Why don't schools simulate a typical 9 to 5 work week for students and remove homework entirely?
I know this is typical for the US so this is more for US people to respond to. I wouldn't say that it is the best system for work, just wondering about the disconnect.
(Also, when are teachers supposed to do things like grade work, or kids to have extracurricular activities, 9-5 is draining, add in music or sports and there's nothing left)
This was my first thought. Teachers definitely need time to assess outside of class time. I would think that assessment or grading would happen while they aren't teaching. There should be a system where teachers grade outside of teaching time or during "homework/study hall" time. You would teach math for 6 hours and grade math for 2 or some breakdown that makes sense. I don't want to make teachers work anymore than they already do. The current system doesn't seem to respect them either way.
It isn't even just grading work. In my high school classroom I have students ranging from a second grade reading level to post grad. Every reading, worksheet, science lab, project needs to have accommodations and modifications written in to encompass that. That takes time.
Or creating a new lesson. Making a new lesson for a 50 minute period takes at least an hour.
Clearly you and I participated in very different school experiences. In highschool, I got on my bus each day at 7:30 and got back off the bus at 16:00. If you subtract the 30 minute lunch period, that adds up to almost exactly 8 hours each day.
Factoring in the 2 hours of homework that was regularly assigned, I actually have substantially more free-time as a working 9-5 adult (my school did not have "study hall" time). A young me would have done unspeakable things for a chance at abolishing homework!
Just because students are at school does not mean they are in a typical class. Our school has athletics right after classes. We got out about 5. Just make other options, perhaps skills, clubs, study hall, etc.
Teachers spend a non-trivial amount of time post class working on previous assignments, future assignments, setting up tests coordinating with other teachers and staff. If they start all this at 5, they're stuck at the office until very late.
Busses/kids on the road before rush hour
Extra-curricular activities are better off earlier than later, don't want clubs running into diner time.
better chance of getting home before dark in winter at Northern latitudes
We shouldn't be forcing our children to spend the majority of their waking lives chained to a desk doing menial work mixed with some valuable education and instead allow them to actually be kids and be outside doing kid things.
I'm a private teacher and I see so many kids who are like, I am in school from 8-3:30, then from 3:50-5 I'm in softball, then I'm in a study group from 5:30-7. I go to bed at 9.
Kids aren't allowed to be kids much of the time anymore. Most everything seems to be in the duality of either "Glued to their devices" or "Endless cycle of extracurricular and studying"
I absolutely refused to do homework back in the day. I had one math teacher that took your median grade and used that as the final grade. I would calculate to the assignment what it took to get an a, and do that much homework between arriving to class and the time she checked homework in.
I would always rush to complete my assignments early in other classes do any homework that I could get done before class change. I always aced my tests.
I think the worst was when the teacher would assign us to read ahead of chapter for the next days lesson. Yeah so you want me to be miserable tonight, and double bored tomorrow.
I also hated that the teachers never communicated. They would unintentionally group-assign hours of workload in non-GT classes.
For #4, with current school hours, you either go to school in darkness or you go home in darkness. That's just reality for those who live further north.
What if all the honework in the future is done online and multiple choice... if its a written asignment it can be graded by an AI. Bada bing teachers have not much more to complain about. If you are a teacher and are still complaining about having to grade homework, its probably because your administration is stuck in 2007.
A better argument would be, is homework worth it? Once AI has significantly advanced to be trustworthy enough to grade, it will be trustworthy enough to do the homework.
Want to be forward facing? How long before AI replaces teachers?
What if classes were solely presented as video feeds. At any point you can raise your hand, It would stop the video feed. You ask the AI question. It formulates a response and then tests you to make sure that you understand the answer before moving on.
Imagine getting the equivalent of one-on-one tutoring in every subject.
What if instead of milestone tests the AI just follows along and makes sure you understand what's going on? What if the next day it does a quick recap on the previous days lesson and asks you a couple of questions to make sure you get it?
