France to Ban Homework

[Deleted]

Question: how do you measure if your education is best or not? For me, the single reasonably objective measure is how that's country high-tech products are used in the world. And, sorry, but I hardly remember anything Finnish except maybe Nokia.

Ever heard of PISA tests?

[Wikiy]

Question: how do you measure if your education is best or not? For me, the single reasonably objective measure is how that's country high-tech products are used in the world. And, sorry, but I hardly remember anything Finnish except maybe Nokia.

What the frak do high-tech products have to do with education? Knowledge is what's important, and that's what PISA evaluates. Oh, also, i have to ask, is Nokia, something so successful and widespread, not enough for a country of 5,5 million people?

[Deleted]

That feel when a friend of yours gets a 240 problems homework to solve for math, and he can't come out in town because of this.

[Deleted]

That's just retarded imo. Homework is not only set so that kids can have something to do, it's set so that they can individually practice.

I can understand that they want equal opportunities for those kids that struggle or have to help at home when needed and that the problem is the individuality of some kids but still...

Should we lower most student's chances just so everyone is equal? Fuck no, tbh. They should implement some kind of programme where people help the children that need it by going to their house, whether it be by volunteers or whatever.

Edit: Some people could argue that people can always do the work at home set by themselves. But we all know that just about all kids won't do their own work, exactly how most people don't do more work than set already currently.

[Underverse]

As much as I hate homework, I think that having students try problems on their own is a good thing and encourages creativity and memorization. If one could find away to preserve these benefits without forcing homework, that would be great. Like maybe a school study session that's basically homework in class.

[Nengal]

Yes. Let's prepare them for college and the real world by eliminating homework and reducing school hours.

[rowaasr13]

That is a really silly metric. So let me get this straight...a Country that has a company that makes a kick ass tablet but has terrible illiteracy is some how doing better in education than a country who has a higher percentage of people that can read, but no kick ass tablet company?

How are high tech products exported even remotely related to education?

Yes. absolutely. If you've managed to teach 26 symbols to some millions of people, but still can't educate a team of 500 professionals to completely care for your own modern R&D, then your teaching system is shit. Because "literracy" is trivial - anybody can be taught to read in short time - and hi-tech is not.

To fall back to WoW, it is just like saying that killing Hogger 10000 times is much better than killing one Deathwing.

[Bolson13]

I always though school should be 9 to 5. Strange enough elementary schools have fixed times (shorter though) and then at highschool here it becomes a giant mess.
With fixed times, kids have regular hours which is healthier, homework gets done in school, library nearby when needed and it is easier in our society where both parents need to work.

I work near a large highschool and it is non stop kids from 8 in the morning till 6 in the evening. Why not just keep them there, between classes they have to do homework. And if this is their regular schedule, they also don't have reasons to protest. It will give them a better workethic.

[Collegeguy]

Being honest, I always thought that was somewhat of a good idea.

There are a lot of teachers that give you busy-work. The kinds where they do absolutely nothing but a lecture and then tell you this and this is due next class. Some subjects have to be conducted that way, but most of them could definitely do it differently.

I'm not saying remove work, but people learn better when they actively do the work as well in class. Some people learn from just listening. Most people only learn by doing. However, it is only possible to master something by doing it. Can you imagine doing a calculus course or others alike without solving a single problem in class as well? No, of course not. Why should other classes be different.

I've met plenty teachers who are just ho ho ho hum ok this is due tomorrow.

[Vizardlorde]

Homework is evil therefore it should be obliterated by the forces of justice so France has my full support on this. If kids want to study on their free time I have nothing against that but why punish those that Ace tests with minimal effort with mediocre GPA?

[Daedius]

wtf ? Point of homework is to put what you learned in school to practice at home, and thus further memorising it.

Having it banned is just beyond stupid - too often kids just slack in school and just 'sleep' away through the day. This is just going to give them a holiday basically.

Then come exams at the end of the year, they're going to struggle with studies, assuming they do... because they don't know what to do.

What have the French Edu dept. been smoking...?

[Zhangfei]

Yes. absolutely. If you've managed to teach 26 symbols to some millions of people, but still can't educate a team of 500 professionals to completely care for your own modern R&D, then your teaching system is shit. Because "literracy" is trivial - anybody can be taught to read in short time - and hi-tech is not.

