Hay FFR, I need your input

[dunlop]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

uh

???

[TK_Bakonfat69]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

First of all, I am speaking of public high schools in Northern California, because that is the only school system I know (beside the German school system, but that is not America). I think that the schools have plenty of money (well of course not enough, because you can never have enough money). But, the spending of these schools are really outrageous. Schools around my area spend so much money building new cafeterias, sport complexes, new computers, etc. and then complain to not have enough money. Seriously, new computers are not going to help a public high school. The new sport complexes and cafeterias are nice to have, but should definately not be a priority over the teachers' salaries. Also, the problem is not just that the teachers are being underpaid, but a lot of teachers are basically reading off the standards and thinking that is all you need to learn. The standards are all you need to know for the SATs and such. It seems that all is learned is the knowledge to get from one test to another and not the ability to either have useful knowledge or learning how to maintain that knowledge.

It would be a lot better education-wise if students knew what they wanted to do in High School and could take specialized classes then. Except that is not very realistic because I am a Junior (15) and have no idea what I want to study or what I want to do after high school. Many Seniors don't even know yet. There doesn't really seem to be a good solution to anything because there are so many exceptions. Also, now, in many places in America (NorCal I know for sure) are eliminating some of their AP/Honors classes because it makes the students in the lower classes feel stupid. That is total BS. But, it probably will never be fixed and if everyone has the same education the standard of knowledge will be lowered and then it will seem like everything is normal. I was joking by the way with that last sentence.


PS
This was really long... and it is in Chit Chat.

[TheRaiRaiEatsBalloons]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

Support this statement. In all of my classes homework is obligatory not because the professor's a hardass but because if you don't do it, you are completely unprepared for exams. It is, in fact, the biggest source of learning we have.

There are plenty of assignments that are busywork, but I wouldn't think you'd be so poor a debater as to make a blanket statement like that. Any homework that further engages one in the material he or she is learning not only enhances familiarity with the subject but also provides a path of better understanding of it. You know, learning.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

Homework is fine as a study method, done by your own free will to understand material if you need it. But then it's not really "homework," it's studying. What you're arguing in favor of is habitual studying, which is good.

Compulsory homework is completely retarded, especially when your grade heavily depends on it. Being graded on how much busywork you did rather than how well you understand the subject is self-defeating for any system that wants to pass off its purpose as "education."

[dunlop]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

Homework is fine as a study method, done by your own free will to understand material if you need it. But then it's not really "homework," it's studying. What you're arguing in favor of is habitual studying, which is good.

Compulsory homework is completely retarded, especially when your grade heavily depends on it. Being graded on how much busywork you did rather than how well you understand the subject is self-defeating for any system that wants to pass off its purpose as "education."

Not necessarily true.

Teacher's grade and make homework mandatory because students would not do the homework likewise. If a teacher told his/her class that you should do the problems for section 1-1, but did not have to, most of the students would not do it. If it wasn't graded, you would have students half-assing the assignment and not learning any of the material. It's a way of making students actually read the material, and try and learn it for themselves. It might not be the best way, but it certainly isn't "retarded".

[stretchypanda]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

First of all, your goddamn parents want a goddamn number value on how well you're doing. Just like everyone else's parents.

Second, homework is an effective tool in measuring understanding. Just because you get it and you're bored in class doesn't mean everyone else does and is. Teachers should and are being taught to vary instruction as well as assessment for the multitude of students who learn at very different lessons, but it takes time to implement, and it is incredibly difficult to fit each instructional level into a fify-minute class period.

Trust me, I hate homework. Kids hate doing it and I hate grading it, but it certainly tells me much more about my students that just who could look in the chapter and find the answer.

[JurseyRider734]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

And no one touches on the social aspect of forced education. I think it's safe to assume Eva and Jay never really had much in the way of friends, considering.

What's wrong with modern education?

Too many people think they're better than it.

Uh...it's not safe to assume that I never had friends. It may be true for elementary school, but I have a BUNCH of friends that i've made in the past 2 and a half years and I still hate going to school. If I wanted to be social, i'd call them up to hang out. So don't "assume" anything.