What happens when each individual learns at their own pace and goes as fast or as slow as they need to. What happens when you can just walk away from a lesson and come back later?
Edit: I just cleaned up some text from voice dictation.
AI isn't good enough to grade written responses. If your referring to chat gtp and the like, they meant to be factual. Also online multiple choice homework can suck awfully depending on the course; physics comes to mind in this scenario since it requires an answer with precision and matching units to mark the homework as correct and that can make it really difficult to resolve and even if the teacher sets it up for partial credit if you get it right after attempts, if you can't figure it out it is a 0. That physics homeaork destroyed and consumed my entire life lol
God I hope not I can't stand ai grading an answer can be partially right or even wrong but cause interesting discussion from a human while badly implemented AI (which is what schools likily would have access to) will just give a percentage failure rate and move on.
Learning (well) isn't easy, attention spans are limited and after some time you get rapidly diminishing results.
I personally like the sound of inverting the structure we use for learning, meaning assigning the "theory" as homework and using class time to discuss or apply it afterwards.
At least that has the benefit of letting every student manage their time, spending more time on harder (for them) subjects.
attention spans are limited and after some time you get rapidly diminishing results
Same is true in work, and why work weeks should be limited to 40 hours max. Americans work too much, and this is based on what Harvard says after studying it.
I personally like the sound of inverting the structure we use for learning, meaning assigning the “theory” as homework and using class time to discuss or apply it afterwards.
I like the idea, too. It has not been shown to have a meaningful positive effect up to now, as far as I know.
That's where the discussion comes in. With an instructor to moderate and a class working together who will overall have grasped it. Those who didn't pick it up reading learn by doing.
But personally, I don't like the idea of kids doing schoolwork outside school hours. I went to a trade-school college and we would do trimesters with 9 weeks for a single class. Spent the whole day just in that class, six hours. First half learning theory then putting it into practice in the second half. By nine weeks, you'd know that subject pretty well. But that was complicated stuff, and honestly, probably didn't even require 9 weeks. But it's a good starting model. Fully immerse kids in a subject for weeks where they don't have to mix in other subjects to muddy their forming brains. Homework won't be needed and they'll have a much better grasp on the subject at the end. You could do 6 classes for 6 weeks each a school year.
And I feel like early education kind of already does this. They typically will focus on a subject for weeks instead of trying to fit in 5 a day. It's just the upper levels we've decided to shuffle kids around multiple times a day.
Yes, but also: In a lot of professions you have a lot of freedom regarding when you work. I'm browsing lemmy now, and getting to work at around 10, but I worked late on Friday, and I'm probably going to be answering some mails after dinner today.
I think this is just going to become more common: Not paying people for for the time they are at work, but rather for the job they do. That means that if you prefer to work 9-5, thats fine, but if you prefer to leave earlier or start later, and get some of your work done in the afternoon/weekends, thats also fine, as long as you get the job done.
I very much enjoy having that freedom. Even though it means I may be expected to pull longer days every now and then, it also means nobody questions me for leaving early when the weather is nice.
Perhaps. But only the last 2-4 years. No student below high school should have homework (there is research to back this up). And they can do it in study hall, not necessarily at home. College courses have like half the class time, so professors hit the hard parts and expect students to read and get the rest on their own.
A lot of schools are going to this model now, at least in Texas around me. Texas requires interventions if kids fail the STAAR (the statewide test they take that shows they know the material they've learned during the school year) so a lot of schools have built in an intervention period (or whatever the campus calls it) to give those kids the intervention time. My kid doesn't need intervention so they just do their homework during that time. They can sign up to go to certain teachers to get help, too. And a lot of schools/teachers have gotten away from assigning homework, since it just punishes the kids who don't have support st home.
I guess that's another suspect of eating away people's time. If university takes more than 8 hours then it is also in question. If people want to be subjected to work outside of their 8 hour window, they should be allowed. Forcing this is crazy.
