Jack1000
03-25-2003, 04:41 PM
Guys,
Throughout the years I have always looked back and reflected on my education. Yes, I slacked off in high school, worked hard in college, had a rollar-coaster academic career. (Just an average C+ type student....you know) but the one thing that I could say was that the amount of homework that was assigned was absolutely disproportional to the amount of time you had to do it in!
My educational experience grade school-high school for example was in the 70's-80's. The amount of nightly assigned work was just absurd. English classes and History classes weren't too bad. Science classes fluctuated with regard to the amount of homework, because you could cover material over a reasonable period of time and for the most part, teachers would give you a couple days to a week to study for a test (maybe two weeks if it was a big exam thing, major paper or project) Math for me was the worst. No matter who I had over the years there wasn't a day that went buy where we didn't have an assignment due EVERY DAY! They would assign like 50-60 problems per night! I remember losing sleep and getting so frustrated with Math because every teacher that I had never reduced the work! EVER! Maybe some would just have you do the even or odd problems. But I could never understand why more work is inducive to better quality learning. In the case of math, whether it's basic math to calculus you could assign 20-25 problems of varies types to drill students on the material and get similar results? Why 50-60? What's the point? To give these kids work to keep them busy so that they can't even finish it? I felt sorry for the kids that have to go to school every day, come home a lot of times to disfunctional families and after-school jobs. The last thing that these kids want is an unrealistic amount of homework such as 50 Math problems staring them in the face! UGGGHHH!
College was more difficult but at least they gave you more time to do the work. At my college you had great flexability. You could go to school full or part-time in working on your major. Classes were flexable too. A 3-credit course could meet MWF for 50 minutes. T and TH for 75 minutes or one day a week for 2 and a half hourse over the course of 14 weeks. (Regular school K-12 is 36 weeks) They would generally give you a week to do an assignment. Even with Math classes, you always had at least 2 days to do the work (at least) so kids didn't feel so overwhelmed by time-constarints (Until exams or papers where due!!! hahaha) However, I did better in college than high-school because of the flexable scheduling options. I liked my college professors way better than the regular school teachers. From middle school to high school I saw gross incompetance in teaching, unrealistic amounts of homework, and kids that where so burned out that they were on the bring of collapse. Maybe regular school should be more structured to a college environment where kids could go Monday through Thursday and get Fridays off. I think that many students could use that extra day just to get their metabolism to adjust and allow more time for material to be learned. (Our school district passed an early release day where the students get out an hour early on Thursday...why not Friday I have no idea!) Many middle-high school teachers think that their class is the only thing that students have to do in there lives and are out of touch with the realiites of other responsibilities, family, and health issues that kids have to deal with.
At least that was how it was when I went through school. What is it like with your school and the homework situation? I wonder if things have changed?
Jack
Throughout the years I have always looked back and reflected on my education. Yes, I slacked off in high school, worked hard in college, had a rollar-coaster academic career. (Just an average C+ type student....you know) but the one thing that I could say was that the amount of homework that was assigned was absolutely disproportional to the amount of time you had to do it in!
My educational experience grade school-high school for example was in the 70's-80's. The amount of nightly assigned work was just absurd. English classes and History classes weren't too bad. Science classes fluctuated with regard to the amount of homework, because you could cover material over a reasonable period of time and for the most part, teachers would give you a couple days to a week to study for a test (maybe two weeks if it was a big exam thing, major paper or project) Math for me was the worst. No matter who I had over the years there wasn't a day that went buy where we didn't have an assignment due EVERY DAY! They would assign like 50-60 problems per night! I remember losing sleep and getting so frustrated with Math because every teacher that I had never reduced the work! EVER! Maybe some would just have you do the even or odd problems. But I could never understand why more work is inducive to better quality learning. In the case of math, whether it's basic math to calculus you could assign 20-25 problems of varies types to drill students on the material and get similar results? Why 50-60? What's the point? To give these kids work to keep them busy so that they can't even finish it? I felt sorry for the kids that have to go to school every day, come home a lot of times to disfunctional families and after-school jobs. The last thing that these kids want is an unrealistic amount of homework such as 50 Math problems staring them in the face! UGGGHHH!
College was more difficult but at least they gave you more time to do the work. At my college you had great flexability. You could go to school full or part-time in working on your major. Classes were flexable too. A 3-credit course could meet MWF for 50 minutes. T and TH for 75 minutes or one day a week for 2 and a half hourse over the course of 14 weeks. (Regular school K-12 is 36 weeks) They would generally give you a week to do an assignment. Even with Math classes, you always had at least 2 days to do the work (at least) so kids didn't feel so overwhelmed by time-constarints (Until exams or papers where due!!! hahaha) However, I did better in college than high-school because of the flexable scheduling options. I liked my college professors way better than the regular school teachers. From middle school to high school I saw gross incompetance in teaching, unrealistic amounts of homework, and kids that where so burned out that they were on the bring of collapse. Maybe regular school should be more structured to a college environment where kids could go Monday through Thursday and get Fridays off. I think that many students could use that extra day just to get their metabolism to adjust and allow more time for material to be learned. (Our school district passed an early release day where the students get out an hour early on Thursday...why not Friday I have no idea!) Many middle-high school teachers think that their class is the only thing that students have to do in there lives and are out of touch with the realiites of other responsibilities, family, and health issues that kids have to deal with.
At least that was how it was when I went through school. What is it like with your school and the homework situation? I wonder if things have changed?
Jack