[TheRaiRaiEatsBalloons]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

Teacher's grade and make homework mandatory because students would not do the homework likewise. If a teacher told his/her class that you should do the problems for section 1-1, but did not have to, most of the students would not do it. If it wasn't graded, you would have students half-assing the assignment and not learning any of the material. It's a way of making students actually read the material, and tryand learn it for themselves. It might not be the best way, but it certainly isn't "retarded".

Which is why it should be optional; students who need homework in order to understand material need to learn to do it themselves. If they're forced to do homework, then when they get into the real world and actually have to do some work on their own they will avoid it at all costs.

First of all, your goddamn parents want a goddamn number value on how well you're doing. Just like everyone else's parents.

Which is fucking totalitarian as shit.

Second, homework is an effective tool in measuring understanding.

Tests and quizzes are a thousand times more effective, and actually show whether the student understands the information in hir mind rather than getting the information in the text book or on the internet.

Just because you get it and you're bored in class doesn't mean everyone else does and is. Teachers should and are being taught to vary instruction as well as assessment for the multitude of students who learn at very different lessons, but it takes time to implement, and it is incredibly difficult to fit each instructional level into a fify-minute class period.

Which is a very good demonstration of how retarded the school system is. Students can not be effectively mass-taught. Everybody's unique. People learn far, far better by living life and studying as they see fit. In that case, people actually enjoy learning as well. If people were not forced to "get an education," many, many more people would be legitimately interested in it. You could argue that, "OH NO THEN A LOT OF PEOPLE WOULD NEVER LEARN THE ESSENSIALS," to which I would retort, "great, those types of people always end up taking out your garbage and flipping your burgers anyway so it doesn't matter."

Trust me, I hate homework. Kids hate doing it and I hate grading it, but it certainly tells me much more about my students that just who could look in the chapter and find the answer.

Nearly all teachers I've ever encountered grade only for completion.
Also, that's all homework is. Look in the chapter and find the answer, and often spend a good portion of your free time doing it.


As if mandatory 6 hours of exactly half of the days of 12 of the first 18 years of your life wasn't enough.

[lord_carbo]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

Regarding homework:

"Being rewarded for perseverance is wiser than being punished for lack-of." --Lord Carbo

Not doing homework shouldn't be punished with a huge dent in your grade. So what's the reward for doing your homework? Doing good on tests, ect.

That is all.

[stretchypanda]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

None of the students I'm observing would do any work that wouldn't get them a grade, and they definitely all failed a ridiculously easy test on Monday. I am not trying to say it is the students' fault the education system is so backward. It is definitely the fault of just about everyone but the students for failing them.

Quiz and test grades generally weigh more heavily on a student's average. If you are waiting for the test to decide which of your students understand and which do not, you are not doing your job correctly. The teacher I am observing doesn't give independent practice, but every day the students do guided practice, and she usually goes over the work the next day. Not saying that's exactly effective, because she's basically handing out worksheets, giving the answers, and moving on. Hence the failure. But it's not necessarily a bad idea if it's done right. If I want my students to complete a worksheet or an experiment, I'm going to want some measure of their understanding. Open discussion isn't the best way because some students won't speak up if they feel they are being judged. If I take up their work, not even for a grade, I can at least see where they are falling behind and pick them back up before testing them over material they don't know.

We are trying, at the very least, to modify instruction. We change as best we can as the students change. Teachers are having to adjust to teaching all learning levels from severely retarded to incredibly gifted, as well as ESL students. Mainstreaming is not always a good thing, but it is what the people want, so it happens.

I'm really not trying to make excuses for a school system I hated. It's why I decided to be a teacher, really.

[TheRaiRaiEatsBalloons]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

None of the students I'm observing would do any work that wouldn't get them a grade

Because they're forced to do work. If the only graded work was tests and quizzes they would learn to do what they needed to do to learn the material.

and they definitely all failed a ridiculously easy test on Monday.

Children learn many times better when they're interested in the material, and generally have more trouble learning when the exact studying material is forced upon them aka our school system

[JurseyRider734]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

They changed the rules in my school so that homework can't raise your grade, but it can only bring it down. IMO it's bull****.

They also changed it that you can only be on first honor roll if you have straight A's, not an A average. If you have like 4 A's and one B, you're on second honor roll. I think that's bull****, too.

