For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 27, 2020

yeah, sure, ‘tis the teachers’ fault

This is how I felt. After several hours of school time, after-school was my time.

Somehow I graduated with pretty good grades. That was 42 years ago.

Sorry guys. Overtime is a thing you will have to get used to. So is time management.

I used to and still feel like homework is useless.

The moral of the story is apparently that boys who play baseball don’t finish their homework and blame their teachers for it. When my son was in high school sports, the coach made the players get their teachers to sign their papers saying how many assignments did not get turned in for the week. Every assignment missed was a lap all the players on the team had to run. My son did not want to make the team run a lap so sports, oddly enough, motivated him to turn in his homework.

In my last job in aviation when I was young and studly, I worked 31 1/2 hours out of a 37 hour period, culminating with an FAA inspection of the major installation we just did. Since I was the chief inspector for the repair station I had to be right there. In my final job (for the electric company) about 5 years ago I worked 20 hours, got 4 hours sleep, and worked 16 hours.

Part of glory is persistence, part is sacrifice. Recreation keeps us healthy but does not contribute to our reputation.

My answer to this dilemma was to get the work done immediately upon getting home. It sometimes took me through to the next morning, but then it would be done and my parents did not have to nag me. (I doubt they even noticed, anyway.).

Oh God… I never had homework. This in the late 1960’s, early 1970’s in terms of high school. If I stayed awake in class it was a “B” or a “C.” If I took notes when the teacher spoke it was an “A.” When I self medicated with an amphetamine I got straight “A” grades. Dropped out of school after year 11 and went to an alternative school where clothing was optional for the most part. Students living together got “family life” credits to give you some idea of how the curriculum went. I apologize for this digression down my personal memory lane but I am always amazed when I see/hear comments on the burden of homework based on my personal experience. By the way, I learned so much at the alternative school and am incredibly grateful for the experience and the people who helped make it happen for me. California, USA, 1971 and 1972. My second year I was a “teacher” which really just meant I could stay on, that I had more to learn there before moving on to next steps. Yet, living in India now, and seeing students in their school uniforms working so hard at their schoolwork… Hours per day reciting things, reading, preparing for testing… at least until COVID-19. Now they are all at home, glued to their mobile phones doing lessons (no uniforms). Me, I am working to learn Hindi… not such a fast learner these days. As soon as I finish reading the “Funnies” it will be time for me to do my self directed Hindi homework. Full circle now in this stream of consciousness missive.

I hated weekend homework. I’d always put it off til Sunday and have anxiety attacks… so glad all that’s done and gone.

Teachers have to rely on homework to teach basic skills because all the classroom hours are needed to teach children about white privilege, inherent racism, and sex in a multi-gender world. So much to learn, so little time.

Homework no problem, Detention=homework done-see no problem. To which there is always a solution.

I was a straight-A student and I thought homework was a waste of time—and still do. Most of it is busy work. Kids need to be kids and enjoy life, not learn to hate school. Some of my nieces have so much homework it’s like they are in school all day long—and they are all good students. Projects once they get in high school or college are one thing, but mindless exercises are just that.

My sons did their homework after school while eating their snack!

Realizing this is a rerun from a few decades ago – the thing I LOVE is that they’re going outside to be active and play a team sport. Not sitting in their own corners on their phones. If you’re going to goof off, at least they’re doing it right :-)!

Relax Michael. The way things are in this present day, your mom or dad will likely do this work FOR you. They might even have fun doing it thinking they are your age again. Too bad you won’t learn anything.

As a retired teacher, I have to agree with Mike on this one. Baseball games and other activities are every bit as important as school work. And, if you need to follow-up learning at home (which is GOOD), you just need to enforce the learning that took place at school. For example, you only need five math problems instead of 50.

My .02. If the kids can’t learn all they need to in school, then the days need to be longer or restructured. Learning to keep “work” and home separate is also a very important thing for mental health when an adult. Homework just sets up the idea that it’s ok to work, after work.

At least, they have their priorities in the right order! ;o]

I usually did my homework, while eating breakfast on Monday morning. I worked better under pressure.

Kids sit down all day at school. They need to get outside and move around after school. Homework may be needed for math, but everything else should be done in class.

I was like Michael until my final two years of high school when I went away to study in a seminary. Classes were 5 1/2 days a week with mandatory study halls every evening except Saturday. No excuses for not completing assignments.

By the time I got to college, those good study habits and time management were ingrained in me – not that there wasn’t a constant internal conflict between getting assignments done and my tendencies to procrastinate!

2 words: home school.

I think that homework is supposed to be for practicing skills: ex. the teacher teaches you how to solve a quadratic equation, or how to write an essay in class, then you go and practice that skill until you have mastered it. If you want to extend the day at school by adding a “work period/study hall” to get this practice in, great, but most kids and parents will balk. Therefore, some of this practice has to be done at home, like it or not. My 0.02

That is literally 3.5 solid hours of work. In a whole weekend. Even if you sleep 10 hours a day, that leaves more than 24 hours in which to get it all done. Pick four, make a snack plate and get it done.

Our son was very gifted and one year in high school I asked him why I never saw him bringing homework home—-his response was to get his straight-A report card and ask me which grade I wanted him to raise. Hard to argue that logic.

Growing up on a farm with many chores left precious little time to do homework. I always resented homework, as I thought everything I needed to learn, should be learned during school hours. I firmly believe that homework was a total waste of time for me, regardless of what educators claimed. I skipped going to college, so no student debt in the thousands of dollars like so many, & yet got a good paying job in a career I enjoy, have a paid for house, & zero credit card debt. How many college grads can say the same? I call many of them educated idiots.

Welcome to real life, kids!

I turned in a lot of homework, but I didn’t do a lot of homework.

I didn’t object to homework, possibly because my parents were teachers and we read at home a lot and discussed things and so reading for school instead of reading the papers or books, there wasn’t much difference, it was just life. I did have an issue in elementary school of putting off long-term projects because they stressed me out, but I learned from them that this would happen and the happiest way of life for me was to do most of my work in class, most of the rest on the bus, and the last as soon as I got home or, in the case of a Big Project, the very soonest I could. Then I wasn’t nearly so anxious and things went well.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s and had homework almost every day and weekend fromt the time I can remember (at least from first grade on, and no “study hall”, though I could usually zoom through it in an hour or less if I used my class time wisely). My kids have way less homework than I did, nothing most weekends, unless it’s science fair. My son has a lot of advanced classes like physics and pre-calculus and an AP class (he’s Mike’s age), but he doesn’t have almsot any homework— certainly less than an hour a day, and online school is only maybe 5 hours tops, so it’s not a bad life… but he does my tricks and gets it done right away.

The thing is that at this time of year the weather is still relatively nice but the days are getting shorter. It’s not surprising Mike & his friends would rather be outside enjoying the nice weather while they can. And if they do homework first, it’ll be too dark to go out later. If the teachers are smart, they wait on the big complicated projects until it gets colder and nastier out so the kids aren’t so eager to be playing outside.

And I also think some teachers don’t think about the fact that their students have 4 or 5 teachers all sending them home with homework, so they pile on too much.

Brian Enjo was not seen with them, so he is probably getting to work. Then again, he is Asian. School is their cocaine.

No matter how much homework is given by the teachers, childrens will find time for the more important games in the weekends.

A couple decades of research shows that homework does not improve learning. The kids were and are right, homework is a waste of time. It wastes just as much of the teacher’s time.

Typical asshat St. Michael..