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222 points dougb5 | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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zdragnar ◴[] No.45123041[source]
I recently found out that my nephew's school had no take-home homework before high school, instead having kids complete assignments during class time. At first, I was flabbergasted that they would deny kids the discipline building of managing unstructured time without direct supervision. Homework- at home- seemed like such a fundamental part of the schooling experience.

Now, I'm thinking that was pretty much they only way they could think of to ensure kids were doing things themselves.

I know it was a rough transition for my nephew, though, and I don't know that I would have handled it very well either. I'm not sure what would be a better option, though, given how much of a disservice such easy access to a mental crutch is.

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csa ◴[] No.45130765[source]
> I recently found out that my nephew's school had no take-home homework before high school, instead having kids complete assignments during class time. At first, I was flabbergasted that they would deny kids the discipline building of managing unstructured time without direct supervision.

Good!

If they want to give kids the chance to develop the skill of managing unstructured time, that could easily be fit into the school day/week in a variety of ways.

In most K-12 schools, there is a lot of time in the day that is used incredibly ineffeciently.

For my personal experience, college was a time management joke after high school, mainly because I didn’t have to spend so much bullshit/wasted time in classes.

> Homework- at home- seemed like such a fundamental part of the schooling experience.

That’s a very privileged stance to take (I usually don’t play the “privilege card”, but it’s appropriate here).

For many/most students, the home is not particularly conducive for doing homework a variety of reasons.

Maybe not for the median HN contributor, many not for the median middle class person in the US, but these groups are not the majority of students.

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glitchc ◴[] No.45131521[source]
> For many/most students, the home is not particularly conducive for doing homework a variety of reasons.

I think this speaks to the parents and the type of home environment that they create. This is one of the major sources of disagreement between the right and the left, where the former (sometimes strongly) feel the parents bear responsibility for the type of environment their kids grow up in while the latter (equally strongly) feel that they can't really help themselves due to external factors (abuse, addiction, sickness, etc.).

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monknomo ◴[] No.45132049[source]
I think the lefty one is more accurately that the children cannot help what kind of home their parents provide.

Maybe their parents have a responsibility to do better, but if the parents are not delivering on their responsibility, should the children bear the consequence?

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1. godelski ◴[] No.45135438[source]

  > Maybe their parents have a responsibility to do better, but if the parents are not delivering on their responsibility, should the children bear the consequence?
This has always been the fundamental position for me. They're children. They don't have (legal) autonomy. They have no (legal) independence. There is no contention between the belief that parents should bear the responsibility for their children while also being in favor of programs like free school lunches.

I cannot understand how people are against such things. Sure, I don't want to pay for other people's kids, but what's the alternative? They starve? I guess we could make people sterile until they prove they have the income to support children and implement programs to constantly monitor the children's well being. But honestly a nation wide sterilization program and child monitoring service sounds wildly more expensive than these other programs. Not to mention insanely dystopian. Sounds much cheaper to just hand out free meals at school.