They're trying to make it "harder" or "more challenging". In my opinion, it's just more retarded. I think its because a lot of people don't want to send their kids here because they don't think it's challenging enough or whatever. In reality, one of the main reasons people don't want to send their kids here is because of the huge drug problem.

That's my opinion. I can picture it mainly being kids from the school from MY town, and one other town. (It's a district high school.) Most of the kids that come from my elementary school are intelligent and do really well on standardized tests. A lot of the parents are also very wealthy, and don't want their kids to get involved with drugs and the sort, so they send them off to Catholic and vocational schools instead of my highschool. Since the kids are usually pretty intelligent, it lowers average GPA of the grade or whatever. Sure, there are smart kids, and my school was very small..but it still makes an impact. The two smartest kids in my 8th grade graduating class both went to catholic schools instead of the highschool. At least 6 others in my grade went to different schools, too. That leaves about 10 of us that actually go to my school. So yeah, it makes a difference. I've also recognized that in the next 2 years from the elementary school...there were a LOT of kids sent to catholic highschool. My elementary school was recognized as one of those blue ribbon schools or whatever. Making our curriculum more "challenging" isn't really going to solve anything. I KNOW one of the main reasons they don't send kids here is because of all the drugs.

[stretchypanda]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

So that's the challenge. We have to find a way to interest all our students.

We did pretty good the other day with a model of a plasma membrane. It was awesome. =)

[Afrobean]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

No offense to those who posted a lot, but I simply don't care enough about the topic at hand to read all of it. I'm sure it would be interesting, but my high school years were already majorly ****ed from this **** and I've had enough of it already. However, I feel I must add this to the discussion.

[edit: I read all the posts... you guys failed to do anything in the ways of pursuading me. "oh but homework let's us know how well they understand the material without testing them on it" no. Not at all. It shows you how well they can work and look things up. It also eliminates the function of a test. Tests are supposed to TEST a person's ability. If you wait until everyone should be able to get a 100% on a test, it makes the test meaningless.]

I got an A in my 9th grade math class every card marking. I didn't do any homework at all, and I learned sufficiently in class alone. The teacher didn't count homework as part of the grade.

In 10th grade, I got a different teacher who counted the homework for about 40% of the grade. I'm surprised I even passed it. However, by the time I got to 11th grade, I simply couldn't take it any more. I was acing all of the tests (or, at the very least getting top marks on the tests when graded on a curve), but I was failing the class because I didn't do the homework. After about a card marking and a half, I dropped the class. I didn't bother taking any more math in high school.

Thankfully, my current math class (which is on the same level as the 11th grade class I was failing) doesn't count homework at all. There are 5 tests and my final grade will be an average of them.

[shrimpy]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

You're lucky then, Afro. My homework for Physics is 60% and Tests 40%.

[TheRaiRaiEatsBalloons]

Re: Hay FFR, I need your input

No offense to those who posted a lot, but I simply don't care enough about the topic at hand to read all of it. I'm sure it would be interesting, but my high school years were already majorly ****ed from this **** and I've had enough of it already. However, I feel I must add this to the discussion.

[edit: I read all the posts... you guys failed to do anything in the ways of pursuading me. "oh but homework let's us know how well they understand the material without testing them on it" no. Not at all. It shows you how well they can work and look things up. It also eliminates the function of a test. Tests are supposed to TEST a person's ability. If you wait until everyone should be able to get a 100% on a test, it makes the test meaningless.]

I got an A in my 9th grade math class every card marking. I didn't do any homework at all, and I learned sufficiently in class alone. The teacher didn't count homework as part of the grade.

In 10th grade, I got a different teacher who counted the homework for about 40% of the grade. I'm surprised I even passed it. However, by the time I got to 11th grade, I simply couldn't take it any more. I was acing all of the tests (or, at the very least getting top marks on the tests when graded on a curve), but I was failing the class because I didn't do the homework. After about a card marking and a half, I dropped the class. I didn't bother taking any more math in high school.

Thankfully, my current math class (which is on the same level as the 11th grade class I was failing) doesn't count homework at all. There are 5 tests and my final grade will be an average of them.

I agree wholeheartedly with what this man is saying.