zlacker

> The value of homework has little to do with learning.

I learned the hard way that skipping the homework means bombing the test. You don't learn problem solving skills by listening to a lecture or watching TV. It's easy to imagine you've learned it, till you're confronted by the test.

>>Walter+(OP)
> I learned the hard way that skipping the homework means bombing the test.

This is true in later education, but it seems to not be so helpful in earlier education. You're far better off with supervised practice than unsupervised, at-home practice in younger students.

>>mlyle+q1
I'd get assigned homework all through school, but usually would complete it in 5 minutes in class, as did the others. I can't remember ever having to take something home to do.

The teachers hardly ever filled up the class time, so there was always time to just do the homework.

>>Walter+M1
I teach bell to bell. (Well, my students show up early to my class, so I teach more like 2 minutes before the bell to 2 minutes before the bell).

Typical homework loads today are waaaaaay over 5 minutes per class in MS and HS. Current high school homework loads are on the order of 10 hours per week in many places.

And in fairness, people like you or me, or most of Hacker News-- don't really count. We're outliers and not really predictive of typical experience.

>>mlyle+Q2
If teachers really do assign more homework these days than in my day, this practice has certainly failed to move the needle on results.

If the school-by-zoom accomplished anything, it gave the parents a window onto what was actually being taught. They didn't like what they saw, hence the pushback in the PTA and school board meetings.

>>Walter+(OP)
Depends on the class and the student.

I remember my highschool chem teacher harping on the class after every test "I'd like to tell you all that if you don't do the homework, you won't pass the test, but toast0 didn't do the homework and did the best on the test so do the work" (or something like that). To be fair, I'd look at the homework, I just didn't feel like writing it down and turning it in, most of the time, so for classes where grading let me skip homework and I felt I had a good grasp of the material, I skipped it.

But, for kids like me, we'll succeed im school as long as there aren't active roadblocks from staff (or other students or other life issues). I think the real question is how to help the kids that need help. How do we get them motivated and engaged and empowered to learn the material?

>>toast0+Kh
There were a (very small) handful of students at Caltech who would do well on the tests without doing the homework (or even attending lectures). Hal Finney (yes, that guy!) was one of them.

I certainly was not.

> for kids like me, we'll succeed im school as long as there aren't active roadblocks from staff

I did get some roadblocks from some the staff. I did well in spite of the staff's efforts :-) My biology teacher disliked me (for good reason, I was a jerk), and told me he was going to be very hard on my grades. If an assignment was subjective, he'd give me a bad grade. If it was objective, he was forced to give me As. Fortunately for me, nearly all the assignments and tests were simple checkboxes.