Doc Impossible
*Taps mic*
As a lifelong teacher, homework should be abolished.
At every grade level.
No research we have supports homework as being effective, and most of it (like teaching grammar) *ACTIVELY HARMS STUDENTS*.
(Except maybe some very mild homework in math and a couple of highly specific sciences).
Doc Impossible
So why haven't we abolished homework yet, and made recess mandatory?
Parents complain when we try. Loudly. They run for school board and institute minimum homework requirements.
Because they want their children to be "taught the value of a hard day's work."
That idleness is bad.
Doc Impossible
So why do we have homework, let alone lots of it?
The Puritan sin of idleness.
Yep.
Homework exists to teach our kids that rest, play, self-care, and listening to our own bodies is a bad thing.
Doc Impossible
And if we wanted to improve student learning and performance on standardized tests, what does the data say we should do?
1. Universal free school meals, including breakfast.
2. Universal basic income.
3. Universal, single-payer healthcare.
4. Recess at EVERY grade level. Yes, including high school. Especially high school.
AnthonyJK-Admin
You mean, like, denying poor kids the right to free breakfast & lunch doesn't do enough to make kids suffer just to teach them "the value of a hard day's work"?
Or, allowing teachers & the principal to paddle the kids' behinds red just to prove the value of "discipline" and "obedience" doesn't work either?
I thought just slapping placards of the 10 Commandents on the walls everywhere to project THE AWESOME POWER OF JESUS CHRIST would be enough, right?
Schools? Or...prisons?
Doc Impossible
@Dani I mean, the data we have is soooo damming to the US education system at every level.
Problem is, teachers have been legislated to the point that we literally can't do anything to move us towards better educational outcomes. There are a lot of people out there who are actively trying to dismantle the entire school system, and they're doing it by making it ineffective.
Dani Tseng
@Impossible_PhD ...
I have a problem now.
I don't have big enough expletives for the situation.
AnthonyJK-Admin
Well, gee, I suppose that not paying teachers what they deserve, only teaching corporate schlock and right-wing cheerleading while plopping 10 Commandments placards everywhere, and beating students into submission, while funding more cops than school infrastructure, would affect the performance of our public schools, now wouldn't it?
neo
@AnthonyJK@mastodon.redgarterclub.com @Impossible_PhD@hachyderm.io
I don't know if you've noticed, but school is basically just daycare these days. If you're not in an honors class you're not being taught anything you didn't already learn last year and won't learn again next year.
AnthonyJK-Admin
Your point being....what now??
Force home schooling?? Close down public schools?? Privatize them even more than they already have been? Force more on the parents who actually have to work full time to afford raising kids?
Thanks, but no. Public schools are not the problem. Neglecting them and reducing them to open prisons is.
neo
@AnthonyJK@mastodon.redgarterclub.com @Impossible_PhD@hachyderm.io
that is not at all what is happening
not much at all is happening
that's the problem
Doc Impossible
Update: Muting this thread. I'm dead tired of the frequency with which older white reply guys with no background in education, much less the doctorate in Rhetoric and Composition that I have, are showing up to browbeat me about how important they think formal grammar instruction is.
You are the problem I'm describing.
I'm muting this thread.
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