Download The Homework Myth Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing Audible Audio Edition Alfie Kohn Hachette Audio Books
Download The Homework Myth Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing Audible Audio Edition Alfie Kohn Hachette Audio Books
Product details
|
The Homework Myth Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing Audible Audio Edition Alfie Kohn Hachette Audio Books Reviews
- My child was complaining about too much homework, and what he was learning doesn't matter for real life. As a parent it is my job to help him get his homework done, and also to understand why he was crying about it and try to see his point of view. This book takes his point of view, so I read it for him. It's really a collection of numerous studies that the current public education system disregards. In any case, it helps in that it is very supportive that homework doesn't actually begin to help the students learn until they are around junior-high level. So us parents that would rather our kids experience their childhoods outdoors and playing instead of having them spend hours going over spelling, math and reading every night with kinder to 6th graders, may be doing our kids a favor.
- As an educator, I always wondered what the necessity of homework was about. I am slowly learning that it is mostly dictated by parents desires and districts wanted to appear 'competitive' among other schools. This book lays out all of the intricacies of the students 'brain on homework' and how the teacher can streamline their lesson plans to minimize the need for homework. As someone who considers themselves a holistic educator (ie, I consider the whole child and not just parts), this was an excellent read and a great tool that I will want to implement further in my career.
- This book was recommended to me by our sons APRN. I have since recommended it to several others and have used the research in here to advocate for him. I don't agree with all the authors opinions but I appreciated the well researched approach which took a lot of leg work out of advocating for my son.
- Alfie Kohn does extensive review of the research performed throughout the 2oth century regarding the effectiveness of homework and makes a very viable argument that it has very little value, especially for elementary school children. He also points out the negative aspects of homework the drain on free time and play, suppression of the natural love of learning in children and the trumping of innate creativity. My favorite part Alfie points out that proponents of homework believe that if children weren't doing homework they'd be getting into trouble, playing video games or watching TV with their free time; whereas, in reality, it has been found that children with free time will tend to seek out further information on and try to build upon the things they learned in school that sparked their interests. And a study about children watching TV vs. children who didn't.....it had a positive effect for those who did.....hmmmm. Well worth reading. Backed by volumes of research. Good stuff.
- For the most part, all of us have grown up doing homework while going to school. However, has doing hours of homework made any of us better students or more knowledgeable in the subjects we are learning? That, in essence, is the question being posed by the author of this book. And, his answer is a resounding no, especially when dealing with children who are younger than high school age.
I have watched my daughter do homework from the time she was in kindergarten and wondered at the point of it all. Most of the time it was worksheets that seemed to be little more than an attempt to pound information through her head. However, as a gifted student, she already understood the material and only ended up frustrated at having to spend more and more of her spare time doing work she already knew. She went from being a student who loved to go to school to one who cringes at the thought and I suspect homework is one main reason.
The studies presented in the book by the author that show homework is of little value validate what I have been saying for years. I found it very interesting that there is no correlation between increased homework and better grades or improved test scores on standardized tests. However, as we move to a more "test" driven world, class time becomes much more valuable and increases in homework become the norm, to the point where many students end up having no life left after school and homework.
My daughter, although still in high school, is taking a college course at a local community college. It was fascinating to read the policies of the college. One states that to get an A in a three credit course, the student is expected to do 7 ½ hours of homework a week. When multiplied by 6 courses, which is what my daughter takes at high school, the amount of homework expected for a top grade is 45 hours. When class time is included, that makes a total of about 60 hours a week. Yet at the high school, she is in class for 35 hours a week and has about 30 hours of homework assigned each week. So, she is doing more work in high school than would be expected in college. Something is very wrong with this picture.
All parents should read this book and understand the contents. If you don't read it and complain now, your child will lose more and more of their free time as they get older. It won't make them better students; just bitter at the experience. - This book gave me a lot of reflective insight about my own teaching. His comparisons of preparing kids for the real world and how adults actually operate in the real world and how homework actually doesn't have a counterpart in the adult world helped me realize how useless homework is in my own class. Very interesting and well-researched read!
- A great read and so true
- An important book that every teacher should read. Especially if you believe in old-school, traditional, rote memory homework. Kohn's research is impeccable and his statements about the deleterious effects of homework are undeniable. The Homework Myth change my life as a teacher. Amazing!
Comments
Post a Comment