The thing about university "requiring" people to work more than 8 hours is this: It's not a human right to become a system architect, physicist or engineer. Universities typically don't require more than 8 hours per day, but a lot of studies in practice require more than 8 hours if you want to be able to get through them. Relaxing the requirements for passing a degree would mean less competent professionals leaving the universities, and I don't think anyone getting on a plane or going into surgery wants that.
To simulate modern work it should either be 8-6 with 30 minutes for lunch or a 0 hour contract where a different school calls you every day so you know which one to go to the next day, sometimes it’s 4am-12midday and sometimes 6pm-4am.
A lot of the school system is set on many of the people in the country being farmers so you do a lot of scheduling to allow them to work on the farm. This is why do you get the summers off and some other vacations that fit with other major times for growing crops?
I'm pretty familiar with the farming aspect of all of this, but clearly we are way beyond needing children for farming (except for some child labor law changes that I'd like to ignore in this case). To me, it sounds like a legacy issue that was never changed with the times. Just my observation
And there's no reason urban and rural schools need to run on exactly the same schedule. Urban districts have been experimenting with things like year-round school for decades.
As a teacher I 100% support this, it would be much better for teachers and students. It won't happen though unless parents are also given a 4 day work week so they can look after their kids.
Ontario, Canada has all but eliminated homework entirely until high school. There is absolutely no good data saying it helps in acquisition or retention of skills over the long term. Completion of homework is also strongly correlated along class lines. If Suzy has a stable home, is fed well, and gets good sleep, she will likely have time and resources to complete homework. If Todd doesn’t, he likely won’t. We should focus on the in-school instruction. As far as the length of day? If you keep the kids longer it will cost more so it’s unlikely many jurisdictions will raise taxes for that expenditure.
It's interesting how different the quality of schooltime can be, and how perception of said time can differ for school kids as well.
I was in a "full day" school starting from age 9 in a country where regular schools end at lunch time.
Our school had the same curriculum to go through as every other, but lots more time to do it. The extra time was filled with dedicated self-learn time ( basically to do homework, but you have your classmates around to talk and help each other and can reach out to teachers if you really struggle with something) and elective extracurricular activities. It was mandatory, but you had free choice between all the offers. Teachers had to offer something, and usually offered their personal passion activities/hobbies. This led to these activities being the highlight of every kid's week, because there was enough variety to choose from to find something you liked. Kinda like club activities in US schools, but much less codified and without competitive objectives. Some examples are photography, pottery, soap box car building, school beautification ( we literally were allowed and encouraged to graffiti/mural the school walls :D ), gardening, natural science ( basically constantly doing fun physics and chemistry experiments without boring theory), electronics etc. . This was intentionally kept separate from sports or music, which also were partially elective: you had to do sports and music, and some basics were mandatory for all, but you could opt for specializations. All this semi-forced mingling served well to prevent the formation of strong clique boundaries, without inhibiting kids from pursuing their talents and passions.
All that had huge advantages. Kids from troubled families had a much easier time of keeping up with everyone else, as help from home was hardly necessary. Lunch was provided by the school. Wasn't stellar, wasn't horrible. But it was available to all students for free, and that can be very important to some as well.
It took me a long time, often only after visiting school friends for the first time or even after schooltime was over entirely, to realize how crazy rich or poor some of my friends' families actually were, or what difficulties they sometimes faced at home and that there was a reason we never were invited to visit them. At school, it simply didn't matter to us. Sure, some wore more brand clothes than others, but nobody thought of using this as a measure of personal quality.
Class cohesion also was usually strong. Sure, kids still were assholes and bullies like everywhere else, but it usually got solved internally quickly, because it was harder to keep it up for full days with plenty of "forced" social time, and you ended up being more confronted with the damage and hurt you caused. And in really bad cases the proximity to school made it much easier for teachers to pick up on any developments in their students and classes and react quickly.
