Polish pupils happy about new government limits on homework
Polish pupils happy about new government limits on homework
The Polish government has introduced strict limits on the amount of homework pupils must do in a bid to modernise the education system. But some parents and teachers aren't convinced by the changes. #EuropeNews
homework is such an incredibly idiotic concept. a kid gets sent to school for 7 hours (if not more, at times) of mental work, and then they're required to do even more work after they go back home.
That's why I always refused to do it. To me it was two things. 1 An insult of my need of personal time. And 2, you had hours that day to teach me something and failed to do so, and I'm expected to learn it on my own? That's on you.
Homework is quite handy, but homework should not be the "making" part, but rather the "info" part. Teachers should rather spend time doing stuff in class in stead of presenting and explaining when students could easily read a book at home or watch a video. The paractical stuff is much more important and the guidance of a teacher is much more valuable in the practical part of the lesson.
I remember when I was a kid and we were learning algebra and no one ever explained why on Earth we would ever need it. It would have been vastly more helpful if practical examples had been given rather than us being given a bunch of homework.
A much better homework assignment would be "These are the scenarios under which you would need algebra. See if you can find them in your everyday life." But nope, just more arbitrary questions.
IMO the original purpose of homework was to keep the children occupied while the adults prepared dinner. That isn’t really needed anymore. Plus studies have shown the benefits of homework are negligible. Stop teaching kids there is no solid work/life balance.
There is some argument for doing spaced repetition as homework for memory heavy learning like vocabulary for example.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Polish government has introduced strict limits on the amount of homework pupils must do in a bid to modernise the education system.
Teachers will no longer give required homework to children in the first to third grades.
“I’m happy because this homework, I did not like it too much,” said 11-year-old Warsaw pupil Ola, “It didn’t really make much sense because most people in my class would copy it in the morning from someone who had done the homework.”
Sławomir Broniarz, the head of the Polish Teachers' Union, says that while he recognises the need to ease burdens on students, the new rules have been imposed without adequate consultation with educators.
Broniarz argues that removing homework could widen the educational gaps between children who have strong support at home and those from families with less support and lower expectations.
Poland's education system has undergone a number of controversial overhauls with almost every new government making changes.
The original article contains 256 words, the summary contains 157 words. Saved 39%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Y'all must have had horrible teachers in this thread.
Homework is a tool to train the concepts you learned at school and teach you some self management. It should allow you to learn the concepts by repetition and apply these concepts to similar problems to the ones already learned at school.
So extend the school day then?
A kid should be able to get taught everything they need in the confines of the school day, outside of that time they shouldn't be given any more work, it's ridiculous. No one would put up with being expected to work for free outside of office hours, so why is it acceptable for children?
You can't 'learn concepts by repetition', that is not how learning works. You can learn a concept & repeat its application to be faster at it.
And that's the problem. What if the student didn't catch the concept during the lesson? He or She needs help by a guardian or be punished for not completing the task.
Same thing with the supposed self management skills. What if the student fails at it? He or she needs help by a guardian or will be punished.
At the end of the day homework is a tool to offload tasks of the school to the guardians of the student. A schools system, that relies on homework, is a system that fails in its task of creating a level playing regardless of socioeconomic background of the student.