

fyolnish 8y ago

We had homework when I was in school.

dagw 8y ago

Which country are you talking about?

prepend 8y ago
Bullshitanavia, of course. When someone says “one of the Scandinavian countries with the highest happiness factor” I just chalk that up to optimism and hope that such a place exists. Small percentage it exists, but I’m jaded into thinking any comment with a specific statement attributed non-specifically, without citation, is safe to ignore.
jacobolus 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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 8y ago

> One of the Scandinavian countries What works for a relatively mono-ethnic / mono-culture (generalizing a bit here) of < 10 million people usually doesn't scale well to the wild free-for-all of 330m+ people in the United States. The Federal government meddling in the education system has basically never produced good results.

jkmcf 8y ago
Except for providing education opportunities to those who would otherwise not have them.

kleiba 8y ago

Well, then it would also be fair to compare how much home work and home studying Asian kids do.

pessimizer 8y ago
Not really, the question is if kids can get just as smart without homework as with. Whether they get smart with more homework is irrelevant to that question, although it could tell us that what we do is worse than both alternatives.

Kye 8y ago

>> "Also, why can't we in the US learn from other cultures?" We have culture-scale NIH syndrome.

jacobush 8y ago

Depends on the school. (Sweden.)

bubblewrap 8y ago

But how long are the kids at school (per day), in that country? We also have schools with no homework in Germany - because kids stay in school the whole day and do the homework at school. Not what I want for my kids.