Darren: I agree with you

Darren: I agree with you on the no homework from work policy, but I’m simply not sure that you can learn what you need to in a school without homework. I don’t think homework should be excessive, but a lot of what you learn you learn from practice, and that requires homework. Or extra years of school. I think the former is better than the latter.

I just can’t bring myself to agree with Darren, here. Seems to me that if schools were teaching important life knowledge and skills, and expecting their students to be able to display those skills in a competent manner, then 6 hours a day for 1980 days would be enough time to teach kids everything they need to know, including plenty of time to practice.

Let’s take, for instance, balancing a checkbook. “Wait!” I think I hear you say, “I didn’t learn to balance a checkbook in school!” Well that right there is Problem #1. We had a class in 6th (and I think 7th) grade called “Home Economics.” Here are the subjects I recall learning in that class:

• The Basic Food Groups
  
• Cooking (though I certainly retained none of that knowlegde – hehe)
  
• Sewing
  
• All the words to “Paul Revere” by the Beastie Boys
  

No economics, there. At the same time I was in a class called “Pre-Algebra,” in which we had problems worded in ways like: “Suppose John has ten pounds of bike.” I swear to High Heaven that’s from a real (Pre) Algebra equation.

Where is the practicality? I’m not going to go into my problems with the way math is presented, here. Suffice it to say that you can’t work with 10 lbs. of bike, and I never appreciated how math could be used in interesting ways until my High School Senior Physics class.

Here’s a quiz:

1. How many Representatives does your State have in Congress?
   
2. Who invented the Cotton Gin? _
   

I’m willing to bet that more of you know the answer to #2 than you do to #1. But which is more important to know?

There are entire classes I think we can do away with, unless students express an interest, maybe. I’m sure lots of kids would like to learn about the Animal Kingdom and the anatomy of a frog, but I cannot express to you without many unpleasant faces and Lewis Black-like gestures how much I don’t care about those things.

Hell, I think school should be 70% electives. Even more radically, I would have liked to have gotten out of school at 16 and started an apprenticeship somewhere. I’d had enough of general knowledge at that point, and considered myself pretty well-rounded.

But back to my point: homework is bunk. Homework can be moved to regular school hours (and we could just call it “studying”) if all superfluous courses / information are eliminated. Additionally, if a teacher can’t accomplish what he/she needs to during the day and sends me home to learn more things, I am essentially doing part of their job for them.

And I should be paid for it.

26 April 2001, 21:20