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Homework is very important. It gets you to practice intrinsic motivation - getting things done in your own time when nobody is forcing you to do them and when y

Homework is very important. It gets you to practice intrinsic motivation - getting things done in your own time when nobody is forcing you to do them and when you have other, more appealing alternatives.

mrob 6y ago
Most kids only do homework because they'll be punished if they don't. That's not intrinsic motivation.
- iso947 6y ago
  Most people only do jobs because they don’t want to starve.
  - aiscapehumanity 6y ago
    I didn't know that was a good thing. That's a legacy bug in the socius.
    - iso947 6y ago
      Sure, but homework is preparing them for reality
      - anoncake 6y ago
        Homeworks makes them accept it, which means it perpetuates it.
      - waterhouse 6y ago
        Even if preparing people to just put up with something miserable were a valid goal, it's exceedingly unlikely that just subjecting them to it for years on end is the most effective or the most efficient way to prepare them for it. An entire essay on the subject: https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/getting-hit-head-lessons/ https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/getting-hit-head-lessons/
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    There's a lot of people who love their job; many more I would think than students who enjoy doing homework.
throwawayinfo 6y ago
Homework has the extrinsic motivation of getting detention when it's not finished.
konjin 6y ago
At what school did you not get forced to do homework? Because I would have liked to sign up there and not do any of it.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  My local school didn't force me to do homework. It was always clear that I understood the material, and I could generally answer questions on it if tested. I think they had bigger things to worry about than whether I was doing the homework.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    I did really poorly in school, also barely did any homework (lacked motivation) and at some point most teachers just gave up on asking whether I even did it. Somewhat miraculously, I still got my A levels. University is now going a lot better.
ben-schaaf 6y ago
If anything homework let me practice my excuses and lying. Teachers and parents alike provide plenty of extrinsic motivation for doing even the most pointless of homework. If I hadn't found a passion in programming I likely wouldn't have developed any intrinsic motivation whatsoever, and that's a real problem.
- WJW 6y ago
  Arguably, "excuses and lying" is also a useful life skill. Not necessarily for society, but certainly for the individual. Even if you never lie again after school, it's useful to be able to detect the behavior in others.
jooize 6y ago
Suggestion: homework once in a while.
dkersten 6y ago
I personally learned nothing from homework, besides the anxiety that came with trying to make up an excuse for why it wasn’t done. I spent more time trying to avoid doing homework than actually doing it. A big problem with school for me was that very little of it was framed in a way that made it seem useful. In subjects where I either understood the value (math for example, as I learned to program in my teens, so saw value in it to do things I wanted. While many of my peers followed the “it’s only useful if you want to be a math teacher” philosophy) or had some kind of extra interest in, I did well in, but even in subjects I chose to do, liked and was good at (eg German), I struggled trying to find the motivation to do any homework. Being forced to didn’t help, I would rather stare into space for an hour than actually spend the time on homework. A big part of it, I think, was I needed downtime. I had already spend many hours in school and now was being told I needed to spend my time doing more school stuff? No thanks! Even now, a couple of decades later, I need downtime to process the things that happened during the day. I’m a huge believer in Hammock Driven Development because of how important I feel thinking, reflection and downtime is. EDIT: hell, I did really bad on one subject I used to be great at because of the homework: the homework load was too high so I dropped to the lower level class instead, which was the start of my downward spiral: it was too easy so I didn’t do much in it, the teacher didn’t push me and a few years later I struggled and never recovered. If the homework load were less, I would have stayed in the higher level class and, while I’m not certain, I’m pretty sure I could have at least maintained my ability instead of it deteriorating. I still believe I would have done better in my final exam at age 13 than I did at age 17 because of this.
- rimliu 6y ago
  For you claiming that math was useful there will be 20 claiming that math is one of the most useless class. And in the next sentence they will claim that school should teach practical things, like doing your taxes. It all boils down to not wanting to put any effort in the end.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    Is there actually a problem with not putting any effort if not required? Why isn't it a good thing to achieve a task with less effort? Would you also say that programmers writing code on computers instead of pen & paper just "don't want to put any effort in"?
thatjamesdude 6y ago
Strongly disagree. It's not intrinsic motivation, it's fear of failing. That's a terrible lesson to instill in children. I do agree that's a useful life skill, but that is really scraping the barrel for reasons why homework works. The problem there is we can find examples where there is no homework and a functional, thriving society behind it [0] 0: https://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005 https://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005
blablabla123 6y ago
IMHO the common practice of homework is maybe not completely wrong but executed incredibly badly. I remember one time where I was with a friend doing homework together. It was about writing a text. We were so incredibly bad at it, the texts were full of repetitions and missing the important information. How should a 12 year old know how to brush up his writing skills outside of school anyway? I ended up skipping most of my homework the rest of my school time. (This worked surprisingly well for most subjects and teachers.) Going to university was such a breeze in contrast. Clear instructions, self-contained lectures, references are provided so it's possible to drill into a topic either alone or together with others... To me school is mostly about teachers checking on students instead of them actually explaining things. Once I was on a summer school in the Netherlands during university and I remember one of the professors saying that during the first 2 semesters they need the students to unlearn destructive behaviours from school. E.g. admitting when they don't know something and to ask. I'm from Germany but to me it seems like a problem occurring in many countries.
- thisiszilff 6y ago
  A part of the difference between college and elementary/high school is that most people don't want to be in elementary/high school while in college there is a lot more self-motivation. Learning is a lot easier when you actually want to learn and improve and you feel you have a personal stake in what is going on.
indymike 6y ago
Problem is that homework is always forced.
- rimliu 6y ago
  Honestly, how many kids do you think would choose to study anything if given a choice?
  - abj 6y ago
    While not perfect, Montessori seems like a good start to demonstrating that kids can choose to study. The Montessori Method of Education, developed by Italian physician Maria Montessori, is a child-centered educational approach based on scientific observations of children. The method views the child as naturally eager for knowledge and capable of initiating learning in a supportive, thoughtfully prepared learning environment. It attempts to develop children physically, socially, emotionally and cognitively.[1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education
    - brlewis 6y ago
      I think of Montessori as a smart middle ground between under-structured "child-centered" and over-structured traditional education. I've seen it explained as a triangle of child, teacher, environment, where the teacher spends some time preparing the environment, some time instructing the child how to interact with the environment, and some time making adjustments to the environment.
    - bergstromm466 6y ago
      Love Montessori. Have you heard of Sudbury Valley schools?
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I learned 95+% of things I know about programming outside of class. Now, I doubt that anyone would really lean a "well balanced" set of subjects, but students can be made to have their own intrinsic motivations to study things.

