3 ms·

I don't recall similar homework loads (Germany, school being 10–20 years ago), but that might be due to laziness on my part or simply the fact that it wasn't a

by ygra 13y ago

I don't recall similar homework loads (Germany, school being 10–20 years ago), but that might be due to laziness on my part or simply the fact that it wasn't a good time for me anyway. By the later grades (11th and onwards) it definitely wasn't as much. I liked what our math teacher said regarding his homework: It's for practice and not strictly needed and thus voluntary. If we feel confident doing the homework ad-hoc on the blackboard in class then we don't need to do it at home. While this won't work for every class (e.g. I guess languages don't really work that way), it was definitely nicer than having to unconditionally do the homework (as well as all the rest). > I’ve often suspected that teachers don’t have any idea about the > cumulative amount of homework the kids are assigned when > they are taking five academic classes. There is little to no > coordination among teachers in most schools when it comes > to assignments and test dates. This is something my mother (a teacher) can confirm as well. Many teachers just assume that they're the only ones giving homework and thus don't really see why it can be so much. That was a problem in uni as well sometimes in the earlier years (and anecdotally the norm by now that we have the Bachelor/Master system, depending on your major).

mcv 13y ago
I have no idea how much homework I used to get (Netherland in the '80s), because I never did any. I was lazy and got excellent grades anyway. Well, not for languages, where you did have to memorize lots of stuff (rather than rationalize, which I'm much better at), so I dropped my languages as soon as I could. My not doing any math homework did get me in trouble when I was 17 (5th class (penultimate before graduation) middle school in the Dutch system), because integration meant memorizing all those standard primitives and having used them a lot, and not having practiced them a hundred times meant failing grades for me. A year later math moved on to geometry and I got perfect grades and finished my homework during class for the first time ever. I think it would have been better for me if I'd learned to do my homework; I never really learned to work during school, which might actually be a more important skill than all the stuff it seems to be teaching. But reading 79 pages in a single evening? I hope it's a really easy book, because in anything moderately serious, that would take me a week. Oh yeah, required literature reading put me off of reading for a couple of years. (Until I discovered Terry Pratchett, i fact.)
jalada 13y ago
Also strongly agree with the second point about lack of coordination among teachers in schools and university. It really, really annoys me.
girvo 13y ago
Homework for me (I'm 22) while at highschool was mandatory and contributed to your overall mark. I never did mine. Like, at all. Luckily for me, I had the highest grades across my entire year, and did so well that they bent the rules for me and ignored the fact I never did my homework. Still not sure if that was a good thing or not to be honest, our workload wasn't that large, and it took me a while to build a work ethic.
- tptacek 13y ago
  I did no homework at all in high school. Jesuit college prep, high workload, homework part of the grade. I got bad grades across the board, and, in math, that was in part because I wasn't practicing the skills they were testing; I left high school with subpar math, which still haunts me. Bad grades kept me (pretty much) out of college, which in my case was fortunate, because I graduated high school with a couple years in which to warm up for the first dot-com bubble, which was lucrative for me. I too feel like I had to learn a work ethic "in the real world", which is less forgiving than school, and I think I would have been modestly better off had I done the homework --- except that I might have ended up in college.
klmr 13y ago
School in Germany also doesn’t last the whole day, it usually ends around 2pm, so even if you have several hours’ worth of homework you can realistically do that before dinner – or, if you prefer, spend the afternoon doing other stuff and then do it after. It was a workable system. Then I moved to France, where school lasts until 5pm and I got home past 6. After a few months spent working until well into the night I stopped doing most of my homework to get enough sleep. Doing anything else during the week if you were actually doing your homework conscientiously wasn’t possible at all.
- ygra 13y ago
  We regularly had school until past 14, sometimes up until 18. Seven to ten classes a day were more normal than just six (which would have ended at 13:40).

by ygra 13y ago

mcv 13y ago

I have no idea how much homework I used to get (Netherland in the '80s), because I never did any. I was lazy and got excellent grades anyway. Well, not for languages, where you did have to memorize lots of stuff (rather than rationalize, which I'm much better at), so I dropped my languages as soon as I could. My not doing any math homework did get me in trouble when I was 17 (5th class (penultimate before graduation) middle school in the Dutch system), because integration meant memorizing all those standard primitives and having used them a lot, and not having practiced them a hundred times meant failing grades for me. A year later math moved on to geometry and I got perfect grades and finished my homework during class for the first time ever. I think it would have been better for me if I'd learned to do my homework; I never really learned to work during school, which might actually be a more important skill than all the stuff it seems to be teaching. But reading 79 pages in a single evening? I hope it's a really easy book, because in anything moderately serious, that would take me a week. Oh yeah, required literature reading put me off of reading for a couple of years. (Until I discovered Terry Pratchett, i fact.)

jalada 13y ago

Also strongly agree with the second point about lack of coordination among teachers in schools and university. It really, really annoys me.

girvo 13y ago

Homework for me (I'm 22) while at highschool was mandatory and contributed to your overall mark. I never did mine. Like, at all. Luckily for me, I had the highest grades across my entire year, and did so well that they bent the rules for me and ignored the fact I never did my homework. Still not sure if that was a good thing or not to be honest, our workload wasn't that large, and it took me a while to build a work ethic.

tptacek 13y ago
I did no homework at all in high school. Jesuit college prep, high workload, homework part of the grade. I got bad grades across the board, and, in math, that was in part because I wasn't practicing the skills they were testing; I left high school with subpar math, which still haunts me. Bad grades kept me (pretty much) out of college, which in my case was fortunate, because I graduated high school with a couple years in which to warm up for the first dot-com bubble, which was lucrative for me. I too feel like I had to learn a work ethic "in the real world", which is less forgiving than school, and I think I would have been modestly better off had I done the homework --- except that I might have ended up in college.

klmr 13y ago

School in Germany also doesn’t last the whole day, it usually ends around 2pm, so even if you have several hours’ worth of homework you can realistically do that before dinner – or, if you prefer, spend the afternoon doing other stuff and then do it after. It was a workable system. Then I moved to France, where school lasts until 5pm and I got home past 6. After a few months spent working until well into the night I stopped doing most of my homework to get enough sleep. Doing anything else during the week if you were actually doing your homework conscientiously wasn’t possible at all.

ygra 13y ago
We regularly had school until past 14, sometimes up until 18. Seven to ten classes a day were more normal than just six (which would have ended at 13:40).