There also were some mandatory "social skill" classes to teach everyone basic conflict solving and mediating. It was only one or two sessions per year, but I think it actually helped, even if we kids usually scoffed at it at the time.
It was very clear the school philosophy was not to push through a curriculum, but to use the extra time to help explore and form personalities that later will hopefully enmesh well in society. And yes, our school had a bit more teaching personnel than other schools to fill all the time slots and extra activities, but we still had 25-35 students per class, it was not some utopian dream.
We kids loved the full day spent at school as well. No homework, and what's better than spending the entire day with your friends?
The school was far from my home, so I left the house at 6:30 and usually got back around 18:00, with about 40min of train commute plus 30min of walking (one way).
Only Friday ended at lunch. Still never felt that I was lacking "me" time.
Tl;Dr : It matters a lot how the time at school is used.
I'm from Morocco, and school usually goes from 8 to 12, then again from 2 to 6, sometimes 3 to 7. Yes, we can leave school as late as 7 in the evening sometimes. During the winter, that's exactly when the sun sets. Also, you have lunch at home. Every. Single. Time. Also, only Wednesdays are exempt from afternoon school, but only if you're in primary school, because as soon as you enter secondary school, the whole week is filled up to the brim. And add homework on top of all this. And usually we get that from every single subject (yes, even PE). In many ways, this is worse than what you Muricans are doing. If you guys are being tortured, we're being sent to hell and back 5 days a week every single week for the most part. Also, 1 week holidays every 6 weeks. That's it. And since we're Muslims, we don't even get the 2-3 week "Christmas break". You stay home on January 1st, and go to school the very next day if it's not a weekend. We even study during Ramadan. It sucks less because we leave earlier, but it still sucks. Also, we don't have snow days. Only a super small part of the country gets snow, and you still have to go to school even if that happens. And during the final years of high school, you have a final exam that contains EVERY SINGLE LESSON IN THE YEAR. All of them. Both semesters. And you bet that I hated this when I had to go through it.
So are you asking for twice as many teachers or twice as many kids per teacher?
The struggle to hire teachers is already high and the GOP is trying to put as many obstacles as possible to slowly strangle public schools and shift to charter/private schools.
The same time they use now?... in their free time. But like, still for free.
Because they care so much, time/money means nothing to them. Otherwise, they shouldn't be educators to begin with, because they obviously don't care about the children. Who here is even thinking about the children?!
People on the internet have gotten so stupid, I'm not entirely sure whether this was meant as /s or not. Really an indictment on the internet as a whole.
My kids school in Sweden, at least age 6 to 12 have a school day from 8 till 13, or 14 for the older kids, and still no homework.
But long days would be counterproductive. Learning is hard work, that's part of the reason a new job is so exhausting. Doing that long hours for years would only burn kids out even more.
Schools in the US were designed to prepare kids for factory jobs initially. A lot of the structure related to that has changed but the amount of time you spend at school hasn't. Realistically you'd want a kid to spend less time at school. But schools are now used to prepare kids for working all day and then giving up their free time to their employer. That may be a little tin hat-ie, but it's at least partially true. However as a kid a few extra hours at school wouldn't have cut it for me. I preferred to do my work at home, I was also super distractible because I had adhd. Additionally as others have said that just wouldn't be feasible for a lot of kids/families.
I knew a professional anthropologist that raised a couple of kids while doing extended field work in the Amazon basin. They got maybe an hour or two a day of formal instruction during their grade school years. When they returned to the US, they tested at well above grade level and had no trouble adjusting.
I’m sure there was a big emotional adjustment to the endless hours in a classroom after being able to play in the trees most of the day, but they grew up and got established in their professions unusually quickly. I suspect it was due to the enriched social environment provided by having cool ass parents.