mrob 6y ago

Most kids only do homework because they'll be punished if they don't. That's not intrinsic motivation.

iso947 6y ago
Most people only do jobs because they don’t want to starve.
- aiscapehumanity 6y ago
  I didn't know that was a good thing. That's a legacy bug in the socius.
  - iso947 6y ago
    Sure, but homework is preparing them for reality
    - anoncake 6y ago
      Homeworks makes them accept it, which means it perpetuates it.
    - waterhouse 6y ago
      Even if preparing people to just put up with something miserable were a valid goal, it's exceedingly unlikely that just subjecting them to it for years on end is the most effective or the most efficient way to prepare them for it. An entire essay on the subject: https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/getting-hit-head-lessons/ https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/getting-hit-head-lessons/
- saagarjha 6y ago
  There's a lot of people who love their job; many more I would think than students who enjoy doing homework.

throwawayinfo 6y ago

Homework has the extrinsic motivation of getting detention when it's not finished.

konjin 6y ago

At what school did you not get forced to do homework? Because I would have liked to sign up there and not do any of it.

nicoburns 6y ago
My local school didn't force me to do homework. It was always clear that I understood the material, and I could generally answer questions on it if tested. I think they had bigger things to worry about than whether I was doing the homework.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  I did really poorly in school, also barely did any homework (lacked motivation) and at some point most teachers just gave up on asking whether I even did it. Somewhat miraculously, I still got my A levels. University is now going a lot better.

ben-schaaf 6y ago

If anything homework let me practice my excuses and lying. Teachers and parents alike provide plenty of extrinsic motivation for doing even the most pointless of homework. If I hadn't found a passion in programming I likely wouldn't have developed any intrinsic motivation whatsoever, and that's a real problem.