To fall back to WoW, it is just like saying that killing Hogger 10000 times is much better than killing one Deathwing.

Every high-tech company is reliant upon education, not the other way around.

[Deleted]

No they are increasing hours. At the moment they have school on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 8.30AM to 4.30PM with 1h break so that they have 28h of working in school plus 1h each day to make homeworks. All they want is to take the 4 hours students are supposed to do homework and put it into school. So they will have not 4 days of school but 5 days of school from Monday to Friday with less hours a day.

I don't think kids in France will be pleased by this because at the moment they go party Tuesday and Friday and when they change it they can only go party on Friday which will have a big impact on the places they went.

False, we don't have classes on Saturday.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday morning, Thursday, Friday was our workweek.

We already had the ours you described they were counting on putting in.
The removal of homework changes nothing, it just hurts the pupils in the long run.

[Reeve]

On the other hand, they should still get group assignments to do outside of school hours, to help developed their team-work, social and organization skills and abilities.

I always thought group projects were a load of crap designed only to lower the grading workload on the teachers. Honestly, who ever learned teamwork from a group assignment at school? I learned teamwork from Boy Scouts, raiding in WoW (OK, so I was old enough that this probably is less relevant, but I could totally see it for others), clubs and organizations, and actual workplace type work. What did group projects at school teach me? That most people don't do their fair share of work when they know they can let someone else handle it and get the same amount of credit. School group work has no good analogue in the "real world." If someone doesn't pull their weight on a project at my workplace, I can go to their boss to give them a kick in the pants. It doesn't work that way in school.

[Odina]

The main problem I had with homework was it was used as a marking tool rather than what it was really designed for. It was created to provide the individual more practice and flag a gap in the lessong provided by the teacher. If half the class get things wrong on home work or come back with quesitons the lesson was not good. However when you toss on 20% of your grade from HW then all of a sudden it's not about practice or ensuring the lesson was understood it's now mandatory for a good grade and those with help at home get a good grade teacher looks at those students as an example that its possible to gt a good grate, pats self on back and then GG those that did not have help at home!

[OneSent]

Finally, someone gets it.

This is a question I have asked since the age of 5: "If we spend all day in school, why do we need to take it home with us, too?" My parents never had "homework" from their day jobs, even though their work days were just as long as my school days.

Homework can rob your childhood. You miss out on the opportunity to spend time with friends, play outside and just be a kid. Instead, your locked up in your room, staring out at the warm sunny days, listening to the other kids have fun. And your parents keep telling you "Oh, this is for your own good. You need to get good grades so you can go to college and be successful in life."

And 12 years later, once you've graduated college and find out that there are no jobs available, you ask yourself, "damn, I missed out on everything for this??". At which point you become just one of the many other Americans walking around, bitter and resentful towards life because they simply missed out on being a kid.

Hopefully, the United States will see the benefits of this and follow in the footsteps of France. Afterall, all the homework in the world isn't going to increase our nation's test scores.

[Purlina]

Finally, someone gets it.

This is a question I have asked since the age of 5: "If we spend all day in school, why do we need to take it home with us, too?" My parents never had "homework" from their day jobs, even though their work days were just as long as my school days.

Consider homework your "overtime".

[Deleted]

Actually at my highschool, you could 'earn' the right of not having to do your homework at school by getting high grades on tests. If you pass the tests (ALL OF THEM, for every single course) above average, then you are free to fill in your time as you please.

However if you fail for just one of the courses, then this status is revoked. You then have to do your homework at school, where you have to spend a required amount of hours per week in a class, with teachers that can help if needed. So you are rewarded when you get good grades, and there is a safety net for when you have trouble with some classes, or when some subject requires some extra attention because its hard for you or w/e.

[arcticsnow]

I think it depends on the type of homework given. If it is write a report on story you read, that should not be eliminated. If its something a long the lines of, do this over and over and over. That should be done away with. Unless its music class, there is no reason to repeat something over and over. Only time this may help is with math. Too many teachers just give homework just to give extra work. It does not usually help learn the topic.

[Romeo83x]

If the hours spent on studying end up the same, then it's better to spend those hours 100% at school, rather than 50% at school and 50% at home.