I think it's because there's some unwritten rule about not inducing children to commit suicide. I don't think a little kid could handle such a curriculum without getting severely depressed and offing themselves. Adult survival of this is much higher, mostly thanks to access to sex, drugs, and rock and roll, something children are not allowed to have access to, given local laws and their status as legal minors. It is correct to lie to them and make them think that if they are good students now they will be successful as adults because they are too young to be exposed to night clubs where 9 to fivers tend to find refuge and a drug dealer at the end of a tough shift to survive and avoid suicide.
I'm not sure if adding more time in school would be helpful even if there's no homework. I have a 9-5 job, and by 3:30 I'm already mentally checked out for the day, just watching the ole clock tick slowly to five. Not to mention that kids aren't paid to go to school, so the kids wouldn't see any tangible benefits of a longer day. In theory they would learn more, but most kids aren't thinking that way and there's only so much a kid can learn in one day anyway.
When I was in high school, they added 25 minutes to every day to build in snow days. If we did not use them, school just ended earlier than scheduled. This could serve basically the same function, to shorten the school year.
However, that's not even necessarily a good thing for learning... I think year-round school is generally accepted to be the best way to learn having many shorter gaps rather than one long summer. I suppose it could build in an extra week or two of breaks normally not present in a year-round school schedule.
I very much enjoy sports but I don't think education and preparation should be displaced by playing a game for entertainment. School is for learning. Maybe there should be a trade school for sports that happens later or is auxillary to normal education.
It would benefit the kids much more if they had extracurricular activities, clubs, and workshops after lecture classes, where they could actually apply what they learn during lectures.
But that would be expensive & hurt businesses bottom lines via increased taxation.
I spent about 2 decades as a teacher. I felt pretty strongly that kids needed unstructured time outside of school to reflect on things, observe the world, whatever. I rarely gave homework, yet my students did about the same as the students who had different teachers (yeah, they use those standardized tests to judge teachers. Well, technically it was supposed to be to learn new skills in how to teach from teachers who excelled on certain topics.).
I got so many freaking complaints and questions about my policy. The parents just could not deal with their kids not having homework. I always thought that, for parents, homework demands were a lazy way to feel involved in what their kids were doing at school as well as sidestep having actual conversation and bonding with their kids.
Yeah, that’s kind of what I mean. I remember my shop class in middle school was one of my favorites, and I would have loved to just be able to stay there after school with someone making sure we were being safe, but otherwise letting us experiment & invent.
Now I have been outa school since 2008, but back then, in public school, they didn't teach us shit. Like actual useful things. How to deal with emotions, personal finance, How to deal with police, mindfulness, critical thinking..nothing. all busy work and history through the American lense (propaganda). I even had a science teacher who was super religious and said earth was created 6000 years ago...it was geology ffs. Math was the worst imo. Solve for X, zero context. The only reasoning they gave to learn it was "to get in to college".
You had me until math. I used algebra every day of my blue collar life.
Fun fact, the more math that you know directly correlates to your income more than any other subject.
Friendly reminder that correlation does not equal causation.
Intelligence is the most likely mediator between those two variables. Intelligent people can grasp mathematical concepts easier and are more likely to use it, and intelligent people tend to shoot for higher paying jobs that challenge them.
I use math everyday as well in the trades. Not too complex math, but my point was not the math itself, rather the way it was taught to me and the context given, which was none. I'm definitely not saying don't teach math, quite the opposite. I'm a hands on learner. Math for the sake of math to 15 yr old me seemed like an empty exercise. If I could do it again, I'd probably be good at it. But that's life.
Which should be taught, imo. police are not your friends. They arrest you for profit. I learned how to deal the hard way. But least I know now. I guess teaching it would be counter to the whole reason of policing so yea. 🤷
Not all parents are equal. It'd be cool if we valued our young, regardless of from whom they came from. Nobody gets to decide whether to be born or not, but they're still forced to accept the terms of service.
