News Article: Abolish Homework

This article appeared in today's newspaper (The Sunday Times, November 12,2006, page 24) , about a new call in the US to abolish homework....This age old question never fails to come up after some time....

A group is saying that children are doing more homework but there is no evidence that it adds to the learning experience... It is also said that the correlation between homework and academic achievement is more visible as one get into a higher level of education...

And I guess the education system here in SG is somewhat similar in terms of homework load. Though they are sure moving to a teach less learn more method, which means more work/research to be done at home, which equates to more homework...

I believe that the homework problem can be seen in all countries especially those with a very established education system... Well its been done for so many years and there is nothing against it. There is also nothing that says that it is bad. In fact I guess I must agree there is a certain degree of usefulness in homework. There are some subjects which needs alot of practice.

However, the situation whereby homework is increasing is not new. Compared years ago, homework load has definitely been increasing. I believe that it is now more prevalent that subjects covers more depth and thus, would translate to more work....

It is stated in the article that a study had suggested that the amount of homework be based on a child's age, example would be a first-grader 10 minutes of homework, second-grader 20 minutes. etc. This led me to think about it....

What if it is implemented in SG? well, I guess a few things would come up.

For one, if it is implemented according to age, what about those who are older than the mean age for that level? For example, a 19 year old can be in secondary school...

Second, 10 minutes of homework? Yea right... if each teacher would allocate 20 minutes of homework, and taking an average secondary student who takes 8 subjects, this would add up to about a 160 minutes of homework. And a Secondary 3 student is definitely higher than 2nd grade.. not sure what grade though... I think its 5th or 6th grade... If the time allocated to homework increases , the total amount of time allocated for homework would also increase proportionately.... Wow!.. Huge number...

Again, moderation is the key... One man's meat is another man's poison... Though some may be against, I think there are some who likes doing homework... Though I aren't one of those, but I find that it helps and thus will still do so... (p.s. Moreover, there are reprecussions if we don't do, and I'm not referring to grades... ok maybe grades too as it counts into our "daily quality of work" marks..)

The concerns that the group is bringing up definitely deserves a second look. However, I really don't think it is wise to totally abolish homework...