if you read the contract, it's pretty much common sense... i find it hard to believe that a teacher does not provide students with time in class to work on x projects or has an opportunity to ask questions in class.
although i do find it interesting that if a student is overwhelmed they should use the teachers time outside of class, when they have the freedom to not do the required work outside of class on their own. sometimes homework isn't about completion but finding new questions to ask.
the million dollar cut and paste sounds like a way to have kids ask about needs and wants, you don't cut out a million tshirts, but a couple cars or something, and how serious are the moving parts on a playground anyways? I've seen a swing, a slide and monkey bars, those don't seem too bad to me.
meh, i bet this is just getting blown out of proportion. More likely that the parents are doing the work for the kids too and making these assignments into more than they really are. It's like the kid at the grade 6 school science fair with the working car motor discussing internal combustion.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to ma-skis.com For This Useful Post:
So anyhow here are some of the keys to improved education, as we can best understand it with the great leaps in neuroscience.
Students are taught to love learning
Students learn that learning is about intrinsic curiosity and desire. Students love to learn because they see the intrinsic value of it, and not to earn a grade.
We focus all to much on testing, not about the process or to excite children into learning. Its obviously not a simple thing, but at least understanding this to be a serious issue will give us some starting points to improve education.
Parallel schedules
Because some brains are more effective during different parts of the day, there would be two schedules to match the needs of teachers and students who work better early or late.
We know clearly now that some students struggle in mornings, and others are struggling in the afternoon (same in workplaces.) Figuring this out is not as simple as it should be, one day it will be, but obviously this has a very serious impact on individuals education.
Exercise
Recess would be held twice a day. In the morning, 20-30 minutes of aerobic activity, followed later in the day with 20-30 of strength training and stretching. Students would wear gym clothes all day. Tread mills would be installed in classrooms to further increase opportunities for students to exercise while learning.
Besides the obvious benefit to society of a healthy child, exercise has massive benefits to learning, social development, and mental health. Lets start by at least removing junk food from public schools, because what our children are given at school is at best detrimental to them, at worst its utterly dangerous to their health, their future health, to their mental health and to their future lifespan.
Small Class Sizes
Small class sizes allow teacher to better understand the inner motivation of their students, easily seeing if a student is engaged or confused and if the teaching is being transformed into learning. Teachers would think of themselves as managers of minds, and the fewer minds to manage the better.
A very common issue, its something we have to deal with. While we spend billions on other social issues, its amazing to me we don't do more to focus on our children and their education. The size of classes has a lot to do with not only bad grades, but worse social outcomes for children and makes it much harder for teachers to identify problem children who would need extra help.
Lecture and Lesson Design (1)
The introduction is key. How the teacher introduces the material has a huge impact on learning. Lesson would be broken into 10-minute blocks, each of which focuses on a single subject or objective, the gist of which can be explained in 1 minute. In between each 10-minute block an Emotionally Competent Stimuli (ECS) will be place to grab the student’s attention by triggering emotion and make the subject matter relevant. During the lesson blocks, the teacher will provide a mental map of the lesson and will check with the students to ensure that they know where they have been and where they are going in the lesson.
Emotion has a serious impact on learning, its why 'boring' teaching styles always have less impact than engaging and involved teaching. We can simply look at our memories of our past to see why emotion has such a powerful influence on learning, just listen to a song from your childhood and you'll see the powerful memory it brings out.
Lecture and Lesson Design (2)
Lesson or lectures will be highly visual. Many photos and computer animations will be made use of. Lesson will be multi-sensory to the extent possible. Heavy use of real world examples will be used to help make meaningful connections.
This is so key to real learning, and why those teachers who do the basic, minimum, are not doing their jobs. Unfortunately this kind of teaching is hard to find, and I think if more teachers were aware of how effective teaching is under our better understanding of the human brain is, they would become more common.