Maybe we should try to value... people?... in general? But who honestly gives a fuck, I got too much on my own plate to really think about it anyway
I think there is some nefarious reasons for the current setup but here's a point I didn't see. People and children especially can't learn for 8 hours straight learning needs to be broken up with play time or eating or socializing. Then reinforcement of what you learned earlier before you go to sleep can be helpful. Ideally I don't think homework should be learning new subjects or really hard at all it should be a cake walk of whatever was learned during that day.
My high-school biology teacher suggested that we study during commercials with whatever our favorite 30 minute show is. She claimed it helps retention set in, and you will even link concepts to the show further assisting in information retention.
"Ideally I don't think homework should be learning new subjects or really hard at all it should be a cake walk of whatever was learned during that day."
As professional educators, that's what many of us intend. In my case, many kids just don't really practice the new stuff in class, so when they get home they think it's new. I fixed that issue a few years ago, but it's crazy what a hard time some kids have with pretty basic self-regulation. I don't blame anyone in particular, it's just tough.
My daughter has ADHD and sitting through six hours of school is hard enough of her. Eight would give her ridiculous amounts of stress and anxiety. Sure, one day she'll have to build up to 8 hours when she gets a job, but she's got to build up to it. Now eliminating homework (except maybe reading literature), I'm all for that.
And working a job typically isn't the same as school. School is for learning. That 6 hours where you need to be actively aware and absorbing information. Learning new things. Figuring out how those things fit into the real world. Recalling that information in stressful environments for tests. It's mentally taxing for a lot of kids as is. When I was in school, most days I was mostly checked out by the end of that 6 hours. I can't imagine adding a couple more hours in there. And then have to ride the bus home in rush hour traffic!
But now that I have that baseline education I can check out all day at work and still be more productive than a lot of those around me who stay engaged the full day. Give me eight hours. The most mentally taxing thing I have to do now is pretend to like some of my coworkers during meetings.
Some districts have high school start early, so that they can work in the afternoon. They also have to stagger school start times for the bus schedule to work. Without enough drivers, the bus has to pick up and drop off HS students and then go pick up other students.
I can understand the homework, as there has been some research suggesting that it isn't as beneficial as we believe.
There would need to be a different schedule for students in many school activities, like sports, music, and theater among others that need some before or after school practice.
I can understand the homework, as there has been some research suggesting that it isn’t as beneficial as we believe.
I was pleasantly surprised to find my kid hasn't had hours of homework after school like I did. I'm sure she will eventually end up with some teacher who thinks it's Very Important^TM but it hasn't happened yet.
In my school career a legitimately only ever remember doing one piece of homework. I'm sure we did others but they can't have been particularly relevant to my education because I've forgotten them.
Anyway everybody knows that homework only exists to embarrass parents who can't remember any of their math education.
No, homework doesn't exist to embarass parents. Learners need to actually use a skill in order to learn it. Homework gives them that opportunity.
With the pressures of the state standardized tests that keep cranking up and taking up more class time, there isn't time for students to practice every skill during class. It's a Republican tactic to bring back segregation. They work to pull money from pu lic schools with vouchers and don't require private schools to uphold the same standards as public ones. It funnels the rich into separate private schools away from those that aren't in the upper class. If we could get rid of the ridiculous amount of testing and regain the ~5 weeks of school taken up by state testing, there would be more time in class to get the practice that all students need. Until that time, students need the homework to practice the skill and learn it.
Are you actually asking whether I can reduce fractions?
If so, you can simplify by figuring out how many times the denominator (the bottom number) into the numerator (the top number) and write that number next to what remains. Take 16/3 for example, 3 goes into 16 5 times, so you would write a number 5 and then, since 16-15=1, you would write 1/3. This makes the answer 5 1/3.
Another example is 8/64. This fraction will not pull a number to the side, given that the numerator is less than the demonization. As you may realize, 64 is a multiple of 8, so we can divide both numbers by 8. 8 divided by 8 is 1 and 64 divided by 8 is 8, so 8/64 simplifies down to 1/8.