WJW 6y ago
Arguably, "excuses and lying" is also a useful life skill. Not necessarily for society, but certainly for the individual. Even if you never lie again after school, it's useful to be able to detect the behavior in others.

jooize 6y ago

Suggestion: homework once in a while.

dkersten 6y ago

I personally learned nothing from homework, besides the anxiety that came with trying to make up an excuse for why it wasn’t done. I spent more time trying to avoid doing homework than actually doing it. A big problem with school for me was that very little of it was framed in a way that made it seem useful. In subjects where I either understood the value (math for example, as I learned to program in my teens, so saw value in it to do things I wanted. While many of my peers followed the “it’s only useful if you want to be a math teacher” philosophy) or had some kind of extra interest in, I did well in, but even in subjects I chose to do, liked and was good at (eg German), I struggled trying to find the motivation to do any homework. Being forced to didn’t help, I would rather stare into space for an hour than actually spend the time on homework. A big part of it, I think, was I needed downtime. I had already spend many hours in school and now was being told I needed to spend my time doing more school stuff? No thanks! Even now, a couple of decades later, I need downtime to process the things that happened during the day. I’m a huge believer in Hammock Driven Development because of how important I feel thinking, reflection and downtime is. EDIT: hell, I did really bad on one subject I used to be great at because of the homework: the homework load was too high so I dropped to the lower level class instead, which was the start of my downward spiral: it was too easy so I didn’t do much in it, the teacher didn’t push me and a few years later I struggled and never recovered. If the homework load were less, I would have stayed in the higher level class and, while I’m not certain, I’m pretty sure I could have at least maintained my ability instead of it deteriorating. I still believe I would have done better in my final exam at age 13 than I did at age 17 because of this.

rimliu 6y ago
For you claiming that math was useful there will be 20 claiming that math is one of the most useless class. And in the next sentence they will claim that school should teach practical things, like doing your taxes. It all boils down to not wanting to put any effort in the end.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  Is there actually a problem with not putting any effort if not required? Why isn't it a good thing to achieve a task with less effort? Would you also say that programmers writing code on computers instead of pen & paper just "don't want to put any effort in"?

thatjamesdude 6y ago

Strongly disagree. It's not intrinsic motivation, it's fear of failing. That's a terrible lesson to instill in children. I do agree that's a useful life skill, but that is really scraping the barrel for reasons why homework works. The problem there is we can find examples where there is no homework and a functional, thriving society behind it [0] 0: https://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005 https://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005

blablabla123 6y ago

IMHO the common practice of homework is maybe not completely wrong but executed incredibly badly. I remember one time where I was with a friend doing homework together. It was about writing a text. We were so incredibly bad at it, the texts were full of repetitions and missing the important information. How should a 12 year old know how to brush up his writing skills outside of school anyway? I ended up skipping most of my homework the rest of my school time. (This worked surprisingly well for most subjects and teachers.) Going to university was such a breeze in contrast. Clear instructions, self-contained lectures, references are provided so it's possible to drill into a topic either alone or together with others... To me school is mostly about teachers checking on students instead of them actually explaining things. Once I was on a summer school in the Netherlands during university and I remember one of the professors saying that during the first 2 semesters they need the students to unlearn destructive behaviours from school. E.g. admitting when they don't know something and to ask. I'm from Germany but to me it seems like a problem occurring in many countries.

thisiszilff 6y ago
A part of the difference between college and elementary/high school is that most people don't want to be in elementary/high school while in college there is a lot more self-motivation. Learning is a lot easier when you actually want to learn and improve and you feel you have a personal stake in what is going on.

indymike 6y ago

Problem is that homework is always forced.

rimliu 6y ago
Honestly, how many kids do you think would choose to study anything if given a choice?
- abj 6y ago
  While not perfect, Montessori seems like a good start to demonstrating that kids can choose to study. The Montessori Method of Education, developed by Italian physician Maria Montessori, is a child-centered educational approach based on scientific observations of children. The method views the child as naturally eager for knowledge and capable of initiating learning in a supportive, thoughtfully prepared learning environment. It attempts to develop children physically, socially, emotionally and cognitively.[1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education
  - brlewis 6y ago
    I think of Montessori as a smart middle ground between under-structured "child-centered" and over-structured traditional education. I've seen it explained as a triangle of child, teacher, environment, where the teacher spends some time preparing the environment, some time instructing the child how to interact with the environment, and some time making adjustments to the environment.
  - bergstromm466 6y ago
    Love Montessori. Have you heard of Sudbury Valley schools?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I learned 95+% of things I know about programming outside of class. Now, I doubt that anyone would really lean a "well balanced" set of subjects, but students can be made to have their own intrinsic motivations to study things.