Lesson Review
After lessons, students will be given time to talk and think about the learning. Reviews of material would be scheduled every 3-4 days. These reviews would be multi-sensory as well.
Something we do in higher education, labs, we as adults who have gone through our post secondary can attest to labs are a very effective tool to solidify our learning and help us succeed.
Teacher Evaluation
Teachers would be screened for their ability to manage minds, understand their students, and create brain focused lesson plans.
This one is huge, we cannot underestimate the importance of education, and thats why I think we need to pay good teachers a lot more than we do, which will attract a lot of new candidates who would have passed it over because of salary. What a lot of current teachers would probably not enjoy is the evaluation and accountability that would be required in such a system.
But simply put, we continue to not fund our education systems like we do now, and not pay teachers what they should be worth, it will be difficult outside of private or chartered schools to attract the right teachers and have the proper outcomes.
These points are from Brain rules, the discussions and my responses below each point, if you want to read more, this stuff is really interesting:
Originally Posted by bcb At a young age, kids don'
t have an innate sense of personal accountability. That's why they're forced to do homework.
I can almost guarantee you that if a parent is going through the trouble of drafting up a contract and doing all of this, they are teaching their kids about accountability. This doesn't sound like a "my kids are too lazy to do homework" type of scenario, but more of a "my kids need to spend more time on activities x,y,z and less time on homework, we think they can excel without all the busy work".
Doesn't the gov't have a reccomendation on acceptable homework for different age groups already?
Maybe the teacher missed the boat on that one
That contract doesn't seem all too official either, looks a lot like those I'll do my homework, pay attention, not get in trouble student / teacher contracts you'd get in high school from some teachers anyways.
This doesn't sound like a "my kids are too lazy to do homework" type of scenario, but more of a "my kids need to spend more time on activities x,y,z and less time on homework, we think they can excel without all the busy work".
I do think too that sometimes kids have too much x y z, between sports, music, volunteer work and all the other organized junk they get nowadays, where's the free play and down time.
I do think too that sometimes kids have too much x y z, between sports, music, volunteer work and all the other organized junk they get nowadays, where's the free play and down time.
It's not all that much of an issue in Canada, at least I don't think it is, but having a whole ton of x, y, and z id crucial for acceptance into strong american schools. You can have straight A's and SAT scores, but if you don't have the extracurriculars your chances of getting into the Ivy's or west coast elites are slim to none.
Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
Exp:
Quote:
Originally Posted by corporatejay
I can almost guarantee you that if a parent is going through the trouble of drafting up a contract and doing all of this, they are teaching their kids about accountability. This doesn't sound like a "my kids are too lazy to do homework" type of scenario, but more of a "my kids need to spend more time on activities x,y,z and less time on homework, we think they can excel without all the busy work".
How is no homework the same as less homework?
IMO those parents are over reacting. I got my fair share of homework and it didn't hurt me. When it did it was because I was too lazy to organise my time better and always leaving projects to the last minute.
If your struggling in a subject how is a student going to get better without any homework. I was bad at math and often had homework in that area to improve my skills.
__________________
The Following User Says Thank You to Dion For This Useful Post:
There is no such thing as homework in University. If you don't do it, and you don't understand, you fail. No one checks.
Maybe university has changed. When I went, I had weekly physics and math assignments that were done at home and were graded. I had pre and post lab work that had to be done and were graded. I had papers that had to be done at home and were graded. I had readings that had to be done and I was tested on whether or not they were completed.
I suspect what happened in this case is you have a kid that jerks around in class and does nothing all day, then comes home and has homework to do. I also suspect that like many kids, he procrastinates on major assignments and then has a huge amount to do in one night, because he didn't do anything in the two weeks prior. As others have said, I don't know any student who does 3 hours of homework every night.
Also, students are only in classes from 9-3 with a break for lunch. It is not 8 hours, but somewhere between 5 and 6. Is it crazy to ask kids to put in eight hours once in awhile?