Sometimes you can't divide both numbers in the fraction by the numerator, such as with 9/24. I'd you want to do this the long way, find the greatest common factor between the numbers which is 3. Divide both the numerator and denominator by 3 and you will simplify the fraction and get 3/8. If you realize that the fraction can be reduced further, find the greatest common factor between the numerator and denominator and divide them again.
I've never understood homework. I didn't have any resonance with school work either. The whole endeavour seemed pointless until I needed to calculate the volume of loudspeaker cabinet or determine the voltage in a circuit. Only then the activity had any meaning and hence I was motivated to learn trigonometry or electromagnetic field theory. It wasn't even work because I love to learn. I failed almost every exam I ever attempted and yet meanwhile, back in reality, I was perfectly able to function and thrive in the technical world that we inhabit. Homework can eat my refuse.
the premise is that most people learn by doing, so if you set the class up right you introduce a topic in a lecture and then reinforce the learning by the application in work either at school (if there is time) or at home. Students can then get feedback on how they did before an actual test on the material
In your case it seems there was a disconnect between the intent and the application, which unfortunately is a sign of poor teaching
Agree. Looking back, my school was horrible. The worst aspect of it all was that, by some bizarre turn of events, I eventually became a teacher myself and made many of the same mistakes. Being a teacher is difficult and it takes a special type of person that our Anglophone society ought to hold in higher esteem.
They don't even have enough money to properly pay their teachers for the mornings in school. Where would they get the people and money to pay them to supervise the kids in the afternoon?
While were at it, let's just remove school entirely. Children could compete in the free market of unpaid internships and develop skills that will be useful for their working life. I feel like government has had a monopoly on education for too long, let's let the free market do it's thing and save the day.
Our mission is to provide remotely accessible computing facilities for
the advancement of public education, cultural enrichment, scientific
research and recreation.
Save money on funding schools! Send children to mines and lumber mills! A bandsaw can teach life lessons and costs less than a year of a teacher's salary!
Im in construction. With the amount of time it takes to train a completely green person off the street, even at seemingly menial tasks, im not sure corporations would actually allow this.
Although, they arent paying a wage, this plan would eat into real production time and materials, and with this "just in time," software oriented, prefab mindset they have, overall i think they would still lose money.
Sure they don't have to train people to think anymore, but even operating machinery correctly or following a preset design, is rough for alot of people.
The struggle to find knowledgeable, skilled labor is real, but unless paid people are taking time out of thier day to teach these interns the ins and outs of a machine or how to read plans, said intern wouldn't learn jack squat. Unless the company has time and money to kill, at the very least, trade school is still required.
Many companies view teaching employees as an investment. Sure, someone with skill will have to work with them for a time but then they create enough value to pay that back and more as his or her life unfolds.
That wouldn't change the length of the school day, just shift it (from 7 to 3), so I don't know why you would eliminate homework for that. The big problem would be for after-school activities, especially outdoor activities that need daylight.
8:10-3:10 here. And they do not want students there before 7:50. That makes it impossible to get to work on time. Luckily my boss lets me shift my day somewhat.
I was "homeschooled" in someone else's home with thier family. The dad hired his elementary school teacher to teach us. We went to school from 8-12 with a 30 min break in between. I left public school the middle of 1st grade and went to "homeschool" for two years. When it came time for me to transfer back (we moved) I tested into 5th grade, although that's not where I was placed. I never had any homework.
The family of five that I was schooled with, all finished the curriculum at the age of 16.
There is absolutely no reason us public schools should function the way they do. The only positive I saw, was that I was more active and socialized. A few decades later, and its not like any of that made much of a difference. People are more to themselves than ever, not to mention overweight...