I think this father is a real loser. It is one thing to have some issues with his school. He brought the issue to the school, who worked out a solution for him. Then he called the media and had to show the world how he triumphed over the school and how he was right and they were wrong. What a loser! He was accomodated. I can tell you that he is one of those "hell parents" that everyone dreads. I'm sure he is the same jerk in line at the Bay trying to return merchandice that he misused and broke, and the same guy who is berating the coach when he son doesn't get to play as much as the other kids - even if he missed practise. I also like how he strategically put on the law firm shirt to get his business some publicity for the story they shot. If you want a loser to be your lawyer, remember the name Tom Milley.
IMO those parents are over reacting. I got my fair share of homework and it didn't hurt me. When it did it was because I was too lazy to organise my time better and always leaving projects to the last minute.
If your struggling in a subject how is a student going to get better without any homework. I was bad at math and often had homework in that area to improve my skills.
A better system to teach you how to learn properly, and not just push it on your home life?
Its not about laziness, its about skills and a solid education system with teachers who know how to teach and classrooms built around what works in teaching our children.
Not saying any homework is a bad thing, but too often its not about the kids needing it, its about inefficient and ineffective teaching methods. Our teachers have classes that are way too big, we have been repeating the same methodology that continues to fail most of our children for many decades, and we are expecting different results??
This is a symptom of the problem, not an issue, if people could focus on the real issue here we could deal with the real problems, the way our education system is set up, our failure to fund it properly, our failure to have real accountability to our teachers, and to profoundly change the system that yields such a poor result when compared to European kids.
__________________ Allskonar fyrir Aumingja!!
The Following User Says Thank You to Thor For This Useful Post:
Where does it say they won't do homework? It says they won't be graded on homework. These things are not the same. People in this thread are under the misconception that because they aren't getting graded on whether or not the homework is done, that they won't do any at all.
First off, if you read the article, it's a contract between the student and teacher. The contract doesn't say "My child will do no homework" and that's the end of that. The contract requires the student to come prepared to class every day.
Also, this quote is rather telling:
Quote:
And the parents agreed to make sure their children have “opportunities” to review class work and study for tests. (Although that may as well be homework, Ms. Milley observed wryly, noting that, by her count, Spencer, has had roughly 28 quizzes and tests in about 38 class days of Grade 7.) The bottom line: the Milley kids won't be doing any school-assigned work at home any time soon, although Jay, now in first year university, must resign himself to being a trailblazer for his younger siblings.
So, although he isn't being graded on his homework, if he doesn't want to fail those quizzes, he better make sure he keeps up in class.
Oh, and if there is any doubt that students do get lame busy work like projects:
Quote:
Or the time their eldest son, Jay, was told to cut pictures of $1-million worth of consumer goods from a catalogue.
If that isn't a waste of everyone's time, I don't know what is. That would take a lot of time and I really don't see any value in something like that if say the child is having difficulty spelling.
Btw, Jay is 18 and in first year university, and the article doesn't state how long ago that project was given so I assume it was when he was a lot younger. If not, that's even more pathetic.
Also, to be clear, I'm all for long term projects but those are a different animal since when I was in school we were often given ample time to work on them in class, but people chose to goof off and probably had to end up doing them at home.
__________________
Last edited by corporatejay; 11-20-2009 at 01:06 AM.
So in my 1.5 hour math class, once the bell rings, there should be no homework?
Most kids have to do numerous questions to latch onto a math concept.
He's talking about 7 year olds, and the article itself is talking about 10-11 year olds.
Are you 7, 10 or 11?
I think people are missing the perspective of this whole thing. A 10 year old kid should not have 2 hours of homework every single night unless they are goofing off all day long in class. This "agreement" puts the onus on the kids to get their work done in class, and the onus on the teachers to grade them for that work accordingly.
The article also clearly states that this agreement is NOT for their 18 year old high-school student.
The Following User Says Thank You to FanIn80 For This Useful Post:
Maybe university has changed. When I went, I had weekly physics and math assignments that were done at home and were graded. I had pre and post lab work that had to be done and were graded. I had papers that had to be done at home and were graded. I had readings that had to be done and I was tested on whether or not they were completed.
Those are assignments, which are different from homework. Homework would be like "make sure you do the problems in chapter 5 of your book" and if you didn't , you were probably screwed for the next lecture because the prof would move on and you didn't even understand step 1.
Some students could pick everything up they needed to from the lecture with no need to do those problems. Others needed to spend hours working on it. But that's a decision for the student to make. In this case, the parents are helping their kids make that decision too.
Those are assignments, which are different from homework. Homework would be like "make sure you do the problems in chapter 5 of your book" and if you didn't , you were probably screwed for the next lecture because the prof would move on and you didn't even understand step 1.
Some students could pick everything up they needed to from the lecture with no need to do those problems. Others needed to spend hours working on it. But that's a decision for the student to make. In this case, the parents are helping their kids make that decision too.
That might be your definition, but not the one used in the contract that was agreed upon by both parties:
"For the purposes of this document homework is defi ned as any work to be done at home or outside of t he school setting."
The entire purpose of weekly assignments in math and physics was to ensure students were doing problems and keeping up so they could do well on the tests. These were graded, and I bet they still are. If they weren't graded, many students wouldn't do them and would be worse off in the end.
The Following User Says Thank You to Eric Vail For This Useful Post:
...My niece and nephew go to the same school as these kids. Same age area too, actually...
And yes, there is homework - assignments, whatever you want to call them - that are worth marks in university. Especially math and physics, where the practice comes in handy. The difference in university is you DON'T have class time to do work unless you're in a lab period or tutorial. And even then, the writeups are in your own time. Same with readings and papers. That's what makes me wonder about these people's kids when they get to university.
So anyhow here are some of the keys to improved education, as we can best understand it with the great leaps in neuroscience.
Students are taught to love learning
Students learn that learning is about intrinsic curiosity and desire. Students love to learn because they see the intrinsic value of it, and not to earn a grade.
We focus all to much on testing, not about the process or to excite children into learning. Its obviously not a simple thing, but at least understanding this to be a serious issue will give us some starting points to improve education.
Parallel schedules
Because some brains are more effective during different parts of the day, there would be two schedules to match the needs of teachers and students who work better early or late.
We know clearly now that some students struggle in mornings, and others are struggling in the afternoon (same in workplaces.) Figuring this out is not as simple as it should be, one day it will be, but obviously this has a very serious impact on individuals education.
Exercise
Recess would be held twice a day. In the morning, 20-30 minutes of aerobic activity, followed later in the day with 20-30 of strength training and stretching. Students would wear gym clothes all day. Tread mills would be installed in classrooms to further increase opportunities for students to exercise while learning.
Besides the obvious benefit to society of a healthy child, exercise has massive benefits to learning, social development, and mental health. Lets start by at least removing junk food from public schools, because what our children are given at school is at best detrimental to them, at worst its utterly dangerous to their health, their future health, to their mental health and to their future lifespan.
Small Class Sizes
Small class sizes allow teacher to better understand the inner motivation of their students, easily seeing if a student is engaged or confused and if the teaching is being transformed into learning. Teachers would think of themselves as managers of minds, and the fewer minds to manage the better.
A very common issue, its something we have to deal with. While we spend billions on other social issues, its amazing to me we don't do more to focus on our children and their education. The size of classes has a lot to do with not only bad grades, but worse social outcomes for children and makes it much harder for teachers to identify problem children who would need extra help.