A couple reasons off the top of my head, 1.) You can't let 20-30 kids loose without it ending in pandemonium, but you need kids to practice time management skills before college. Homework is a time where kids can learn to manage a workload, outside of the controlled environment of school. 2) Kids can't candle a 9 to 5, they need recess and art, and music, and gym to give their brains a break. In the 7.5ish hours that kids go to school, there's probably only 4 hours of work done. (but Bob, I only work like 30 minutes of any given day, and I'm an adult...)
A 9-5 would include time for self-study such as “homeroom” or whatever they want to call it. It’s not like they are going to be in lecture the entire day.
"Why no 9 to 5 school week simulation for students"
My first guess is: because kids are much more likely to rebel and destroy stuff than adults whose income depend entirely on them keeping their heads down. But what Senshi posted earlier in this topic is crucial, too, it is possible to keep kids inside schools for longer times without them wanting to destroy everything.
Not even just income, health insurance and future job prospects as well 🙃
I have the money to quit and wander the world for a year or two, but I would be abandoning my health insurance and it would be a huge black mark on my resume assuming I didn't concoct some lie to cover it.
If you work a 9-5 in America like I do, you are tied to your labor in much the same way serfs were, you are just better compensated and can switch masters if you find someone to take you on
In Germany some schools offer exactly that in day schoolGanztagsschule.
In theory students get time to do homework in a dedicated hour and the last hours are filled with extracurricular activities.
But often times teachers assign too much homework and there‘s always at least one day when you have maths other sth else in the late afternoon, what‘s hell for everyone involved.
I wouldn‘t send my children there, but there are families who are thankful for this system and children who are capable to live an 8-4 day.
I always thought the reason school days go from 7-3 or 8-4 (or whatever) is usually more about bus scheduling and logistics. And high schools historically start earliest (despite it being worse for teens) so older siblings will be home and can watch younger siblings after school.
Maybe that’s just what I was told growing up but if every school did 9-5, they would need more bus drivers.
Yup, we can't get bus drivers so they stagger schedules. One local district had the secondary campuses start later, and the parents have complained precisely because the younger kids have no one to watch them in the afternoon. Plus 5 year-olds aren't really at their best learning at 7:30 in the morning. When I taught at a high school we moved our start time feom 8 to 8:30. The kids were still tired because they just stayed up later. Most of my tired kids were up working or caring for siblings - or their own children. Starting later didn't really make a difference.
Because most young people require more instruction than simply hearing the lesson taught once and never actually applying the knowledge to the assigned homework. Repetition is what creates neural pathways, and eliminating homework would be disastrous for any school board. But yeah, the day itself should probably reflect times people are generally expected to be working. It would condition students to expect those kinds of working hours as they get older, and it would help families synchronize their schedules.
If you just sit a kid down with a textbook and a notebook to do math problems, they don't have any feedback whether what they're doing is correct. So in that capacity, I can see why it wouldn't be a great use of time. However, if there is an actual guided methodology to homework, I think you'll find that students reviewing lessons taught to them will perform far better than students who do not. What society needs to reconcile is why we send kids to school in the first place. Is it to learn? Or is it because adults HAVE to be at work and we need some kind of babysitter? It seems like the latter in North America.
My high school worked like that. It was great. Got all their shit done on their time using their resources. Almost never had to take anything home outside of big projects.
I strongly agree. It would make commutes easier for everyone, cut down on daycare and latchkey children as well. There also shouldn’t be extracurricular “practices” where a parent has to get their child back to the school campus for some sort of rehearsal or game practice. This should be part of the 9-5 schedule. Add a study period for any “homework” where students can also get help.
7am always felt a bit too early for me. I would say that 9 to 1 is a lot better. It's still exactly the same period, it just happens later in the day, two hours later to be exact.
But I guess some people enjoy waking at dawn. And to those people, I say "good for you".
I tried that in the university. It was a terrible idea and had to fail a couple of matters. Having exams at the same time and date didn't help, either.
My high school worked like that. It was great. Got all their shit done on their time using their resources. Almost never had to take anything home outside of big projects.