Lecture and Lesson Design (1)
The introduction is key. How the teacher introduces the material has a huge impact on learning. Lesson would be broken into 10-minute blocks, each of which focuses on a single subject or objective, the gist of which can be explained in 1 minute. In between each 10-minute block an Emotionally Competent Stimuli (ECS) will be place to grab the student’s attention by triggering emotion and make the subject matter relevant. During the lesson blocks, the teacher will provide a mental map of the lesson and will check with the students to ensure that they know where they have been and where they are going in the lesson.
Emotion has a serious impact on learning, its why 'boring' teaching styles always have less impact than engaging and involved teaching. We can simply look at our memories of our past to see why emotion has such a powerful influence on learning, just listen to a song from your childhood and you'll see the powerful memory it brings out.
Lecture and Lesson Design (2)
Lesson or lectures will be highly visual. Many photos and computer animations will be made use of. Lesson will be multi-sensory to the extent possible. Heavy use of real world examples will be used to help make meaningful connections.
This is so key to real learning, and why those teachers who do the basic, minimum, are not doing their jobs. Unfortunately this kind of teaching is hard to find, and I think if more teachers were aware of how effective teaching is under our better understanding of the human brain is, they would become more common.
Lesson Review
After lessons, students will be given time to talk and think about the learning. Reviews of material would be scheduled every 3-4 days. These reviews would be multi-sensory as well.
Something we do in higher education, labs, we as adults who have gone through our post secondary can attest to labs are a very effective tool to solidify our learning and help us succeed.
Teacher Evaluation
Teachers would be screened for their ability to manage minds, understand their students, and create brain focused lesson plans.
This one is huge, we cannot underestimate the importance of education, and thats why I think we need to pay good teachers a lot more than we do, which will attract a lot of new candidates who would have passed it over because of salary. What a lot of current teachers would probably not enjoy is the evaluation and accountability that would be required in such a system.
But simply put, we continue to not fund our education systems like we do now, and not pay teachers what they should be worth, it will be difficult outside of private or chartered schools to attract the right teachers and have the proper outcomes.
These points are from Brain rules, the discussions and my responses below each point, if you want to read more, this stuff is really interesting:
Easy answer, a child cannot enter into a legally binding contract so the teacher can just ignore it...
J/k
We are seriously considering homeschooling our 8 year old precisely because of the inflexibility of the public school and the apparent inability to accomodate different needs even though he has an IPP and is coded for giftedness. We literally can't even get differentiated homework even though he is bored out of his mind with what he's getting. I understand the policy choices being made and rather than fighting the system, we will likely withdraw from it and thus accelerate his learning instead of allowing it to continue to be ######ed.
The point of my story is that parents who take this strong of an interest in education are highly unlikely to be looking for an easy way out. Those are the parents who don't do anything at all.
__________________
onetwo and threefour... Together no more. The end of an era. Let's rebuild...
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to onetwo_threefour For This Useful Post:
Easy answer, a child cannot enter into a legally binding contract so the teacher can just ignore it...
J/k
We are seriously considering homeschooling our 8 year old precisely because of the inflexibility of the public school and the apparent inability to accomodate different needs even though he has an IPP and is coded for giftedness. We literally can't even get differentiated homework even though he is bored out of his mind with what he's getting. I understand the policy choices being made and rather than fighting the system, we will likely withdraw from it and thus accelerate his learning instead of allowing it to continue to be ######ed.
The point of my story is that parents who take this strong of an interest in education are highly unlikely to be looking for an easy way out. Those are the parents who don't do anything at all.
what about the social development of your kid? i knew a couple of homeschooled kids when i was younger, and let's just say they didn't respond the best in social situations
and extracurricular activities aren't enough. one of those kids i knew because he was on my peewee baseball team. the kid would focus solely on the game, never talking to anyone unless they spoke to him, and always the one sitting by himself quietly if the team went to Denny's or something
your kid might not end up being the next great genius by going to public school, but i'd wager they'd become a more balanced human being over homeschooling. i might look into some private schools to see if there's something that would fit your needs
The Following User Says Thank You to Hemi-Cuda For This Useful Post:
